February 2021

In defense of store-bought #pandemic pizza, and more...

Feb 1

I get asked a lot about when I worked at such-and-such a place, when I moved to where I live, and when (and how) did I meet Romain. Honestly, I’m terrible at dates and thought that one day I’d sit down and write a timeline for the About page on my blog for everyone to refer to. Until I realized I’d probably get at least one date wrong and get busted and called out on websites that call people out. I’m not quite ready to be canceled but I wouldn’t mind being postponed for a while. I have a few books I’ve been meaning to read, a few hours of sleep to catch up on, and a sinkful of dishes that needs my attention.

When asked recently when I started my newsletter, I hadn’t the foggiest notion. I think it may have been around 2005/2006 and the platform I used was completely lame. I’d spend hours writing and organizing photos for it, then hit the “Back” button, which would sometimes cause the whole thing to disappear. (I never figured out why…) Thankfully that doesn’t happen anymore and this newsletter continues to evolve. The great thing about the newsletter is that it’s less-scrutinized than social media or the blog, so I can talk about stuff like eating supermarket pizza and show pictures of dishes piled up in my sink, which are just between us.

I washed a lot of dishes in the last year. As a recipe developer and cookbook author, it comes with the turf. Lord bless Romain. Whatever year I met him, each time he comes home from work, the first thing he’ll do is head to the sink and wash all the dishes in it. For those who cry, “Clean up as you go!” That strategy is fine if you’re not writing notes, shooting pics for your blog and videos for Instagram, checking metric conversions, washing butter/eggs/chocolate off your hands in between each of those activities, etc. In my case, though, the dishes will have to wait until those other things are done. Or until Romain arrives.

The above is a familiar sight to all of you nowadays, and while I appreciate that when people travel they say they like to rent an apartment with a kitchen to live like a local, I’m happy to not have to wash dishes when I’m on vacation. That’s my idea of vacation! Since vacation is off the table for a while, about once a week I get a store-bought pizza. There are very good pizza places in Paris but none are within close walking distance and it doesn’t spark joy to walk across the city holding a big square box of pizza in front of me walking down a crowded sidewalk, dodging people.

After posting pics of my store-bought pizzas, which I spice up with Spanish chorizo, extra Parmesan & Calabrian chili paste, some people kindly let me know on social media that pizza can be made from scratch at home. When I worked at Chez Panisse (I forgot the exact dates for my timeline, but it was for about thirteen years), I worked 3-feet from where the pizza dough for the café was mixed up 2 or 3 times a day, so I already knew that pizza dough could be made from scratch. (And flatbread is the first recipe in my book L’Appart.)

But like the coffee you go out to a café to drink, which you could easily make at home, it’s fine to let others serve you once in a while. (In fact, these days, it feels like a long-lost luxury...sniff, sniff) Since I can bake pizza directly on the oven rack, creating zero dishes to wash (pro tip: eat it right off the cutting board), store-bought pizza has been on weekly rotation chez nous. And I’m not alone. The French are some of the top consumers of pizza in the world. In pre-pandemic 2015, 819 million pizzas were consumed in France, which made the French the number one consumer of pizza in the world.

Curiously, while the French aren’t culturally fond of spicy food, there’s always a bottle of huile pimentée on the table in restaurants to drizzle over your pizza. If you get take-away, it comes in little ketchup-like packets, alarmingly called hot pizz. As an anglophile, I’m a little uncomfortable when I hear hot “pizz” since pizzle is an English word for male “parts” and - speaking from experience - we know it’s prudent to keep anything spicy or burning away from there.

I’ve had conversations with top-level chefs and gastronomes, who are all enjoying store-bought pizza these days. So be feel free to follow in our footsteps and pop one of those babies in the oven for a stress-free lunch or dinner. And if you want to be like the French and put some pizz on it, don’t feel bad about that either.

As for February, I’m confident it will be brighter than January. For starters, the days are getting longer. And I’m sleeping better, which may be due to a confluence of factors, which include a few spritzes of Rescue Remedy Sleep, CBD, or Night Rest, a rotating regime that all seem to work to varying degrees. But it feels like winning the lottery when I get 8 hours of sleep a night.

I do plan to buckle down and take advantage of being cooped up to maybe get working on another book. On Instagram Live, I’ve branched out to include how to make caramel and salade verte, and fromage fort, the French way to use up odds & ends of cheese that you haven’t grated over your store-bought pizza to jazz it up.

So that’s it for now. If you’ve signed up as a paid subscriber, you’ll get some extra news from me before the end of the month. (Last month, I hope you enjoyed the Ginger-Lime Cupcakes and a swirly caramel story.) If you want to subscribe, you can do so here:

But it’s a-ok for you to join me during this monthly check-in, as always, since 2005 (or 2006) or whatever date I started this newsletter! - David

Links I’m Likin’

I like to go au natural as much as the next guy, but here’s why commercial peanut butter is better than the other. (Taste)

The LA Times food section refreshes the rules for publishing recipes, from adding weights to calling for specifying brands of salt. People have asked me to add separate instructions and baking times for convection ovens, add ounces in addition to grams and cups, specify the brand(s) of brown sugar, flour, butter, salt, chocolate, spatulas, cookware, etc., include interior temperatures for doneness of cakes (in Fahrenheit and Celsius), list the weight of a medium banana (…peeled or unpeeled?), and even add biomass information. Who’d have time to bake? But good for them…(LA Times/possible paywall)

If you think French is hard, don’t worry, Parisians fumble over English. (Frenchly/YouTube)

Food writer Jay Rayner writes he’s qualified to write about anything. (The Guardian)

The Champs-Elysées to become “an extraordinary garden” at a cost of €250 million. (Arch Daily)

Finding solace in online recipe comments. Agreed. (The Guardian)

DIYer Alert: These homemade Butterfinger Bars look amazing, although they put the “pro” in project... (ThermoBlog)

Dead French woman spends three years trying to prove she’s alive. (Forbes)

HBO orders up mini-series on the life of Julia Child (Hollywood Reporter/Eater)

Are bananas doomed? (Plentiful Lands)

Romain has forbidden me from buying one, but if I did, I would not take this off until May. (Selk’bag)

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Recent Recipes on My Blog

The fabulous French pastry with the funny name, Bostock commands my respect. French bakeries make it with leftover brioche, but any firm-textured white bread will do, as would challah. It’s easy to make at home…and so good…

I revisited Fromage Fort with Romain in an Instagram Live video. Okay, he got stuck in an infamous Paris traffic trying to get home before the 6pm curfew. Thankfully he showed up just in time to enjoy this garlicky appetizer along with a cold glass of vin blanc, much-appreciated by both of us.

The shelves at Marks & Spencer food stores in Paris are empty due to Brexit, so I did the “walk of shame” at my local supermarché holding a jar of très américain Skippy peanut butter to make Peanut Butter Chocolate Brownie Bars. These double-decker bars meld the best of both worlds and were worth the walk!

Reading Jacques Pépin’s fantastic memoir, The Apprentice, led me to revisit his Apple Crunch tart, which he made alongside us when I worked in the pastry department at Chez Panisse, while the pizza dough was kneaded behind us 😉 It’s the perfect blend of French savoir-faire and American pie à la mode.

This Clover Club cocktail was like a little vacation to somewhere berry delicious. While I don’t normally go for raspberries in winter (or silly puns), the detour was worth the infraction, and I’m not apologizing.

Speaking of drinks, when researching Drinking French, I came across a 1972 television commercial for Dubonnet with Tom Selleck and Farrah Fawcett. The dialogue and repartée don’t quite resound in 2021 as they did in 1970…