April Newsletter

Celebrating the ides (and fails) of March

Apr 1

It’s been an interesting year so far…and, gulp…it’s only April. But with the warmer weather and holidays that celebrate the bounty and hope that this time of the year (usually) brings, while several countries have faced particular challenges controlling the virus, we may not all agree on everything but I am pretty sure we’d all like to see this be over once and for all. As an introvert, I don’t mind being alone - and as a writer, it’s often a necessity - but I started to mentally crack not long ago. The gray skies of Paris that lord over the city for most of the winter can be tough on one’s psyche, and I did my best to keep a brave face on.

To take une pause from all the screen time, I started doing crossword puzzles. An online ask for suggestions yielded a lot of suggestions for puzzles online. But I wanted puzzles on paper, not on a screen. So I settled on a New York Times “Easy” crossword puzzle book. In spite of a high-ish IQ (yes, I was as surprised as you are…) even the first puzzle stumped me. By puzzle #5 I’d improved a little but have been only able to finish 60-80% of the puzzles. But I’m still at it because that’s what smart people do, right?

To make me feel even more like a dope, last month I had some baking #fails that come with the turf. The first big fail was trying to resurrect two candy recipes on my blog that, over the years, people had tussled with. I love candy, but success depends on a variety of factors (weather, variations in ingredients like cream and chocolate, etc.) and I want foolproof recipes under my byline.

Of course, as soon as I unpublished them, I got emails and DMs from people asking where they were because they were their favorite recipes 🤷‍♂️

So I tested and re-tested those recipes, hoping to get them right, until finally realizing that some things are better left in the rearview mirror because I was getting a little crazy working on them. And I don’t like to throw away precious ingredients either, even though that’s the price you pay for getting to a recipe that works.

Another culinary flop was Boston Cream Pie, which after testing several times, multiplied three times by the three components; custard filling, cake, and frosting, meant not I didn’t just have a lot of leftover cake, but had sink loads of dishes to wash. There was also Tahdig, the fabulous Persian rice dish that, when made correctly, slides out of the pot with a crisp, golden crown on top of fragrant, buttery saffron rice.

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Mine dropped out in pieces, although it tasted good, but meant I had a lot of admittedly delicious Persian rice to go through before I could make another batch to try to get that magnificent crackly crust...in one piece. People often ask me, “What do you do with all the leftovers from testing recipes?” The challenges are:

Do you want people to taste things that didn’t come out? I once worked in a restaurant where the owner told us if you make a mistake, throw it away. His reason for that was that the kitchen staff and servers obsess over grabbing leftovers in a restaurant, since believe it or not, everyone is famished from working so hard with little time to eat. (Also, people in restaurants love to eat.) His theory was that a stray plate of food, which tempts the kitchen and waitstaff, interrupted the rhythm of the service. So while it sounds harsh, he said “Throw it away and move on.”
People don’t really want them. On the homefront, people claim that they will come over and take any leftovers off your hands*, but when it comes down to it, most will back down, claiming they’re trying to lose a few extra kilos. (News flash: Who isn’t?) I miss my friend who was a dancer at the Lido who took any and all pastries I made. Those showgirls blaze through calories doing two shows a night and until she left Paris, it was a mutually beneficial relationship. And it even scored me a visit backstage at the famed revue.
*The are also the people who comment on social media, “What’s leftover cake? LOL!!” who likely have not made five cakes in two days. Yes, leftover cake is a thing.

So I’d hit a wall trying to get to the Boston Cream Pie I remembered from my youth right, which I last had forty-five years ago, and decided to move on to something else.

Years ago I was at a culinary conference with Flo Braker, the author of The Simple Art of Perfect Baking, who also happened to be the nicest person I ever met and an exacting baker. She’s sadly left us, but I recall someone coming over to us who mentioned that she was working on her first cookbook, and exclaimed: “…some of the recipes I’ve had to test up to three times!” When she walked away, Flo looked at me and said, “Oh my gosh, you’re lucky if you get it right by the third try!”

She was right; sometimes you get it right and sometimes you don’t. The great thing about messing up is that you can either, 1) Continue to keep working at it, or 2) Chuck it and move on. There’s no shame in the second option, as the restaurant owner insisted we do, and that’s what I did. Now let’s see if we can do that with the last twelve months, and move forward.

-David

April Events

I’ve got a few super fun events coming up as well as a head’s up that the Drinking French Bar Boxes are back at K & L Wines and Slope Cellars. Each contains a specially-curated selection of French apéritifs and spirits as well as a signed copy of Drinking French. Check ‘em out!

April 10th: I’ll be on Instagram Live Apéro Hour with Lance Winters, owner and head distiller at St. Georges Spirits distillery.
April 17th: I’ll be in conversation with Reem Kassis about her fantastic new book The Arabesque Kitchen. It’s free and you can register here.
April 20th: I join the San Francisco Baker’s Dozen for an online demo. More info here.
April 26th: You can join me for a French Apéritif Seminar with Context Conversations online. Sign up here.
April 28th: Instagram Live Apéro Hour will feature Ben Hagen of Slope Cellars in Brooklyn where I’ll be doing an in-person booksigning on May 9th. So come and get a signed book!
May 1: And Online brunch interview and drink demo with me, with the Alliançe Française of Boston.

You can keep up with appearances on my Schedule page. Instagram Lives are announced and confirmed on my Instagram feed the day of the event.

Visit my Schedule page

Links I’m Likin’…

Les baskets en raisin? French sneakers made of wine grapes (Zèta)

When people want your recipes but aren’t interested in your life stories. (CNN)

Mayor announces school meals in meat-loving Lyon, France go to no-meat, and not everyone is happy. (NYT, possible paywall)

Q+A with John Birdsall on writing his thought-provoking memoir of food icon James Beard. (Will Write for Food)

How to read a French wine label like a connoisseur. (DispatchesEurope)

The cutting board that doubles as housecleaning roulette. Hoping it can be fixed so the house (i.e.; me) always wins. (Apartment Therapy)

Does removing ingredient quantities from recipes make them more appealing? (The Atlantic)

Caitlyn Jenner turns her talents to cocktails…and turns to her viewers to ask what triple sec is. (YouTube)

Spot-on ode to the mediocrity, and the smells, of New York City supermarkets. (Grub Street)

Even the NYT doesn’t want to be part of its own Cooking Group on Facebook. I counted the word “toxic” six times in the article. (Vice)

Colorized video of Paris café life in 1927. (YouTube)

France wants baguettes to be designated cultural heritage status by UNESCO. (France24)

Recent Recipes and Posts from My Blog

These caramel-stuffed chocolate cookies come close to being up and over the top, and I’ll admit that I had a hard time resisting them. They’re soft, chewy, oversized, and filled with my two favorite things: Chocolate and caramel.

Let’s Eat France takes readers across the country, presenting the best of France, from luscious raw milk cheeses and regional sausages to sublime pastries, breads, pâtés, and stellar produce from l’hexigone. Food writer François-Régis Gaudry does a wonderful job explaining French food and culture with humor, knowledge, and recipes in this 5+ pound volume that’s 100% entertaining.

I revisited Chocoflan, the as-much-fun-to-make-as-it-is-to-eat Mexican dessert that reverses itself in the oven. Although it’s not easy to see in the photo, there’s a glaze of dulce de leche gracing the surface.

One of my most FAQs is “Where can I get fresh tortillas in Paris?” Dear visitors; We don’t expect you to come to Paris for tortillas. But a lot of others are looking for them, enough to become a top FAQ, so your search for fresh tortillas ends here. Pass the French salted butter - ¡Viva mantequilla!

I don’t know how Ina Garten is always at the right place at the right time, with the right recipes, but her new book Modern Comfort Classics takes us to the cozy places we are all craving. Thanks for her, I’m now craving a Tuna melt at least once a week and even Romain is happy with it being on regular rotation.

And…who knew that in 1956, French factories installed coffee machines in an attempt to combat the “traditional liter” of wine consumed per day by (some) workers…

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