carottes confit au cumin

carrot salad

The chef motioned me over to the largest plat à sauter I had ever seen. It was made of aluminum and appeared to be about a meter (3 ft) in diameter and 15 cm (6 in) high. It had two handles, but I wondered if it could be moved when it was full of fat, as it was now. more »

gâteau de Savoie au parmesan

parmesan sponge cake

Being that my father couldn’t butter bread, it was surprising that he was excited about going to a new restaurant where the main selling point was that it cooked your meal right in front of you with an Amana radar range. The evening was sometime in the early 1960s and took place at a new, Mexican‑style restaurant located about 8 km (5 miles) north of our home. more »

crêpes japonaises

pancake sandwiches

My first trip to Japan lasted less than 24 hours. That’s not much time to see a whole country, let alone a city or two. I saw only one street. In the late spring of 1980, I was on my way to China. My itinerary had me arriving late in the evening at the New Tokyo International Airport—now officially renamed Narita International Airport—and leaving mid‑afternoon the following day. more »

oignon rôti

roast onion

The smell was the first thing to alert me: vaguely biological, somewhat antiseptic, but mostly just obnoxious. At first, the source was simply a bundle of heavy‑duty plastic which, being dirty and having been folded and unfolded many times, looked cracked and semi‑opaque. The guy had pulled it from his trunk where it was buried under a pile of dirty clothes and miscellaneous car paraphernalia. more »

salade tricolore

tri-colored salad

So here I sit with a perfectly ripe Hass avocado and a perfectly ripe fuyu persimmon. As much as I appreciate the flavor of each separately, it seems like they would go super good together. But the pale green of the avocado next to the warm orange of the persimmon is not appetizing. more »

diamants de cristal

crystal diamonds

I could live very nicely if I never again heard some chef or cooking teacher repeat “cooking is an art, baking is a science.” They commonly follow‑up the statement with how cooking uses recipes and baking uses formulas, as if the name given to the preparation prescription separates science from art. more »

miso-cuit steak

miso-seared steak

I love food hype, and I’m fascinated by the idiots that believe it. I once heard one type of food hype called the Detroit effect. Take any food item and add a city’s name to the beginning, and it will sound like a better product. That is, except if the city’s name is Detroit. more »

« lollipops » de lard

bacon lollipops

This bacon thing has gotten out of hand. Don’t get me wrong. I love good bacon. It’s just that it seems to be showing up in places other than sitting next to my eggs or resting between some crispy lettuce and ripe tomato. Whether in ice cream, a cocktail, muffins, or a s’more, it seems that bacon, or at least its flavor, is showing up just about anywhere and everywhere. more »

mousse à la menthe

mint mousse

My first choice for a title was mousse de magie (magic mousse). Why so? Because I’ve discovered a recipe that can make a mousse out of any ingredient that can be made into a syrup. Here’s what brought this about. For the past couple of years, I’ve been faithfully watching the public lectures from the Harvard University Science and Cooking Series. more »

poulet et le jaune d’œuf

chicken and egg yolk

In my fifty years of cooking I have mastered many techniques. Topping eggs is not one of them. When I walked into La Folie in San Francisco to stage for a couple of weeks, topping eggs was the first task given me. I never got good at it. I noticed that other workers didn’t seem to do any better. more »