A Perfect Early Summer Grill Menu
As I prepared for an early summer grill class last week I pinched myself. Anyone who has written a cookbook knows just what I mean. After months of testing, tweaking, writing, re-writing, testing some more, editing, copy editing, agonizing, dreaming, there’s a book. And then there’s someone saying, “Please, please teach us how to grill!” […]
Late Season Makes for Happy Meals
Everyone here – everyone being most of the growers I buy from – says we’re three weeks behind the normal season. This means that instead of jumping feet-first into the strawberries, those gorgeous harbingers of spring are trickling in. And in Normandy, where the soil is still cold, they are a pleasure yet to come. […]
Highlights from a Spring Class
As I anticipated last week’s class, my heart fell. Here I’d advertised a spring class and we were still in the throes of winter with the season being at least three weeks behind a normal year. Temperatures hovered around freezing and the most exciting thing at the market was baby endive (finally growing well after […]
The Season’s Silver Lining
We had a halcyon moment last week, given the deluges of the weeks before and the grey skies and intermittent torrential rains of this week (I’m looking out the window now at cars crawling through rivers of water on the street, roses bent under the blast). After Monday, each day began in the mist […]
Asparagus is Back!
Asparagus is back, asparagus is back!!! The Loire Valley has done its magic, and bunches of white and green, fat, juicy asparagus stalks beckon. I could wait to indulge until Baptiste’s asparagus pokes through the soil of his nearby fields in Criqueboeuf sur Seine. But it’s been a long winter and I cannot. So I expand […]
Braised Asparagus
Asparagus is fleeting, this year more than ever. I’m talking about the Best Asparagus in the Universe, that grown by Baptiste Bourdon a few kilometers from Louviers. Weather has been inclement, with such low temperatures that the asparagus has refused to grow in abundance. That which has pierced the soil and formed beautiful stalks, however, […]
