Everybody likes fluffy light food-- but most of it is horribly difficult to make: souffles, puff pastery, profiterole....

But this recipe could not be simpler, and it's lovely and fluffy. When I first made them, i though-- these are just like gougere.. or maybe yorkshire puddings.. or yum!

mile-high popovers!

Nick stellino makes philippe and I laugh out loud every saturday morning with his overblown italian parody of himself.. but the guy knows how to cook, and hey, his website has recipes!

Landy wrote me during one of San Francisco's odd heat spells to ask for my gazpacho recipe. I wrote back:

I came home a bit late last night from work with Philippe, thinking we would defrost something. Looking in the fridge, I noticed we had sausage we had bought on my birthday trip, and realized we had a lot of bell peppers. Well, that led to reconstructing an old family recipe (sorry, dad, but I made it up from memory, then messed with it!)

My parents are taking me out to dinner for my birthday-- any recommendations? i used to know every restaurant in the city, but I've fallen behind the times. I don't need the most fancy-- I just want the most delicious food (with no chili peppers, of course!)

This is a very tasty and simple way of using foie gras for dinner or guests.

This is my friend Allison's Brownie recipe which she applied her chemistry background to perfect. Simple, easy and fast to make. Just ignore the calorie and fat count on this one!

I have printed this recipe just as it appeared when I clipped it from the San Francisco Examiner's food section. however, it makes a good blueprint for any ragout. I've made it many many times, and it is always fantastic.
It can be made without bacon as a vegan dish, and seasonal veggies, such as zucchini, tomato, red and green peppers can be added, as can potatoes for a heartier version.
The important thing being that everything be cut to more or less the same size. Mint cant be replaced with another leafy herb, such as basil. I like to throw a little white wine into the mixture. Enjoy!

My dad send a website full of lovely essays and recipes on food, mostly sighing over the delights of French cusines. Of especial pleasure I found were those on onion soup and walnut cake.
a la carte

So Andi calls me up after I put up this site and demands to know where the quiche recipe is. right here, m'dear, right here....

david sent me meg's dinnerblog, which seems to be full of nice recipes and stories of eating.

one year i had a series of diner parties monthly. this ended when i moved into a studio. perhaps someday it will be revived. In any case, i did all the cooking for the first one-- later ones were done pot-luck style. The main dish was a paella, and it was incrediably delicious... and a nightmarish amount of work. I'm still seeking an easier yet still tasty paella recipe.. but until there, here is the one that worked for me.

I've made this recipe a number of times. I've found there is no problem substituting margarine for butter and low-fat milk for whole. I find that using berries with a fruit like apricot, or peach is a good combination, the berries become jam like while the other fruit remains whole.

Got the recipe out of the newspaper, and it's great! Made it a dozen times, and every time it's been tasty. I know it sounds kind of nasty, but it is not in the slightest.

So what is the best sushi in SF? Some say blowfish, some say tokoyo a go go... give me a hint!

There was a time when I would have to say goodbye to my not-yet-husband before he returned to France after a visit. While he is a great cook, he never could cook meat quite right. I would cook a filet for him, and I used this method. it was always perfect (by perfect I mean rare) and the juices amazing. It gave me geat please to make something special to sit in him memory as he flew over the ocean. I recommend it served with simple green beans (haricot vert, or blue lake) with a bit of butter melted on it, and mashed potatoes with a cup of creme fraise folded in.

I love gougeres.. i eat them all the time as a midafternoon snackie in france. I just found this recipe and haven't had a chance to try it out, but plan to. FYI, if you aren't familar with gougere, they are a kind of little cheese puff made with gruyere cheese that people use to cleanse their palate when wine tasting (and line their stomach, i suspect)

Despite the horrible interface (well, I hate all those frames) the people are smart and the recipes are really kick-ass. food discussion group

Here it is, a recipe I found on the Wine Lovers' Discussion Group, which is equally delicious as it is difficult to match wine with. It was offerend up by Eden Stone, and her recipe has never let me down.. it blows people out of the water again and again.

Her tomato roasting technique i've used for other things, such as in salads, as a base for tomatosoup and sauce-- anytime tomatos aren't at their best, you can roast them and it's like eating at the height of tomato season.

The tortilla is a way of life in Spain. Unlike mexican tortilla, tortilla in spain is a kind of omelet or frittata. it is simple and good served hot or cold.

I will admit to being a little weird about food. Perhaps a little fanatical. Philippe says I'm a goldfish and will eat until I'm too big for my bowl. I'm more so in France which-- as I have said before-- if for eating. But in a weird way my enthusiastic eating has also been my passport into people's favor. Most French who have seen me eat like me. It's as if despite my continued mangling of every French word that comes out of my mouth, my joy at everything that goes in makes it okay. As if loving their food means loving their country.

The only exception I can think of is a small restaurant in Crèche, on the banks of the Soanne. Philippe and I were desperate for food, and it was the only place open we could find, as the two o'clock deadline for eating was near. All restaurants close by two, and many a half-hour before. Philippe and I have the dammnest time remembering to hit the deadline, especially if we have consumed a few croissant in the morning.

The restaurant was very simple. It was sort of long enclosed porch attached to the front of a hotel, wide enough for two lines of six tables for four, with a passage between, the outer set looking at the river and completely full and the inner set against a whitewashed wood wall-- probably once an outer one. No table cloths, paper napkins and condiments in packets in a small bowl. We sat at a table along the inside wall across from some rangers, and ordered the menu. I ate everything that was brought, as ever, and chose fromage to finish. I was delighted when the waitress left the cheese platter on the table for me to serve myself. I asked Philippe what was going on, and he told me "It's typical in peasant places."

The platter consisted of about eight cheeses, and I took a portion of all of them, and ate all of it: runny epoise and firm contal and chalky chevre all were plopped onto bagette slices and inhaled. The waitress returned to pick up the cheese just as I was considering eating more and making myself truly ill. She looked like a Valkerie with an eighties haircut; she had a hearty stern blond Alsatian look, rather than the short dark Burgundians who had been our waiters so far this trip. She was taciturn and a bit disapproving.

She asked Philippe where I was from (avoiding more of my mangled French?) and he replied "Americain-- San Francisco". They exchanged a brief torrent of rapid French, she looked at down her nose at me for a few silent moments, then carried the cheese away.

Philippe told me she couldn't believe I wasn't Dutch, German. That I ate too much cheese to be anglaise. "The English don't like cheese." I suppose she made some miscalculation when she left the platter which any polite French would have taken no more than three cheeses from, and an "anglaise" would have ignored it. Voila. Now she has a different view on Americans, anyhow.

It can be hard work representing my country.

When I met Philippe's uncle and aunt in Sucy-Brion they seemed pleasant before dinner, and very genial after. I had put it down to the scotch aperitif and two bottles of wine we consumed over the three hour repast. Philippe told me later they had been nervous about me. It seems they had visions of McDonalds and American cuisine, and thought I would not appreciate their cooking.

When they saw me peel a dozen boiled shrimp in order to carry glorious globs of aioli into my mouth, they knew I was okay. As I swiftly removed all the meat from the braised lamb, working my knife and fork in elegant concert as I have long observed my husband doing, and as I sighed over the fluffy pommes de terre it seems I became quite acceptable. I moved up to genial as I raised my glass to be refilled with Nuit St. George "for the sake of the cheese." By the time his aunt was threatening me with a second slice of frambois tart I was family.

Philippe's father also has been as skittish around me as I have been around him. But the night before last we went to dinner and now he smiles cheerily as we pass. Philippe's father's wife, Catherine has just from Beaujolais, her home region, and is planning to cook us a vraiment Beaujolais meal tonight. I look forward to displaying how French I can be.

one of philippe's friends back in france is Anne, who is one hellofa cook. She makes two kinds of crepes: sarrazin for savory crepes and froment for sweet crepes.

One the problems with translation of her recipes is that common mesurements are soup spoon, coffee spoon and a glass. The spoons I figure I can get in teh neighborhood with, but there are a lot of different size glasses in this world. My best understanding is that a glass is about two cups -- the size of a drinking glass found in motels.