EXPO Restaurant Le Cordon Bleu includes useful recipes and techniques, though it's a bit bewildering to navigate.

There is no pleasure on earth like the taste of childhood food, but only if it really does remind you of childhood and isn't the unpleasant jolt of your educated palette no longer loving the bland flavors it once did. Homemade macaroni and cheese, grilled cheese sandwiches with slices of tomato made with chedder instead of american... I know the tricks from my home, but what about pauvre Philippe?

I got lucky last night, cooking from Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking. I choose to make a spinach soup, and my husband was transported... it reminded him of his mother's sorrel soup, only less bitter, he said. He ate two bowls with gusto, and I felt I did good.

I needed to make a soup the other day (my husband was cold and getting ill), and did it entirely from my pantry. Trader Joe's ingrediants are getting so good, it's possible to make really nice bites with dried and canned ingrediants... something I never thought possible.

A new website from a new PBS show from a new book: Jacques Pépin: The Apprentice.

The website looks okay (recipes!), but the show has got me intrigued... I just wish I could figure out whnen it's on!

RECIPE: Quick Cream Biscuits
Makes eight 2 1/2-inch biscuits

Bake the biscuits immediately after cutting them; letting them stand for any length of time can decrease the leavening power and thereby
prevent the biscuits from rising properly in the oven.

2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups heavy cream

1. Adjust oven rack to upper-middle position and heat oven to 425
degrees. Line baking sheet with parchment paper.

2. Whisk together flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt in medium
bowl. Add 1 1/4 cups cream and stir with wooden spoon until dough
forms, about 30 seconds. Transfer dough from bowl to countertop,
leaving all dry, floury bits behind in bowl. In 1-tablespoon
increments, add up to 1/4 cup cream to dry bits in bowl, mixing
with wooden spoon after each addition, until moistened. Add moistened
bits to rest of dough and knead by hand just until smooth,
about 30 seconds.

3. Shape dough into round, 3/4 inch thick. Cut into rounds with
biscuit cutter or cut into wedges with knife. Place rounds or
wedges on parchment-lined baking sheet and bake until golden brown,
about 15 minutes, rotating baking sheet halfway through baking.