Donuts and a cuppa joe. As American as apple pie, a juicy hamburger, or a skinny hot dog. Glazed, chocolate frosted, jelly-filled, raised or cake, have your pick. Some people dunk ‘em in their breakfast-time coffee, then quickly take a bite, careful not to allow the donut to get too soggy in their hot morning brew. Other people are purists, munching on the gooey sweetness anytime of the day, but completely unsullied.
On Saturday mornings, when I was young, my dad used to take me fishing off of the pier in Half Moon Bay, CA. Dad was a not an outdoors man. He was not even an organized sports man. He was a business man. Not the suit-and-tie sort, but still the sort that awoke at the crack of dawn to get to the office early before anyone else had really [...]

I’ll admit it, at first it was the packaging that attracted me to these beauties. Those nubby pint containers, the aqua blue cardboard was complementing the crimson of the cherries so poetically. Really, there could have been slop for sale in those pint containers and I would have had to stop and comment, “Look, the rough-hewn finish of those beautiful cardboard containers so matches the bumpy nature of the slop it contains.” But you have been mostly saved from those ridiculous musings, because instead of slop, there were juicy sour cherries.
Maybe it’s the growing climate, but in California, a place where I spent the bulk of my life (okay, I’ll be honest here, 27 out of 28 years of my existence) the sour cherry is somewhat of a rarity. But at the Union Square Greenmarket, which has been stupendous as of late, they have been absolutely [...]

And by the lily, I mean banana bread. And you should gild it with ganache. End of Post.
No…let’s talk a little bit about this banana bread. For a girl that never really liked bananas, I always liked banana flavored things…like banana bread, and banana nut muffins, and banana cake. As a kid, when I would order a fruit salad out, I would always pick out all of the banana slices. A short tower of pale discs would teeter at the edge of my dish, waiting to either be eaten, or finally just removed by a very forgiving waitperson.
But my mother routinely made a banana bread from Sunset magazine that I loved. She sprinkled sugar on the top of of the batter, causing the loaf to split into two mounds upon baking. The crust was also studded with candied cherries, my favorite [...]

And then there were soccas…and they were socca-licious…socca-tastic…socca-ful. Okay, perhaps they did not require a whole slew of neologisms to be added to the Dictionary, but they were pretty darn good.
Soccas are a simple yet savory, French pancake of sorts. Made with chickpea flour and olive oil, the batter is quite runny, and when poured into a screaming-hot skillet, they take only moments to cook. The end result is a griddle cake unlike any that I have had — chewy, almost nutty, salty, the ideal accompaniment to have with a shallow bowl of artichoke bouillabaisse.
Dipping the soccas, hot from the griddle into the saffron-y broth of the bouillabaisse was sublime, but I was imagining all sorts of other soccas I could make. I could spread a socca lightly with Dijon mustard, and sprinkle it with French ham and arugula, then eat promptly with a fork [...]

Okay, I’ll admit it. I had never had a homemade biscuit until just a few short years ago. There were biscuits in my youth, it was just that they usually came in a refrigerated cardboard tube, and the young Adrienne, all bright-eyed and rosy-cheeked loved those biscuits any which way she could get them. My mom would open the tube with a whining peel, and out would pop a roll of dough, all perforated for easy handling. A few short minutes in the oven, and the house would smell like bread, and a warm biscuit would be resting on my dinner plate.
What can I say…it was California (not a place typically known for its homemade biscuits, fresh produce– yes, biscuits– no) and it was the ’80’s, an era of ease. And when I grew up, I actually tried several recipes for real [...]

Behold, the beautiful quince. Feel the weight in the palm of your hand, the smooth, cool skin protecting the firm flesh…and that lovely fragrance. A scent that is intoxicating, perfumey, deeply musky, the scent of apple and pear, that is if those two fruits went on some tropical holiday, vacationing somewhere warm. The bouquet is heavy yet soothing. It is almost worth cutting into and taking a slice to eat raw. But alas, this is not a fruit for the faint of heart, or sweet of tongue. Sad but true, the quince really must be cooked prior to eating.
Puckery and tart when consumed raw, gentle and sweet when allowed to cook, the quince is definitely a fruit that is worth the cooking time. I poached mine simply. Peeled and quartered, I then dropped the fruit into some simmering water. I allowed [...]

There is a lot of street food to be had in New York. Some of it is tantalizing (candied nuts of all assortment, crisply coated in a nubby sweet shell), others sub-par (like those steely coffee carts on wheels, that serve coffee so weak it is as if the bean was simply waved through boiling water), and some are staunch standards– like the good ol’ pretzel. But for those of you who are not living in a city teeming with street vendors, they can be made at home, using this recipe.
Yeasty, and warm from the oven, making, then eating these pretzels, gave me a sense of accomplishment– the dough was shall we say, ELAS-TIC! I would actually say the recipe is a good place to start for the yeast novice. The dough is sturdy and malleable, and if the directions are followed, you will have a [...]

I love getting new cookbooks, scurrying home from the store, fresh books in hand, cracking the spine for the very first time, and voraciously reading each recipe, the promise of trying a new dish that will perhaps become an old favorite. Sometimes though it can be a bit anti-climactic, the recipe just, ehh. But there are times when it can be revelatory, and I just had one of those times.
My purchase was rather simple, a copy of Camille le Foll’s compendium entitled, Modern French Classics. But it wasn’t until that evening, when I properly sat down with a cup of tea, and the book poised neatly on my lap, that my stomach began to rumble with anxious hunger. Each recipe looked better than the next, but the dessert section, with assortments of cakes, tartes, clafoutis, and delicate cookies, is what really had me.
For the inaugural recipe [...]

There is just something about homemade yeast bread. The earthy, slightly sweet smell eminating from a lump of dough, as it gradually warms and rises on your kitchen counter, there is nothing homier. For all of my waxing poetic about the miraculous discoveries of yeast products, let me put out the disclaimer that I am not a baker. Far from it in fact.
Baking was always too fussy for me. It was all about timing, chemistry, and temperature; I favored the freedom of cooking. And I still do– I just realized that at a certain point, I would no longer be fulfilled being either one or the other– a cook, or a baker. A good bourgie would have to be, at the very least, proficient at both. Slowly I have begun to bake more, and I actually love the sweet treats bounding from my kitchen. But yeast, with all of its [...]

Absolutely not! Rich? Sure. Decadent? Maybe. But overkill? I would have to say not. These Banana Mocha Chocolate Chip Muffins are a bit of a mouthful to say, but they are homey and delicious to eat in the morning with a good, strong cup of coffee, or even in the afternoon as a not-so-lite snack, with a cup of tea.
These muffins had a little bit of everything contained in the crinkly foil wrapper. Who doesn’t like a banana muffin? Even me, who doesn’t love a plain, ol’ banana thinks they impart a starchy sweetness when baked. And the mocha, really just a bit of a cooled, strong coffee, did not actually make a coffee muffin, but simply lent a richness to this already rich morning treat. Eating these muffins in the morning, accompanied by my usual strong cup of morning brew, was not redundant, it was complementary…very bourgie.
Dense, with [...]