Bonjour! Bonjour!
Today’s newsletter is a long catch-up, mostly about Paris, good food and birthdays. But it’s also about longing for peace. I can’t remember a time in this century when the world wasn’t in turmoil, tipping toward the verge, but these days the precipice seems closer, the drop more profound. It’s hard for us as individuals to make change, but we need to strive for it. And while we’re finding our footing, we can bring moments of sweetness to our communities. We can listen. We can share. We can support. We can encourage. And we can bake. I think many of you may already know the World Peace Cookie and many of you may have the recipe. For those that don’t, I’ve included a link in today’s newsletter. It makes me sad that the cookie hasn’t yet succeeded in bringing peace to the world, but it has brought happiness to hundreds of thousands. In these times, happiness is a reward.
» Get the recipe for World Peace Cookies
Now that I’ve finally gotten around to writing, I’ve got a lot to tell you. It’s been a jam-packed month, so I’ll try to hit the highlights, all of which have something lovely in common: The talent and kindness of friends, heroes and people who care about food and each other — just like us.
A Big Birthday
Somehow, when we weren’t looking, Michael turned 80! It happened year by year, of course. Still, when the stack of years reached 80, we were surprised. 80! Looking back, it didn’t seem so long. As John Lennon sang, “Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.” We’ve been busy and we’ve been lucky. And we’re grateful for our lives and the people in them.
My friend Priscilla Martel (she of rough-puff pastry fame) described October as birthday intense. She had a birthday and so did I (thank you to all the people who sent me sweet wishes!); so did Antonella, who works with me on this newsletter and on Bake and Tell; David Black, my longtime (and extraordinary) agent; Moko of Mokonuts, who makes some of the best desserts in Paris; and my friend, Tony. (Pipe up if you’re a Libra or Scorpio baby, too!) But as far as I know, only Michael had a big, raucous, fun-filled, wildly delicious — sooo delicious — party at Bistrot Paul Bert. Merci a thousand times to Bertrand Auboyneau, aka Monsieur Paul Bert, for pulling off the best party — ever! — and to Joshua Greenspan and Linling Tao for flying to Paris to celebrate with us. The party was so good that I didn’t take a single photo. Happily, some friends did, and I posted a few of their pics to my Instagram page.
Breakfast at the Ritz
François Perret of The Ritz Paris is one of my favorite pastry chefs. I met him over Zoom during the pandemic, when Paris was in lockdown and he was baking at home for his family. It was his very big cookie that caught my eye, and I wrote about him and it when I was a columnist for The New York Times (here’s the article and the recipe — I’ve removed the paywall). Since then, I’ve been lucky enough to spend a little time with him now and then.
Just a few days ago, I had breakfast with Perret at The Ritz Paris le Comptoir, his café just behind the stunning Place Vendôme and across from where Mademoiselle Chanel created her world-famous fashion house. Even had it been later in the day, I would not have been able to resist Perret’s croissant and his pain au chocolat. Both are made with excellent croissant dough, and both have been radically reshaped — they are long and elegantly thin, with top crusts that shatter deliciously at first bite (and every bite thereafter). Because they are the same size from stem to stern, each morsel offers the same amount of crackly crust, supple interior and delight. In the pain au chocolat, it means that every bite has chocolate. I’m in love with these!
I left with two tartelettes — each a tour de force in its own right. The Tarte Poire Belle Hélène is a recent addition and it’s fashioned like a jewel — the poached pear in the center is the diamond and the caramelized almonds with a smattering of cocoa nibs are the setting meant to showcase it. That pear rests on a cocoa almond cream and pieces of pear. I have to imagine that Auguste Escoffier, who created the Poire Belle Hélène for The Ritz, would appreciate this. The second tartelette is ingenious — Perret replaced the usual meringue that crowns a lemon tart with a cloud of egg whites cooked like île flottante and created a small miracle.
It’s Not Just Sweets Around Here
Photos from top left, clockwise: Oysters with mustard seeds at Le Six; a play on Fontaineblau with homemade confiture at Olga Vins et Fromages; duck with so many good vegetables and herbs at Juveniles; Mark Rothko and Alberto Giacometti at Louis Vuitton Foundation; one of a series of pieces of street art featuring Catherine Deneuve; dresses in the Azzedine Alaia / Madame Grès exhibit at the Alaia Foundation
An Hour with Francis Lam on The Splendid Table
Getting an invitation to record an hour with Francis Lam, the host of The Splendid Table podcast, was like getting the call that I’d won a MacArthur Prize. Truly! Being able to spend time with him was like having a great conversation with someone you like and admire in equal measure. Thank you everyone at TST (Hello, Sally Swift and Erika Romero). Give a listen here.
Comfort Food With Aya Brackett
Aya Brackett, a photographer whose work I love, wrote to say that she’d be in Paris when I was and asked if she could stop by to shoot my favorite comfort food. It was so wonderful to have the morning with her. My comfort food is really very simple — cheese and bread and some fruit. When I’m in Paris, my cheese comes from Twiggy Sanders at Fromagerie Sanders and for our shoot, and later our lunch, we had Comté and herbed goat cheese, figs and grapes, almonds, baguette and raw butter with big crystals of sea salt. Time flew and I loved every minute with Aya. I also love the book that Aya photographed for her chef-brother, Rintaro. It’s beautiful, very personal and deeply interesting. Aya shared these photos from our day together — simple food never looked so enticing.
Photos: Aya Brackett Photography
Icons of Pastry
Renata Ameni is the pastry chef at Crown Shy, Saga and Overstory in New York City and someone who’s always looking to stretch. This fall, she stretched far, wide and into the past, making a list she called Icons of Pastry and paying tribute to each woman (they were all women) by creating an ice cream dessert inspired by one of her signature dishes. Each week, she showcased a chef and each week she made a video talking about why that person was important to her.
You can see them all on Renata’s Instagram and I hope you will — they’re a lesson in generosity and creativity. I don’t even have words to describe how touched I was to be included on this list, especially because Renata’s icons are mine as well. And I was lucky enough to taste the dessert that Renata made based on my Classic Jammer Cookie. The night before we left for Paris, Michael, Joshua, Linling and I had dinner at Crown Shy and Renata’s Jammer-inspired ice cream sundae for dessert. It had brown butter raspberry ice cream, French vanilla sablé, raspberry jam and a surprise ingredient: a few of my tears — it was a little overwhelming.
Kitchen Gremlins
I never do a final version of a recipe here in Paris. Sometimes I think that what I make here is perfect and a test back in the States proves I’m right, but that’s not always the case. Even though I have a batterie of American baking pans here, bring American flour to Paris (I always travel with a 5-pound sack of King Arthur All-Purpose Flour) and I have a scale and measuring cups and spoons, I can’t be confident that things will be the same here as they will be in America. Mostly, my concerns have to do with my oven. I love my Paris oven, but it bakes best when I use the convection setting and that’s not what I use to test and finalize my recipes, so everything I bake here is either a first try or just for fun. Usually everything’s fine. But these past two weeks, I’ve had two odd experiences.
First with cupcakes — I baked a batch that grew nicely in the oven and stayed within the bounds of the cupcake pan; then I baked a batch that grew and grew and covered the space between each little mold. No idea why.
Then, a couple of days ago, I remade a baby Bundt cake that had been perfect earlier in the week. And look:
On the left, the first perfect cake, with its pretty rounded top and its beautiful dark brown color; on the right, the same cake, pale(r) and flat-topped. Did I forget something? Leave something out? Add something? Turn the oven to a different setting? (It has so many!) Maybe. But I’m thinking it was the kitchen gremlins at work.
À bientôt
I’ll be back soon because I’ve got so many books I want to tell you about — books I think you’ll want to put on your holiday give-and-get lists. For now, I send every good wish to all of you. And if you’re celebrating Thanksgiving (it’s a very good moment to give thanks whether or not there’s a turkey involved), I hope it will be delicious and as stress-free as big meals can be. I also hope that if you’re even thinking of making the pumpkin pie from Baking with Dorie, you’ll read my mea culpa and nab the corrected recipe (which I might as well call the pie-that-still-gives-me-nightmares).
Some of the links in this post may be affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate and Bookshop.org Affiliate, I might earn a little flour-and-sugar money if you make a qualifying purchase after clicking on a link, which I promise to use while creating more stories like this. Thanks for your support. You can find more “Off the Shelf” book recommendations here.
📚 You can find more recipes in my latest book, BAKING WITH DORIE at Amazon or Bookshop. You can find the recipes for World Peace Cookies and Classic Jammer Cookies in DORIE’S COOKIES at Amazon or Bookshop
👋 Say hello and share what you're making on Facebook and Instagram.
👨👩👧👦 Join BAKE AND TELL, our very own clubhouse so we can bake — and share— together. It has great recipes, riffable ideas & so much to learn from each other.
You’re so generous with thanking others, that I’m writing to thank YOU for your kind and sensitive opening words. Yes--the world is a mess and experiencing horrors not seen since WWII. Yet, somehow we must go on. I will cook and bake and host 12 for Thanksgiving. And continue to pray for peace. Happy Thanksgiving to you and your family. ❤️
Love to read about the delicious pastries.
I have a question regarding the flour: I will be moving to France in a couple of years. Will I be able to bake with French flour your recipes? I will be so sad if I have to let go of your books : (