Sublime

PEPPER (PEPPERCORNS) Buy peppercorns in bulk bags so you can smell them. If they’re musty like corked wine, don’t buy ’em. Marcella Hazan, the godmother of Italian cooking, favors the Tellicherry variety, so I follow suit. For grinding, any mill will do a decent job, but I use a Unicorn peppermill.

I have no doubt there are good chefs working in spas throughout France, but the godfather of them all is Michel Guérard, one of the first modern celebrity cooks. He became a household name in France more than twenty years ago when he inventedcuisine minceur. This was based on the thought—revolutionary in those days, and not all that common even now

Then Michael wrote Cooked, and his agent—this was Binky Urban, a really powerful agent—read the part of the draft which described me, and she said, “Oh wow, what a charismatic character. Does she have any book ideas?” And he said, “Well, yes actually, she has an idea.” So I told her what I was thinking, and she said, “Yes, this is a good idea but i

One of my proudest achievements in the original BBA was the introduction of the delayed fermentation method, which was inspired by Philippe Gosselin in Paris and is illustrated in the recipe for pain à l’ancienne. I predicted it could and would have huge implications for bakers, and I enjoyed watching that prediction come true through the works of