Buy Clotilde's latest book, The French Market Cookbook ! Our spring has been less than exemplary, with record low temperatures and downpours. And in a country that loves (loves!) to complain about the weather, the season has turned into a total moan fest. I usually try to steer clear of such discussions — is there anything less constructive than griping about something no one can control? — and ju

Buy Clotilde's latest book, The French Market Cookbook ! When I returned to Paris after two years of fabulous eats in California, one of the things I missed the most was good Indian food. Since India produces excellent engineers, many of them end up working for Silicon Valley companies, and we made friends with one of them who was kind enough to invite us to dinner now and then. His wife, a fine c

Buy Clotilde's latest book, The French Market Cookbook ! I love pound cakes, or quatre-quarts * in French. As a child, I went through a phase of eating Breton pound cake for breakfast day in, day out. I’m talking about supermarket pound cake, baked in long yellow logs and wrapped in soft paper. I liked it on the stale side, so I sliced it in advance, and let it age three to four days. I was an aff

Buy Clotilde's latest book, The French Market Cookbook ! Do you want to hear one of the least publicized benefits of working from home ? You get sick less often. Not only can you choose to stay in when it’s cold and drizzly and icky outside (pyjamas optional), but you also spend less time in crowded public transportation, shake fewer hands and kiss fewer cheeks (in French office environments, it i

Buy Clotilde's latest book, The French Market Cookbook ! If you’ve ever been in France during the month of January, surely you’ve noticed the blossoming of galettes des rois in the window of every bakery and pastry shop. A puff pastry pie garnished with a buttery filling, it is the traditional confection with which the Epiphany is celebrated*; I have written in more detail about this tradition in

Buy Clotilde's latest book, The French Market Cookbook ! I am ordinarily immune to the pre-holiday rush everyone talks about. I am not in charge of cooking an elaborate Christmas meal (I contribute but don’t host), I don’t attend a trillion holiday functions, and we don’t go crazy with the presents in my family, so the lead-up to the holidays isn’t significantly busier than other times of the year

Buy Clotilde's latest book, The French Market Cookbook ! Christmas is just a few days away (not to stress you out or anything) and I was shocked to realize that, in fourteen years of Chocolate & Zucchini, I have never offered an actual post outlining how to host a French holiday meal . So whether you’re seeking to add a little Frenchness to your holiday celebrations, attending your first bona fide

Buy Clotilde's latest book, The French Market Cookbook ! Biscuits de Noël Laurence is one of my best and oldest friends . I met her when I was fourteen, on our first day of high school, and soon we were inseparable, so alike in so many ways that people sometimes mistook us for sisters. I loved going to her house after school. For one thing, there was a television there, which wasn’t the case at my

Buy Clotilde's latest book, The French Market Cookbook ! I will own up to it right then and there: I am an inveterate collector of pasta . Guilty as charged. In fine food shops and Italian markets, I love to study the different shapes and imagine which will lend themselves to smooth sauces or chunky ones. I love their names (rooster’s crests, radiators, little ears, thimbles), the traditional pack

Buy Clotilde's latest book, The French Market Cookbook ! In addition to planning my menus , I have been doing more and more batch cooking these past few months. The idea of batch cooking is to block out time one day of the week to prep or cook a bunch of ingredients in advance, which you can draw from and combine for low-effort homemade meals the rest of the week. It is the shortest path to feelin