Once you have a natural starter alive and kicking on your counter, stealing the occasional banana from the fruit bowl, it’s hard to go back to baking bread with commercial yeast.

Not only would that…

I hardly ever eat meat or fish when I’m alone. I may have a bit of ham or chicken on occasion if there is some left over from another meal, but other than that, my solo appetite favors a plant-based…

At the beginning of every month, I am offering C&Z readers a new wallpaper to apply on the desktop of your computer, with a food-related picture and a calendar of the current month.

Our calendar for…

This is part of a series on French idiomatic expressions that relate to food. Browse the list of idioms featured so far.

This week’s idiom is, “Le gratin.”

As cooks may already know, gratin* is…

Planning the menu for a dinner party is all about being realistic, balancing the different dishes not only in terms of flavor and style, but also in terms of workload. If I opt for a main course that’s…

[Baguettes au levain]

When I started to bake bread on a weekly basis, I thought of baguettes as out-of-reach territory: I would bake the kind of loaves I love — a hearty crust (but not too dark at…

I spent a few days in New York City in early December to promote* my latest book project, and I happened to stay at a hotel that was very near the Chelsea Market.

I had very little free time in my schedule,…

At the beginning of every month, I am offering C&Z readers a new wallpaper to apply on the desktop of your computer, with a food-related picture and a calendar of the current month.

Our calendar for…

I have been wanting to make my own crumpets for about eight years. I can tell you this because that’s when I remember placing, in my bulging clipping file, a mauve scrap of paper on which I’d copied…

The winners of the Menu for Hope fundraiser/raffle have been announced.

Alice Boussicaut, Tamsin Ballard, Katarina Tierer and Leah Bevington, please get in touch with me to collect your prizes!Continue…