Capital!

What you see above is a bar of gold.  Or so was the impression a French pâtissier (pastry chef) named Lasne wished to convey when, in the late 1800s, he had baking trays specially made to resemble the shape and size of a bullion ingot.  After all, Lasne’s shop wasn’t far from the Paris Stock…

On the Vine

If you’re fortunate enough to have fresh strawberries, and your gardening has favored you with a bumper crop this year, try to keep the berries on the vine as long as possible before harvest.  In so doing, you’ll maximize the sweetness, the juiciness, and everything else which makes just-picked summer strawberries one of life’s sublime…

What about Milk?

As the notes accompanying the recipe in the July-August 2019 Milk Street explain, Catalans like to dunk carquinyolis, local almond cookies, in coffee or in a sweet dessert wine.  Good advice in principle, though difficult in practice.  Coffee is an unfortunate choice, while a Catalan dessert wine could be a pricy acquisition for so limited…

Brownies for a Princess

By legend, when an Austrian princess was staying at the Italian resort isle of Capri back in the 1800s, she started longing for the dense chocolate cake of her native Vienna, Sachertorte.  Not knowing how to make the Viennese delicacy, the resort’s Italian chefs prepared a more familiar local almond cake, added cocoa and hoped…