Le Sel (and the Holidays)

I was into the salt before Paris, but in Paris I truly fell in love with the thick, wet, gray fleur de sel from brittany. the salt man at the bastille market had tremendous patience for my terrible french and would give me free bags of 4-spiced salt and free caramels and i bought more salt than i ever had previously.

So I made fleur de sel toffee from Martha Stewart and the now-yearly salted chocolate caramels.

I tried world peace cookies again, and again, I failed.

The bits of chocolate alongside the sea salt are tasty, but crumby dough was not the vision that Dorie or Pierre had in mind when they came together to create this war-ender.

tea mix. I've packed away spoon cookies and wrapped up lemon bread and measured out baggies of chai. I've peeled and simmered applies for applesauce and fried up latkes to accompany.

I've gone through a 5lb bag of sugar and just over 2 lbs of butter.

Last Sunday it was 6 months since we were married and soon after, 6 months since I left Paris.

For every morning these days that I miss a slow cup of needle-thin green tea, I build relationships with another family grateful for the opportunity to have this school for their child. For every evening that I work too late to come home and roast sweet potatoes until they caramelize, I have a conversation with a child that moves them that much closer to meeting our behavioral expectations.

We have already seen more snow in a month than we've seen in 10 years. We have a favorite local restaurant for a weekly date and a market nearby (although I'm hesitant to reveal to you the price of butter). We are thrilled to be back in the US with some of our oldest, and newest friends. We are glad to to be blocks away from Prospect Park and to both have cell phones.

We continue to gorge on jalapenos and nachos and Annie's mac and cheese.

And on the shortest day of the year, when Susan Sandburg came onto weekend edition to talk about the longest day of 2008 at le fete de la music in Paris, we smiled knowing we made the right, toughest, decisions this year, and with a little more patience we know 2009 will be even better. My school will have a location, a name, a staff, a student body. Liam will have gigs and a new album.

We'll have had at least 6 months physically together since married.

(you might even say we've had a lot going on)

And if you were here, I'd invite you over for some sweets. Straight outta my Brooklyn kitchen with a salty detour in Paris.

Baker's Lament

Perfectionism is not something I'm known for, but I do like to do a pretty good job. More specifically, when I make food, I want people to say it's the best darn _____ they ever had. Not perfection, just high expectations. Last night I had such a struggle that I'm ready to air my dirty pans.

Situation: Christmas Party.

Idea: Make Dorrie Greenspan's World Peace Cookies. Chocolate and salt and sable sounded perfect.

Problems = my World Peace Cookies were, I tempted to trot out the triteness, Armaggedon. Bombings. Nothing full of Noel cheer. They were sandy to the point of straight up sand. Beautifully dark and deceivingly messy cocoa infused sand that left streaks on my white countersinkfloorfridge. I pushed clumps together to save the dough, and my pending reputation at the party. There was a brief period of hope when they spread out on the slices of parchment I had laid out (running low on the goods this week) and looked like those double-chocolate cookies that have white chocolate chunks from CostCo, but when they came out, fat chunks of chocolate sandwiched between (couldn't resist) were no good. Like eating a melted Hershey's Special Dark at the beach in between crumbled up oreos left at the bottom mixed with sand.

And so, I went on a trusted journey from Egrement Elementary School Cookbook (published in Pittsfield, MA, c. 1985) to Lemon Bars. Done (I thought). Extra lemon rind in the curd and the shortbread crust looked toasty and I had made these just a few weeks ago for Dinner Club and so how stunned was I to take them out and find a yellow mush of beautifully colored bar (the yolks here!). Liam tasted one, and challenged to be truthful said, "I think they're mushy." I asked, "if you were at a party would you have a second one even though you might find them mushy?" He couldn't answer in the affirmative, but attempted to defend himself saying he's used to the high quality of my usual bars. I don't these people that well, I added, so I'm not bringing something that's not the best of what I have to offer.

On the way out the door, I tried another WPC, only to find that the skinniest ones, at room temperature, betrayed their true goodness: sandy and toasted cocoa, melting dark chunks, sparks of salt.

There were only four that looked like this on the cookie pan.

We went to the party with a 4-piece chocolate box from a new boulangerie/patisserie across the street, praying they were decent, and walked in to see that someone brought the equivalent of a pound box of fantastic, small chocolatier, seasonally themed chocolates that I promptly ate three of, encouraging the host to hide our piddly box in the corner.

Strangely enough, today in the chill of our December Parisian studio, the shortbread thickened up a bit and the rest of the WPC dough awaits a slighter squishing together for Tuesday - they might just be OK afterall.