I took time to go to the U.S. to celebrate the holidays, as well as taking a trip to San Francisco to do a chat with Yotam Ottolenghi to celebrate his new book, Nopi. He's one of my favorite people, and worth traveling halfway around the world to spend a few hours with him. Can't say that about everybody! : )
The weather has been unseasonably warm, both in the U.S. and in Paris, which no one is complaining about, especially considering how cold last year was. But it's been fun to focus on fall and winter desserts, using fruits, nuts and vegetables, like Pumpkin Pie, which I topped with a crown of fluffy, toasted (and homemade) marshmallow, a bourbon-spiked Pecan Pie, dialed up with a triple-dose of ginger - fresh, dried, and candied.
And I even found a great use for those hard-to-find cranberries (at least in Paris), by making them into a tangy cranberry shrub, which is refreshing with sparkling water, but also is the base for a delicious cocktail with a pour of bourbon and a soupçon of maple syrup.
Prompted by a few nights out on the towns of New York and San Francisco, I was thinking about how I learned to drink cocktails at a Persian-themed bar in the famous/infamous Haight-Ashbury neighborhood back in the 80's or the 90's. (I can't remember which - hey, it was the cocktails speaking!) But I pulled my thoughts together enough for a story, The School of Aub Zam Zam for Punch magazine, about the tough "training" that I had.