The Germ of an Idea
Flour, Water, Salt and a Blooming Good Time!
"The smell of good bread baking, like the sound of lightly flowing water, is indescribable in its evocation of innocence and delight," said M.F.K. Fisher. That smell is intoxicating. My children can attest to my near obsession with it. "It's that smell!" I once cried triumphantly to my young children, rushing them up the narrow, Provencal cobbled street towards a little boulangerie. The tantalizing, yeasty aroma of fresh bread infused the warm summer air, drifting in tantalizing currents, beckoning passers-by into the spotless bakery. 'Can you smell it?" I asked as we stepped up into the shop. I stood, eyes closed, inhaling deeply. The children thought I'd gone slightly mad. "Mum, mum, are you okay? asked my daughter. Given the quizzical look on the owner's face, I'm sure she was asking herself the same question.
'Madame?" she asked, pointing towards the baguette and pain au levain filled shelves. I had momentarily traveled back at warp speed (memories do that to you), back to one of my earliest childhood memories, to the smell of freshly baked bread. It is imprinted in my very being like an olfactory time stamp. I'm perhaps three or four; I'm holding someone's hand, my mother's or grandmother's, standing in a bakery; it's a definitive image, albeit one with the most tantalizing, seductive scent. I regained my composure and bought bread. 'You'll remember this moment,' I told my children as we walked away. They were skeptical, as only children can be.
So, what is it about bread that is just so seductive? Why do so many artisan breadmakers go into trance-like reveries as they wax poetical about all things bread? How is it that this simple grain can be so transformative? Bill Buford, the American writer and author of Dirt: Adventures in Lyon as a Chef in Training, Father, and Sleuth Looking for the Secret of French Cooking, has the most apropos explanation in his video filming Yves Richard, a renowned artisan bread maker in Lyon, 'Is wheat the most poetic ingredient on earth?' he asks. 'Grind up any other grain, add water; you get porridge. Grind up wheat, add water; Metamorphosis!' he enthuses, then adds, 'It becomes stretchy, push it, pull it, it's sticky, glutens are forming. The Chinese call it the muscle of flour…' His fervor for bread matches the intensity with which Yves bakes. I'm mesmerized every time I watch the video. There's so much passion!
I have come to understand this passion. 15 or so years ago, I unexpectedly embarked on a sourdough adventure. I had baked bread before but never sourdough. I became slightly obsessed after an informative hands-on tutorial from my friend John, whose sourdough bread and pizzas are legendary. After we baked together, he gave me THE most precious gift—a jar with some of his decades-old starter. This was a gift of time, of history, and the transmission of know-how from the creative hands of one person, one family, to another. It is hard for me to describe how life-transforming this jar filled with two simple ingredients-flour and water-has been!
Chad Robertson, master baker and owner of Tartine Bakery in San Francisco spoke about the unique chemistry of those ingredients in a video about bread baking. 'Bread to me is a mixture of flour and water that is transformed into something through the course of fermentation that transcends the simplicity of those basic ingredients.'
Bakers I've spoken with talk about bread as an extension of themselves, the place they reside, and creating something that has soul. Part of the charm and seduction of bread making is that you start with a blank canvas each day, working with and adjusting to the elements around you, such as the ambient temperature and humidity that affect every loaf you make. For me, making bread is grounding, nurturing, calming and deeply, deeply satisfying. There is, for instance, a magical moment when you add the salt, which transforms the shaggy, sticky mixture into a smooth, elastic dough. This alchemy takes place in less than 30 seconds and this metamorphosis makes me smile every time.
Once I started baking, I couldn't stop myself. I baked dozens and dozens of loaves on a weekly basis, giving most of it to friends to get their feedback. Is the crumb airy enough? What is the flavor like? Is the crust crunchy? Too hard? Too soft? After months of experimentation, successes and failures, doughs that failed to rise, doughs that were over-proofed, and testing different flours and fillings, I felt I had finally nailed the technique and started teaching other people how to make sourdough. To this day, this is one of my favorite classes to teach. It is not just satisfying for me, but as I watch each participant ooh and ahh as the seductive aroma of baking bread fills the kitchen and their faces light up when the first loaves are pulled from the oven, I know that it is satisfying for them, too. Better yet, when students send me photos of the bread they have baked at home, I am chuffed to bits that their baking journey has bloomed.
Just as I had been given a starter when I first embarked on my sourdough journey, I give each participant a jar of my starter to take home at the end of every workshop. That starter contains traces of the past 15 years in my kitchen and that of the starter it was nurtured from. This lively, microbial, organic history has been passed on to everyone who has shared the bread and continued the bread-making tradition here in Santa Barbara and now in towns across the country, in 15 states by my last count, as its custodians have traveled home. I treasure the sense of continuity that blooms from each gram of the 'Mothership'. Yes, I named my starter. People do! There's even a Reddit discussion about starter names underscoring just how attached people are to theirs, from the comical Herculyeast to the musical Doughlene.
Barnaby Draper at Santa Barbara Hives named his 'Madre Mia.' 'Mother' in one form or another is prevalent among bakers, no doubt cultivated by the burgeoning nature of the product starters produce. Barnaby is one of the people who, after taking the bread workshop, was bitten by the sourdough bug to such an extent that he went on to launch his own sourdough menu, including an excellent charcoal sourdough bread and pizzas in his honey-filled shop in Carpinteria.
Jennifer Gonzales-Neely, co-owner and baker at Mother Dough Bagels, also started part of her sourdough journey in my kitchen. After months and months of perfecting her bagel recipe, she launched her business to wild acclaim, with people lining up for hours to sample her sourdough bagels. Her starter, by the way, is called Rocky. I was (and still am) tickled pink; all this from a jar of flour and water! As famed Parisian baker Lionel Poilane said, 'Bread deals with living things, with giving life, with growth, with the seed, the grain that nurtures. It's no coincidence that we say bread is the staff of life.'
After numerous conversations with bread bakers worldwide, I concluded that just the aroma (let alone the taste) of freshly baked bread elicits an almost Pavlovian response, one that is almost universally linked to a cherished childhood memory. My daughter proved that point. Years after I had pulled her reluctantly into that little boulangerie, she came rushing into the kitchen one Sunday morning, rubbing sleep out of her eyes, shouting excitedly, 'Mum, it's THAT smell!' I laughed as we reminisced about our travels, the different breads we had tasted, and our favorite bakeries. The conversation made us hungry. What's for breakfast?' she asked. 'The bread has to cool, and then I'm making poached eggs for brunch,' I replied, eternally grateful for that transformative gift of flour and water long ago.
Poached Eggs on Fava Bean Toast with Asparagus and Smoked Salmon
A poached egg on toast is probably my favorite breakfast. My mum would make them for Sunday breakfasts before we headed out for long walks across Hampstead Heath in London. My brother and I have carried on the poached egg tradition, each with our own flair. He makes a fantastic eggs benedict, while I like to serve them with all sorts of herb and vegetable pestos. In this version, I’ve added al dente asparagus and some smoked salmon for a special breakfast or brunch-worthy treat.
Per person
2 tablespoons fava bean pâté (see below)
1 slice of toasted sourdough or bread of your choice
1 slice smoked salmon
1 teaspoon olive oil
6–8 asparagus spears — trimmed and cut into 3-inch-long pieces
Coarse sea salt
Black pepper
1 or 2 eggs
1 teaspoon finely chopped chives
1 tablespoon microgreens
Fava Bean Pâté
2 cups peeled fava beans
1/3 cup finely chopped chives
¼ cup finely chopped green onions
Zest of 1 lemon
1/3 cup olive oil
¼ cup lemon juice
½ teaspoon salt
10 grinds of black pepper
Purée the fava beans in a food processor fitted with a metal blade for 2 minutes to create a smooth paste. Scrape down the sides before adding the chives, green onions and lemon zest. Blitz for 1 minute. Scrape down the sides again. Then, with the motor running, pour in the olive oil and lemon juice and pulse until just combined. Season with the salt and pepper. Pack the pâté into mason jars. Keep refrigerated. It will last for 7–10 days.
Wild Mushroom Crostini Salad
My long-time friends Frederic and Fatos owned one of my favorite restaurants in Santa Barbara. The setting was hip and romantic, a mix of jazz bands played on a weekly basis, serenading guests to Django Reinhardt riffs and bluesy vibes. It was the place where you’d pop in for a savory nibble at the bar, or lounge over a long Mediterranean-styled meal on the terrace. It was my bistro du coin. One of my favorite items on the appetizer menu was a deceptively named dish, a single Mushroom Toast. The toast in question was piled high with a giant mound of shaved mushrooms that had been mixed with truffles and some grated cheese. It was so succulently decadent. This salad is a little tribute to that dish, and the lovely times spent with everyone at The Little Door.
Serves 8 people
For the salad:
7 oz mixed salad greens
For the vinaigrette:
1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
3 tablespoons olive oil
1 tablespoon white wine vinegar or Champagne vinegar
Pinch of coarse sea salt
8–10 grinds of black pepper
For the crostini:
2 oz butter
Olive oil
2 lbs wild mushrooms — cleaned and thinly sliced
2 tablespoons finely chopped chives
3 tablespoons crème fraiche
3 oz grated Manchego or Gruyere cheese
16 thin slices baguette — toasted
Bagels with Tomatoes and Herbs
Bagels are a lovely addition to any brunch menu. I like to serve mine with savory and sweet toppings to go along with whipped cream cheese. Classic toppings such as smoked salmon are delicious, but I also love a mix of cherry tomatoes and freshly chopped herbs which pair beautifully with the richness of the cream cheese. In the summer I’ll use slices of juicy heirloom tomatoes and figs too.
Serves 4 people
4 Toasted Bagels of your choice
Whipped cream cheese with tobiko roe (optional)
For the tomato topping:
16 oz cherry tomatoes — halved
1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
2 tablespoons finely chopped basil leaves
1 tablespoon finely chopped chives
Pinch of coarse sea salt
5-6 grinds of black pepper
Combine all the topping ingredients in a small bowl. Spoon on top of a cream cheese covered bagel.
For the sweet topping
4 Toasted Bagels of your choice
Whipped cream cheese
Stone fruit preserve or jam
Spread the toasted bagel with cream cheese and top with large spoonfuls of your favorite jam or preserve.
Edible article – Winter 2025
The Pleasure of Gatherings: an ode to the love of communing with friends.
Alice Waters once wrote This is the power of gathering: it inspires us, delightfully, to be more hopeful, more joyful, more thoughtful: in a word, more alive. This is the motto my family lives by. For as long as I can remember, we have gathered en masse around the table for every meal and every festive occasion. Birthday celebration: dinner party, seeing friends: dinner party, family reunion: dinner party, you get the gist. Whether it's just the family, two or three of us, or the whole tribe, 80 or more in France, we sit down and eat together. It has always been thus.
One of my earliest memories is helping my grandmother set the table. She was a perfectionist, and table settings had to be just so, for even the simplest meal battalions of silverware marched across the pressed tablecloth. At a minimum, each person would use two forks, two knives, a spoon, three plates, and two glasses. Different silverware was used for formal dinners where knives, forks, and plates multiplied in an orchestrated dance of fine crystal, tinkling bone china, and polished utensils. I was captivated by this ritual as it represented the setting of the stage for the meal to come. This was the backdrop upon which she presented all her fragrant, succulent food. Although very young, I wanted a seat at that table; I wanted to belong there.
Young children in the family would usually be fed early and put to bed before the 'grown-ups' had dinner. This being France dinner often started at eight or nine o'clock and lasted at least two hours. I longed to sit there, but there was one rule; you were not excused because you were tired. You were expected to participate in the conversation (or to be silent) until the meal was finished. When I was finally allowed a seat at my grandparents table, propped up at the far end (there was a strict seating hierarchy depending on age, gender, and birth order), I quickly learned that there were advantages and disadvantages to being granted access to this, to me, hallowed space. The advantage: adults talked about EVERYTHING small children notwithstanding. It was fascinating. The disadvantage: eleven is late for a six-year-old, and I would strain to keep my eyes open and feign not being tired for fear that my now, finally granted privileged access to the big table would be revoked. All this to say that these gatherings held a special meaning for me: I felt as though I had entered a magical, delicious kingdom, and I never wanted to leave.
In London, where we lived for most of the year, my mother carried on the tradition of large dinner parties. These were less formal affairs; we used less china and silverware, but the structure of the meal was just as elaborate. Three of four courses were de rigeur. We also gathered for even our simplest meals. This was our daily ritual. This was when we discussed the day's events, school dramas, work issues, politics, weather, and food, always food. We often had conversations at lunch, debating what we would make for dinner. There was a conviviality that we all relished.
I recently read an article by Dorie Greenspan discussing meals at home in Paris in which she wrote: 'dinners at home are not really about the food. They're about friendship and the conversation that goes on around the table, often late into the night. Yet so much of the talk is about food — the food we're sharing, the meals we remember, the ones we'll soon eat, the food we've cooked, and what we want to cook.'
Her words made me think of Jim Haynes, an iconic American in Paris, who famously opened the doors to his home every Sunday for nearly 40 years to complete strangers to come for dinner. He fed over 100,000 people during that time and delighted in the friendships, love affairs, marriages, and babies resulting from his unusual, multi-cultural gatherings. I love the idea of this melting pot of humanity, coming together to meet others, to commune, to laugh and to discover. He is not the only one focusing on a meal as a catalyst.
Michael Hebb, sometimes regarded as the originator of the modern underground dinner party, once said. "Shelter, in many ways, was provided for us in the natural environment, but the table is a very intentional space created for a communal act of eating together. It's a pretty wild development in human history."
I delight in the idea of an intentional space dedicated to the act of communing together, a space dedicated to our sharing of thoughts as we share nature's seasonal bounty in the form of the food we make.
As a teenager, I took over some of the cooking at home. We, and by that I mean our entire family, learned to cook for large numbers of people from an early age, from big boisterous winter Sunday lunches designed to satiate the guests after long blustery walks across Hampstead Heath to our annual festive al fresco gathering around the well at my father's farmhouse in Provence, where the garden was transformed into a large lounging lunchtime party, in the style of Le Dejeuner sur l'Herbe (with clothes on though!). The tiled well served as the large tabletop, and guests served themselves, scattering to eat among the pillows and rugs strewn across the grass, caressed by the summer breeze. These were heady, bucolic times.
My delight in feeding others was not limited to large gatherings and special occasions. During my student days at university in London, dinners consisted of friends crammed around an impossibly small table in the kitchen of my always freezing flat, books temporarily piled on the floor as we delved into dishes designed to thaw us out. We discussed everything from lectures to challenging assignments, whether to go on protest marches, and plans for the summer holidays. We laughed a lot.
After graduation came work and immigration. I was a transplant to a new country. What better way to get to know people than by inviting them to dinner?
Legions of immigrants have done just that since they set foot in this country; the vast lexicon of worldwide cuisines that form the patchwork quilt of culinary trends across the 50 states is a testament to that. The food people migrate with bind us together, sometimes in poignant and powerful ways, such as The League of Kitchens based in New York City, an unusual cooking school whose instructors are a diverse group of women from around the world, each sharing their culinary traditions with students in their homes. Like Jim Haynes in Paris, these gatherings provide a deeper understanding of the world through food. When you spend hours in a kitchen cooking together, boundaries are broken and friendships forged; such is the power of breaking bread with friends and strangers alike. This is the premise behind Break Bread, Break Borders, a non-profit based in Dallas, a 'food for good' company where refugee women from war-torn countries are economically empowered by cooking for a living. The idea came about when Jin-Ya, its founder, in collaboration with local refugee resettlement agencies, hosted a gathering where the community could share a meal and have conversations about refugees, immigrants, and the many difficulties they face. The result is an organization centered on the nurturing nature of food for both the provider and the recipient.
Perhaps this is why I have always taught cooking classes structured around a meal rather than specific dishes. As we cook the three courses, we learn not just about the timing of the dishes but also about each other. There is time to listen, talk, and enjoy each person's life experience. There are few settings where this is possible today, as we are bombarded with social media and endless electronic communications.
During the pandemic lockdown, many of us re-discovered the joys of gathering, albeit in different ways. Although we could not eat out or travel, we could still pull up a virtual chair at a dinner table and share a common meal across the ether.
During quarantine, I taught many private classes: retirement celebrations, a father and daughter get-together, business team-building classes, and an extraordinary surprise birthday party linking eighteen households from Florida to California. I emailed the recipients the recipes a few days ahead of time. They shopped for the ingredients prior to the class, and then, at the appointed time, we cooked together. We laughed, they told familial stories, we chopped, they asked questions, we whisked vinaigrettes and tasted as we went along. Despite the physical separation, they were connected through the dishes they prepared together, experienced the same aromas in their kitchens, and tasted the same food. Even separated by thousands of miles, we shared meals with each other, computers propped open on the dinner table to chat and cook with each other.
Now, post-COVID, the world is still, it appears, in a state of upheaval. Now, perhaps more than ever, is the time to gather around the table, listen to each other, and care for and nurture each other. Such is the power of sharing food. It nourishes us all, body and soul.
Roasted Celeriac 'Steaks' with Sauté of Wild Mushrooms
One of my students exclaimed the first time I taught this in a class, 'I love a good steak, but I don't miss the meat in this at all; it's incredible!' I was thrilled, as I also LOVE this dish and will use any excuse to find a new vehicle to mound mushrooms on. In this recipe it's the celeriac 'steaks'. Roasting the celeriac caramelizes and intensifies its flavor. It develops a deeply rich, earthy, nutty umami flavor that is transformative with mushrooms. I used some freshly picked chanterelles the first time I made this, which was pure indulgence but absolutely worth the splurge if you find some at the market. Serve these by themselves as a first course or with a light green salad for an exceptional lunch.
Serves 8 people
3 lbs (about 4) celeriac — peeled, trimmed and sliced into ½-inch thick disks
Extra virgin olive oil
¼ cup Herbes de Provence
Coarse sea salt
Black pepper
1½ lbs assorted wild mushrooms — cleaned and sliced
2 tablespoons finely chopped parsley
1 tablespoon butter
2 oz piece of Fontina or cheddar cheese
Warm Spinach and Potatoes with Slow Roasted Salmon and Pistachio Dukkah
I taught cooking classes for a little while at The Little Door Restaurant in Santa Barbara. It was a beautiful kitchen to teach and eat in, and the atmosphere was always warm and convivial. They had chic black-and-white dinner plates, which made the food look terrific; hence, the plate of choice used here. I'm convinced that finding a pretty or striking dish and presenting your food with a flourish makes it taste even better. As the adage goes, you (do) eat with your eyes first!
Serves 4 people
For salmon and herb relish:
Olive oil
1¼ lbs salmon filet cut into four equal parts
½ cup packed, finely chopped parsley
¼ cup packed finely chopped dill
2 spring onions – very finely sliced
3-4 sprigs lemon thyme — leaves only
Zest and juice of 1 lemon
Salt
Pepper
For the potatoes and spinach:
2/3 lb baby potatoes
Olive oil
1 shallot — peeled and thinly sliced
2 green onions — trimmed and finely sliced
1 lb spinach — washed, dried, and sliced into ½ wide strips
Coarse sea salt
Black pepper
Juice of ½ lemon
8 dates — pitted and chopped
For the Pistachio Dukkah:
1 tablespoon Herbes de Poisson (or a mix of fennel, mustard, and coriander seeds)
1/3 cup (2 oz) pistachios — chopped
1 tablespoon sesame seeds
½ tablespoon finely chopped fresh oregano
Orange Almond Yogurt Cake
This is a deliciously moist, tender, and delicately orange-scented dessert. A slice of this cake, a cup of tea, and a good book, and I'm in heaven. It's also excellent served alongside a cup of coffee for breakfast.
Serves 8 people
1 teaspoon butter
4 eggs
6 oz sugar
2 oz light brown sugar
Zest of 3 oranges
½ cup orange juice
¾ cup Greek yogurt
6 oz (1 1/3 cups) all-purpose flour
6 oz (1 ½ cups) almond flour or almond meal
½ teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
½ cup marmalade
¼ cup toasted sliced almonds
