In New York in early May, I found myself on a Thursday evening with cancelled plans. Thank goodness for Dorie Greenspan. She immediately invited me to her sit-down interview with Patricia Wells that evening at the Alliance Francaise. Patricia was in town promoting her new book, Vegetable Harvest. Dorie and Patricia are such good friends that you did feel like you were in their living room having a chat by the fireplace. Many of Patricia's former students were there, nodding knowingly as she talked about the markets of Paris and Provence.

Q: What are your favorite market in Paris?
A: "Boulevard Raspail market. It is the only all-organic farmers market in Paris. Create relationships, forge friendships with the farmers, learn about where they come from, how they grow their produce, ask about their children. This is what makes the markets so special."

Q: Do you have any advice for people who shop at Safeway (or other huge supermarket) and don't have a farmers market across the street?
A: Speaking to her New York audience, she recommended going the few extra blocks or subway stops to get to a market or a store that carries the freshest product, organic if possible. The quality and flavor and contribution to sustainability makes it worth it.

Q: What are your favorite recipes in the book?
A: "Zucchini carpaccio with pistachio oil (pg 214), asparagus braised with fresh rosemary and bay leaves (pg 160), potato salad with spring onions, capers and mint (pg 227), chick pea and basil puree (pg 16), artichoke and white bean dip (pg 19)." Patricia serves these all the time at home and are always a hit with her guests. I can't imagine anything she cooks not being a hit, bit I digress...

Q: What advice would you give to new culinary students fresh out of cooking school?
A: "Pick ten recipes and perfect them. Have a range of recipes, from appetizers, main course and desserts and cook them over and over until you can make them from memory."

Q: What was it like working with Joel Robuchon?
A: Patricia beamed. "It was the most amazing experience and I still hear his voice when I'm cooking or at the market." He always said "It's easy to be the best, go out and do the best you can do every day." Other pearls of wisdom he shared include "There is no such thing as perfection but strive for it every day" and "A chef's job is to make a mushroom taste like a mushroom."

Q: Who are the most influential people in your career?
A: "Joel Robuchon and Julia Child."

Q: Are you working on a new book?
A: Patricia's next book is all about salads as a meal, not everything with lettuce, but dishes with many elements on the plate and focused more on healthy eating. In Patricia's last two books, she took the pictures herself from the markets of Paris and Provence.

Q: Are you ever going to update The Food Lovers Guide to Paris?
A: Patricia wrote this in 1984. It was a different era in publishing, in information, in access. Now people just Google the information they want, they don't need to buy a book to plan a trip or find good bakeries or restaurants.

Q: Do you ever eat take out?
A: Never, but when I travel my husband, Walter orders pizza & Ben and Jerry's ice cream delivered to our apartment in Paris."

Q: Have you discovered any new products that have captured you attention?
A: "Olive oil from Castelas."

Castelas is a relatively new olive oil from Provence with a very grassy flavor that hints of artichokes, almonds and a pepperyness and the fabulous Provencal countryside. Produced in the foothills of Les Alpilles, this oil is early hand harvested, immediately custom cold pressed and variety blended, it is unfiltered so a golden hue. It won the Medaille d'Or in 2003. It is not for the faint of heart as 500 ml (17 oz) will set you back anywhere form $35 to $45. This is the best price I could find.

Catherine and Jean-Benoit Hugues, of the Vieux Telegraph family and proprietors of Castelas, spent 15 years in Arizona heat working in the hi-tech industry before following their hearts back to their native Provence. We are glad they did!

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That evening, Patricia served chickpea and basil puree on toasts. It's a simple as it gets but delicious.

Chickpea and Basil Puree
Tartinade de Pois Chiches au Basilic

2 cups canned chick peas, drained and rinsed (reserve liquid)
4 garlic cloves, peeled, minced, green germ removed
1/8 teaspoon fine sea salt
4 cups loosely packed basil leaves
6 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

1. In a food processor, place the garlic, salt, and basil and process to a paste. With the machine running, slowly pour in the oil. Taste and season (salt and pepper) as needed.

2. Add the chickpeas and puree until smooth, adding some of the reserved chickpea liquid if necessary.

Bon appetit!

Patricia in the center in red and Dorie on the far right

Last week I promised more Dorie and her heart-warming stories of life in France and cooking with Pierre Herme, Daniel Boulud and Julia Child. Voila....!

It's hard for me not to gush. I have found this oh so sweet culinary world to be acerbic so when one of the industry luminaries takes a moment to even acknowledge me much less spend time discussing careers, options, and advice, the feeling is near rapture. I'll try to rein it in to profound gratitude though I have no doubt some gushing will seep through the veneer. So enough about me, on with the fabulous Ms. D.

I asked Dorie about her life in New York versus her life in Paris - how she lives the best of both worlds and her favorite aspect of each.

"I love life in Paris, the rhythm of life, the ease of the city. It's simple to get together with friends here. Days seem longer, there's always time for friends. And, unlike when I'm in New York, I always have the urge to be outside here, on the streets, walking, exploring and discovering." 1971 marks her first visit to Paris with her husband, Michael. Her dream was to be here and the moment Dorie arrived in Paris, she knew she was meant to be here. She immediately decided that she would some day live in paris. Dorie never wavered from her goal and has spent the past 10 years living in both Paris and New York City. "New York is about work, but I find it hard to work in Paris. It's easier to write in New York but so many of my ideas and creativity originate in Paris. My head explodes with ideas and creativity here in Paris."

What is it like working with The Greats?

I showed Dorie my sheet of questions where I had listed "What is it like to work with Julia Child, Pierre Herme, Daniel Boulud?" Dorie looked at it, hugged her arms and shook her head saying, "It's hard to believe I worked with these three greats. It's hard to believe I worked with one of them, but three!"

Dorie spoke about Julia, Pierre and Daniel being natural teachers and mused if perhaps that wasn't a trait of all the greatest chefs? Not just a necessity of or part of the job of teaching your sous chef and so on down the brigade, but a higher sense of duty, like the doctors Hippocratic oath, compelling them to teach the next generation to preserve this tradition, this history in order to keep the cuisine alive. "Il faut transmettre le savoir faire" as they say, translating literally as "one must transmit the know-how" or carry on the traditions.

What was it like cooking with Julia Child?

I barely had the question out of my mouth when Dorie replied "extraordinary". "All the cliches are true, she was extraordinary. Her warmth, generosity, incredible intelligence, her curiosity about the world - it was all extraordinary." Like everyone else who worked with Julia, Dorie discovered that the persona on television was exactly the same person live - full of "warmth, generosity, curiosity and humor. Julia loved learning. She was a born teacher and also a shameless flirt."

Before Julia moved to Santa Barbara, Dorie, Michael, and their tall, handsome son Joshua visited Julia in Cambridge. As they were headed out to lunch, Julia's assistant Stephanie Hersh suggested Dorie take Julia's walker warning Dorie that she wouldn't want to be responsible if Julia were to fall. Julia overheard this and replied, "When I'm with a young man, I don't need a walker!" With that she linked her arm around Joshua's and headed for the car.

Dorie lived in Cambridge for 8 weeks while working on the Baking with Julia cookbook to accompany the series. Geoff Drummond, Julia's producer, initially recommended her to Julia and Julia immediately concurred, stating, "I like the way Dorie writes recipes. She writes them just like I do." When Dorie spoke that last sentence, she put her hand over her heart, claiming "What an honor!"

At one point in the tv taping, Julia mentioned that something was wrong with her computer, so Michael and one of the show's tech guys went to look at it, which was upstairs in her room. Julia came in a few minutes later and, at 85 years old (!!), wanted to know exactly what was wrong and exactly how they had fixed it because if it happened again, she wanted to be able to fix it herself. Even at 85 years old, she was still inquisitive, curious and always learning. And as a testament to her whimsical sense of humor, her screen saver read: "Creme Fraiche".

I asked Dorie how she met Julia. Dorie gave a cooking demo at Boston University after the release of her first book, Sweet Times. Her demo followed Julia's demo - "not a place," according to Dorie, "that any new author wants to be." At a dinner that evening that included Jacques Pepin, Dorie sat next to Julia. Julia asked her if she'd seen Dan Ackroyd's Saturday Night Live skit impersonating her. Dorie replied that she was probably the only person in the country who hadn't seen it so Julia stood up and re-enacted the entire routine for her! With a melancholy smile, Dorie reminisced, "I miss her. I really, really miss her."

What is it like working with Pierre Herme?

"With Pierre there is an excitement to his teaching, to making others understand and see things that he sees, tastes, and feels in the cuisine. For Pierre, the word "genius" is so overused but Pierre is truly a genius - you see it in his ideas about perceptions of taste and texture and how he thinks about combinations. Pierre would always refer to the Three Ts - taste, texture, temperature. How he creates around these three is truly remarkable." I would like to humbly add a 4th - visual - because his creations are true works of art and one's mouth begins watering at the mere sight of them. Dorie claims to have graduated from the "School of Working with Pierre Herme" because he changed her whole way of looking at what makes food a pleasure.

Dorie and Pierre met in 1993 while she was working on a story about chestnuts for the New York Times. Dorie wanted to learn about marrons glace (candied chestnuts) so she arranged for a meeting with Pierre. She brought along her husband Michael thinking it would be a quick interview and that they would then go on their way. Two hours later, Pierre and Dorie decided they were separated at birth while Michael claimed they were "meant to meet." They had so much to talk about, the hours flew by. After that initial meeting, Dorie and Pierre stayed in touch and visited when Dorie was in Paris or Pierre was in New York. When Baking with Julia was finished and Dorie was looking for her next project, Michael suggested she talk to Pierre about collaborating on a book. She sent him a fax asking if he'd like to work on a book for the American market and he called her back in minutes saying, "I thought we'd already agreed to do this?!"

When it came time for Dorie and Pierre to start work on that book, Pierre invited her to join him and his wife Frederick on their upcoming vacation. Dorie declined, saying of course she wouldn't dream of interrupting their vacation. Pierre insisted she join them and said it would be the only time he had to work on the project. They drove to the west coast of France, to Arcachon south of Bordeaux, with crates of recipes in the trunk. They set up a very long table, literally on the beach with their toes in the sand, and hooked up a generator behind them to power their laptops. They sat in a row - Dorie, Pierre, Frederick, Michael - looking out on the Atlantic Ocean and the entire book was organized in those few weeks. Every morning they would go to the market then return for coffee. A few hours of work on the book would be followed with lunch. A return trip to the market for dinner would then be followed with Dorie and Pierre working by the light of one lamp until 1:00 am. The delicious results of that "vacation" are Desserts by Pierre Herme.

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I hope you enjoyed this visit with Dorie. She has such a unique and heart-warming way of experiencing Paris, reading her blog is like taking a petite vacation through the cobblestone streets of the Left Bank. Bon appetit!

Part I of II

The support and endless encouragement of accomplished women in the culinary industry is in a word or two, profoundly inspiring. Whenever I am lost, down on myself, confused, pity party for 1 please, I know I can zip an email off to Jerry DiVecchio (Sunset Magazine), Linda Carucci (Cooking School Secret for Real World Cooks), Emily Luchetti (Farallon) or Dorie Greenspan (Bon Appetit, Baking with Julia and now Baking from My Home to Yours), confident they will respond with kindness and encouragement or a kick in derriere to get out and get going. It's more meaningful, more touching, more inspiring than I can describe.

What does the Dalai Lama say - it's not the destination that's important, it's the journey - or something like that? If not for these generous, funny, thoughtful trailblazers, the journey of discouraged, searching cooks like me would resemble a pinball bouncing back and forth across this culinary world, eyes skyward pleading for direction. They are beyond generous with their time, their knowledge, their experiences and profoundly excited to see other women coming up the ranks succeeding, happy to share the stage and pass the torch.

Some of my most treasured memories in Paris are of time spent over a chocolate chaud or a vin chaud or an impromptu walk around the 6th with Dorie Greenspan. She knows everyone. Really. Everyone. It's amazing. And very fun. I try to stay in her wake, hoping some of her magical fairy dust will float back onto me. She tells me stories after stories after stories of the richest, most delightful experiences, experiences with some of the industry luminaries. Over a delicious lunch at Le Comptoir this week, Dorie shared more of her fascinating life with me. I can't begin to convey them with the humor and joy that she did but I hope they at least bring a smile to your face and a warmth to your heart as they did to mine...

I first talked with Dorie about her new, just-launched, uber-cool blog aptly named "In the Kitchen and on the Road with Dorie". Dorie was so inspired after her most recent book tour for Baking From My Home To Yours that she decided to create a blog to stay in touch and continue the dialogue with all these people that she'd met along the many stops criss-crossing the country last year as well as to connect with new people who shared her passion for baking and continue the culinary conversation.

What was your funniest cooking moment?

"Oh! The cake that got me fired!" Dorie describes it in more detail in her book (page 278) but she was fired from her very first job as a pastry chef. Dorie was cooking at a tres chic restaurant in New York City and daily she made a version of Simone Beck's (Julia Child's co-author of Mastering the Art of French Cooking) cake with whiskey-soaked raisins, almonds and chocolate. Bored of cooking the same thing every day, Dorie decided to get creative. She swapped almonds for pecans, prunes for raisins and whisky to armagnac. Sounds reasonable. Unbeknownst to Dorie, this was the restaurant's signature cake and changing it caused a small revolution upstairs in the dining room. She was fired that afternoon for "creative insubordination".

What was your biggest cooking disaster?

"When I burned my parents kitchen down...their just-renovated kitchen!" I remembered reading about the fire in the introduction of Dorie's new book (page xii) but I thought she couldn't possibly mean the entire kitchen. Maybe just a little grease fire? No. According to Dorie, her parents came home from an evening fundraiser, so very dressed up, to find Dorie and her friends sitting on the front step, heads in their hands, with firemen coming in and out of the house behind her. Dorie didn't cook again until she was married. Thankfully for us she was soon married!

What is your favorite recipe? Or is it even possible to choose a favorite recipe?

Dorie laughed and said she thinks the reason she had only one child was so that she'd never have to choose a favorite. But when it comes to the thousands of cookies she's baked over the years, World Peace Cookies get her vote as hands-down favorite. Why? Many reasons. The brilliance in the simplicity of the recipe. The deep chocolate flavor. And Grandmothers for Peace. It seems that World Peace Cookies have taken on a life of their own. Grandmothers for Peace have adopted them as their official cookie and are giving them away and asking people to bake their own and share them with other. Also, people are really responding to the name, especially now. She loved them first as Pierre Herme's chocolate sables, claiming they were as revolutionary as the Toll House cookies. Dorie included them in Paris Sweets named then Korova cookies. However it was Dorie's neighbor that labeled them World Peace Cookies, declaring if everyone ate these daily, we would indeed achieve world peace.

World Peace Cookies
-Reprinted from Baking from My Home to Yours (page 138) with permission from the author

1-1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 stick + 3 tablespoons (11 tablespoons) unsalted butter at room temperature
2/3 cup (packed) light brown sugar
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon fleur de sel or 1/4 teaspoon fine sea salt
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
5 ounces bittersweet chocolate, chopped into bits, or a generous 3/4 cup store-bought mini chocolate chips

Sift the flour, cocoa, and baking soda together.

Working with a stand mixer, preferably fitted with a paddle attachmenet, ot with a handy mixer in a large bowl, beat the butter in medium speed until soft and creamy. Add both sugards, the salt and vanilla extract and beat for 2 more minutes.

Turn off the mixer. Pour in the dry ingredients, drape a towel over the stand mixer to protect yourself and your kitchen from the flying flour and pulse the mixer at a low speed about 5 times, a second or two each time. Take a peek-if there is still a lot of flour on the surface of the dough, pulse a couple of times more.; if not, remove the towel. Continuing at a low speed, mix for about 30 seconds more, just until the flour disappears into the dough-for the best texture, work the dough as little as possible once the flour is added, and don't be concerned if the dough looks a little crumbly. Toss in the chocolate pieces and mix only to incorporate.

Turn the dough out onto a work surface, gather it together and divide it in half. Working with one half at a time, shape the dough into logs that are 1-1/2 inches in diameter. Wrap the logs in plastic wrap and refrigerate them for at least 3 hours. (The dough can be refrigerated for up to 3 days and frozen for up to 2 months. If you've frozen the dough, you needn't defrost it before baking-just slice the logs into cookies and bake for 1 minute longer.

Getting ready to bake: Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 325 degrees F. Line 2 baking sheets with parchment or silicone mats.

Using a sharp thin knife, slice the logs into rounds that are 1/2 inch thick. (The rounds are likely to crack as you are cutting them-don't be concerned, just squeeze the bits back onto each cookie.) Arrange the rounds on the baking sheets, leaving about 1 inch between them.

Bake the cookies one sheet at a time for 12 minutes-they won't look done, nor will they be firm, but that's just the way they should be. Transfer the baking sheet to a cooling rack and let the cookies rest until they are only just warm, at which point you can serve them or let them reach room temperature.

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Please check back next week for Part II where Dorie shares the most heart-warming stories of life in Paris and working with Pierre Herme, Daniel Boulud and Julia Child.