Imagine Julia Child in her 80s, all six-feet two inches of her, standing in line to get tamales outside a worn-out white shack with teal trim in Santa Barbara. If you think of Julia Child as the grand dame of culinary sophistication in the United States, this may seem hard to imagine. But if you think of Ms. Child as a true foodie, ready to seek out and experience cooking in its essence in the most unlikely of places, this image makes perfect sense.

There is some disagreement, however, as to whether or not the beloved Julia was right about the taco shop itself -- La Super-Rica Taqueria. There are some out there who say its fame is undeserved. To them I say bah. Julia Child was as discerning an eater as she was a cook. Her love of La Super-Rica was warranted and that long line out the door is worth standing in.

The dilapidated appearance of La Super-Rica may turn off some, but it is fine with me. I grew up in San Diego and am used to frequenting run-down taco shops, so the décor of plastic tables and chairs in a dining area that looks more like a car port than a restaurant doesn't bother me. What does impress me, however, is the woman with the grandmotherly appearance who makes handmade tortilla after handmade tortilla behind the counter. Standing steadfastly a few feet behind the cash register -- grabbing wads of fresh masa, rolling them into a ball, smashing them between a tortilla presser and finally grilling them on a primitive stove next to her -- her hands never seem to stop. And those tortillas are just one of the reasons La Super-Rica deserves its fame. They are crisp on the outside but with a center that tastes gently steamed. Freshly cooked just moments before they are eaten, they are sublime.

My favorite dish, however, is the tamale, and rumor has it this was Julia Child's favorite menu item as well. While most tamales are densely packed with coarse masa and pork, the tamales at La Super-Rica are tender and almost velvety. I don't know what they put in their masa, but its buttery texture and gentle corn flavor melts on the tongue. Stuffed usually with vegetables in a mild sauce, it is the ultimate comfort food. When I was there last week, I had the daily tamale special: masa stuffed with chayote, corn, zucchini, potato and chile strips topped with a mildy-spiced crema. Wow.

The tacos are simple and straightforward: seasoned and grilled meats on those amazing handmade tortillas. That's it unless you order something like the Super Rica Especial, which is a combination of roasted pasilla peppers, cheese and pork. This is one of my favorite tacos. If you are looking for a traditional crunchy taco with lots of cumin, cheddar cheese and sour cream, this is not the place for you. But if you want a taco that is uncomplicated and unaffected, simply grilled meat atop a lovingly made tortilla, you're in luck.

There are many other items on the menu, such as the gorditas -- masa stuffed with spicy refried beans and then grilled -- as well as a variety of different types of tacos and quesadillas. La Super-Rica also offers daily specials, and I think those amazing tamales are only available on the weekends, so plan your trip accordingly if you want to try them. I hear they serve pozole on Sundays, but have never been there that day, so am not sure of this. Keep in mind this place is in no way fancy. The seating is backyard chic and the food is served on Styrofoam throw-away plates (yes, I know, Styrofoam!). It is, however, very family friendly and also pretty inexpensive. I bought plenty of food for the four of us, plus drinks, and spent only $28.17.

I realize that La Super-Rica is a five-hour drive from the Bay Area, but if you're visiting Santa Barbara and in the mood for wonderful homemade Mexican food, I highly recommend this small taco shack. I think Julia recognized that it's the sort of place where the owners take pride in what they do, and I couldn't concur more.

La Super-Rica Taqueria
622 N Milpas St.
Map
Santa Barbara, CA 93103

Avec poultry

For every exuberantly stylish and special "Tampopo," a few dozen "No Reservations" sail into theaters to sully the food flick sub-genre: bland, safe, commercial fare smothering run-of-the-mill romance in warmed-over foodie platitudes. The tradition is troublesome, by nature, a challenge. Food engages many senses; apart from the best singularly dedicated cooking shows, the characteristics of a great meal aren't easily palpable to a viewer deprived of taste -- especially when the meal unfolds within the context of a scene in a larger narrative. Food might look okay on-screen, but it rarely comes off as particularly delicious, even in decent movies. Actors can munch on some food stylist's pretty concoction, roll their eyes, and moan embarrassingly with hammy delight, but, so frequently, even the most sumptuous footage -- hyper-real and luscious -- falls flat beneath the weight of woefully unnatural theatrics.

For the newish "Julie & Julia," Nora Ephron supposedly insisted that the food both look and taste right. In this movie, the food being cooked and eaten was clearly conceived as a character, something alive and provocative, ripe for interaction: the actors must enjoy what they're spooning up, so their enthusiastic oohs and ahhs ring truer with audiences. The whole thing theoretically hinges on faith in the food's ability to convincingly express itself, which is interesting, considering the film, at its core, isn't so much about food at all. Or at least that's how I saw it at the Kabuki on Saturday afternoon.

In "Julie & Julia," two stories, separated by continents and over half a century, congeal in parallel narratives: In 1949, Julia Child discovers fine food in Paris and ventures towards the brink of a soon-to-be mighty culinary career; in 2002, Julie Powell, a younger woman, exiled to Queens, directionless and dissatisfied, parlays a therapeutic tear through Child's ultra-famous "Mastering the Art of French Cooking" into a popular blog, and ventures towards the brink of writerly success in the form of a book deal.

In the beginning, Meryl Streep's guffawing party-gal of a gastronomic icon just wants something to do. She likes many things, including hats, but food is the latest fancy, her greatest since arriving in Paris with her husband Paul. Encountering a sprinkling of sexism and a healthy dose of anti-American resistance, Julia studies at Le Cordon Bleu, begins teaching classes, and starts work on what will become her seminal tome.

Julie is about to turn 30. She's not a selfless person, but she works a selfless job, answering phones in a cubicle for the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation post-9/11. Like bleak shades of Charlotte, Miranda, and Samantha, her crummy friends from college torment her over tedious Cobb salad lunches, bragging about the money they make and the professional coups they score, pausing only to scream into cell phones at beleaguered assistants. A failed novelist, Julie also wants something to do, something more, something bigger for herself to give her purpose, an important project to complete -- because, in her mind, she's never been much good at that, the finishing of things.

The film doesn't sufficiently sell Julie's decision to blog about cooking her way through Child's celebrated book. That on-screen moment is weak, her impetus glossed over like ripples in a cake's frosting. Once Julie gets going, her resolve blossoms into a slightly creepy, worshipful obsession. Julia becomes her imaginary friend, a beacon guiding her through recipe after recipe, challenge after challenge, building and shaping her confidence. I start to become concerned when she dresses up like Child for her 30th birthday party, standing smartly before the gathered company, practically saluting, looking a little like a girl scout pretending to be a totalitarian dictator. She's mean to her husband, a sweet, easy-going guy with little cinematic heft. In a nod to gender roles, he kills lobsters when her hand falters, and willingly suffers through indigestion and his wife's marked disinterest in sex. Again and again, he tries to understand as she flies off the handle, frenzied and emotional, whenever a recipe goes wrong, when she's too whacked on gimlets to hear the timer, or, most memorably, when a stuffed chicken slides awkwardly off the kitchen counter and plummets to the floor in a heap of translucent muck, bone, and splattered forcemeat.

Slightly creepy, right?

This movie is about women's lives in transition, journeys unfolding across unfamiliar terrain. Even though food is not overly sensualized here, tastes only rarely poured over and described rapturously and richly, it's a movie dependent on the power of food, not just to galvanize our appetites and inspire the actors, but to spur on the characters they inhabit, to drive the narrative. In Julie's case, her love of food merely flickers in comparison with her pressing compulsion to broil, stew, and steam her way through the book, for the sake of the blog. When Julia cooks, she's on a journey in a purer sense, without a fixed deadline, only fretting over the fruits of her labor once they've slid into view. Cooking is passion for her, as wild and satisfying as sex, to which she doesn't hesitate to draw parallels. "These damn things are as hot as a stiff cock," she bursts out giddily in Streep's best Child-ese, as she juggles a piping hot cannelloni. At both discoveries, her joy bubbles over in ribald exaltation, whereas Julie, while acknowledging Child's chronicled passion, both in the kitchen and with Paul, the "butter to [her] bread", is too busy counting down the chapters to approach her journey with a similarly holistic vigor.

I didn't love the movie, but it was wonderful to see Child rendered so Child-like by a great actress, especially pre-fame, many decades away from becoming the quirky, charming old lady I grew up watching spar with Jacques Pepin every Saturday morning. By comparison, the Julie sequences sink like leaden quenelles. They simply prove a point: in this story, or gathering of stories, recipes are vessels. Over the course of the film, three different characters -- Julie, Julia, and Judith Jones, Child's first publisher -- make boeuf bourguignon. The same recipe comes to life in different kitchens, under different circumstances. Everyone who cooks it owns a memory of it; each individual effort passing through the recipe as if it were a conduit of experience. As many millions of cookbook owners can attest, Julia Child, or more accurately, what she represents, is a moveable feast. "I have conversations with her when I cook," says Julie, and she's right. Following a recipe is like having a conversation with convention across time and, maybe, depending on how crazy you are, the person who devised it. Like aspics, recipes can be shaky propositions; they're not infallible. For a variety of reasons, they don't always work the way they're supposed to; they require the flexibility, improvisation, and intuition only continued evolution through personal experience can provide.

Julie despairs when, on the precipice of major media triumph, she finds out the real Julia, not the clucking, whisk-brandishing fairy toque-mother of her fantasies, thinks less than highly of her blog. I'm not surprised; the idea of blogging alone probably couldn't bridge that multi-generational gap, though Child's purported sentiment has been echoed, unjustly or not, by many of Julie's blogger contemporaries. In the movie, Julie describes blogging as "yelling into the void." She goes from wondering if anyone is reading at all to worrying about what to write because so many people are reading. "Julie & Julia" is the first movie I've seen with a built-in blogging debate: are people who share their personal lives online inherently narcissistic and self-indulgent? Are they disingenuous? Are they presumptuous, like some stuffy twit way back in the pre-Internet era, dutifully keeping a diary with the idea it'll later be pored over by fascinated contributors to the New York Review of Books?

What if Julia Child had fallen for Chinese food when she lived there just a few years before moving to Paris? Would American housewives have had to come to terms with "Mastering the Art of Mandarin Cooking," "Handling Hunan," or "Szechuan From Scratch"? Might Julie be a directionless, dissatisfied San Franciscan, sequestered in the far reaches of the Richmond District, dashing down Clement Street in search of exotic ingredients, pondering Child's secrets to a sublime Shanghai soup dumpling?

That's another blog for another day.

This week marks both the birthday and deathday, if there is such a word, of Julia Child. The fact that no one in my culinary circle has mentioned either event upsets me. Where are the parades? Is anyone laying a wreath of Bay Laurel on her grave?

Some people old enough to do so talk of where they were when they heard of John F. Kennedy's assassination. I am not that old, so I had to come up with my own where-was-I memories. Karen Carpenter? I was on my way to the newly opened EPCOT Center, the day marred by the endless loop of Superstar running through my brain. Jacqueline Kennedy? Don't get me started.

The most vivid death for me was Julia Child's. I remember exactly where I was and what I was doing. I was sitting in a traffic jam owing to a fallen tree, crammed into a rental car with five friends near Jemez, New Mexico.

It was a Friday in mid-August, 2004. We were returning from a hike in the mountains and a soak in the local hot springs where, the moment we shucked our clothes and hopped in the steaming water, a hailstorm hit us. And I do mean hit us. It was as though God had opened his comedy closet filled with ping pong balls right onto our heads. Hailstones the size of mothballs screamed down from 10,000 feet, striking us directly or ricocheting off rocks to pelt us in the face. The only safe place was a crag already occupied by a tiny, freakish man-- a naked troll with golden dental work-- who sat there safe and grinning at his good luck and our misfortune. The couple soaking below us held an oversized umbrella over their heads. Everyone seemed prepared except us. When the attack subsided, we dressed and slumped back to the car, some of us bloodied, all of us bruised.

We were singing stupid songs and fogging up the windows, going nowhere very slowly and laughing about the terrible afternoon we'd just experienced. I had written the word "buffalo" with my index finger on the windshield which, for some reason, was funny only to myself. As I considered explaining to my fellow travelers exactly why it was funny, a radio newscaster announced the death of Julia Child, two days shy of her 92nd birthday.

My first thought was a sad one-- Now I'll never get to meet Julia Child-- egocentric, I know. I thought she'd had a good run of it, at least.

My attentioned turned to math, briefly. Two days shy of her 92nd birthday? Since, the day was Friday, August 13th-- which would explain the afternoon we were having-- that put her birthday at August 15th, my brother's birthday.

My brother and I had had a competition going about who's birthday was more significant, his or mine. I touted the fact that I shared my birthday with not only Sally Struthers, but our maternal grandfather and, what I thought was my trump card, Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis. I liked to throw in the fact that World War One officially started on that date for good measure. He countered with Rose-Marie and the fact that his day was a holy day of obligation in the Catholic church- the Feast of the Assumption (which, as my friend Bill loves to point out, is called Maria Himmelfahrt in German). Since nuns came to pin medals on his pillow the day he was born, he always claimed victory. He never mentioned the fact that he shared the day with Julia Child. I wonder if he ever new. I'd give him the crown for that coincidence alone.

We weren't a Julia Child-loving family. No one to my knowledge watched The French Chef. I'd watch re-runs of the Galloping Gourmet, but only out of the corner of my eye because I was too busy building mazes for my hamster out of Lincoln Logs. To me, Julia Child was just some tall lady with a funny voice who cooked and everyone from Dan Ackroyd to John Candy made fun of. I'd always thought of her as some grande dame, her nose as far above the jokes and pokes as her 6' 2" body would hold it.

I'd bought The Way To Cook when I was in college, as did many of my friends, because I was serious about cooking. It was and is a serious cookbook-- step by step and about as how-to as they get. But I only sought pointers, I knew nothing of finesse and had no sense of humor about cooking-- I was too intimidated by it. I certainly didn't think I'd find either in the work of Julia Child. Of course, I'd never seen her television program.

It wasn't until several years later when I fell into a job working for Jacques Pepin that I heard she had a sense of humor. Pepin, fresh from taping a television show with Child, told us stories of how, when wine-maker sponsers visited the set of their show, she insisted on serving beer. Other stories followed that fairly shattered the previous image I'd formed of her. She wasn't the droning, Yankee bore obsessed with detail I'd made her out to be from her book and my own imagination. It's hard to imagine that I never remembered seeing her on television before, but it's true. The humor and charm that Pepin described surprised me, but it was her puckishness that left me wanting more of her. However unbearable the rest of my experience on Pepin's show, I came away with that wonderful knowledge.

It wasn't until last year that I was finally able to see episodes of The French Chef. My friend John recieved a DVD boxed set of the series' best episodes for his birthday. An ace home cook and successful cookbook author in his own right, he kindly invited me over to his place for dinner and a viewing. We watched her on his kitchen television as we drank martinis and cooked or, rather, he cooked, I drank martinis. Most memorable were the episodes detailing how to roast a chicken and how to make a tarte tatin. Or how not to, I'd say.

Take a moment and watch her talk about chickens (Sorry, I cannot embed this video, so follow the link. I'll wait. And now for those of you too lazy to follow a link outisde this page...

It was then that I felt I finally got her. Thank you, John.

Having participated in the production of a number of cooking programs before the onset of their cable television-induced proliferation and, therefore, banality, Child was a trend-setter. I think we can all agree upon that. What impressed me most about her program was its low- budget, public television feel. Child preformed each show-- from start to finish-- in one take. Along with her many successful dishes prepared on air were many flops, but all were taken in stride and with great sense of humor. Whether blaming her choice of apple for the failure of her tarte tatin or simply explaining, by way of each failure, what went wrong and why, she turned her gaffes into, if not always triumphs, at least into moments of sheer enjoyment. The knowledge that even Julia Child was prone to error on occasion gave courage to her audience, removing much of the fear involved in the making of, say, a Gateau Saint-Honore.

At a time when we, as Americans, generally deferred to the French in all matters gustatory , ignorant of or perhaps in part ashamed of our own culinary heritage, Child not only translated the French way of cooking into a language we could understand and into ingredients we could get our hands on, she served as an entertaining tour guide of French Culture along the way. And she managed all this without dumbing things down-- least of all, herself.

In an age where cooking shows are all but shoved down our throats, where any annoying personality is set free to run amok inside our televisions, it can be said that no one can best the original or imitate the inimitable. For better or worse, the Food Network owes its very existence to her. Have they ever said thank you? I wouldn't know, since I'm not paying attention-- I don't have cable and can't really stomach cooking shows anymore, with a few exceptions. Nothing would say "we care" like a TV marathon devoted to her original, groundbreaking program. Perhaps WGBH in Boston has already taken the idea and run with it. All I know is someone should.

Granted, Julia Child was practically beatified by the likes of the James Beard Foundation, COPIA and even the Smithsonian Institute while she was alive, but I'm voting for full canonization now that she's gone. I'd like a new holy day of obligation to supplant the one that no one celebrates anymore. Except Bavarians and my brother, were he still alive. Let's build a cathedral, a Notre Dame de la Cuisine, say, in her honor-- a place of worship where one can go to pray for, if not culinary inspiriation or courage, at least deliverance from evil. Like the fact that Emeril Lagasse has his own band or the mere presence of that squawking Anti-Christ, Rachel Ray.

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.