I’m a fan of this recipe for a number of reasons. It’s easy enough for non-bakers, plus flexible enough for any taste. If you whip up a batch of these on a Sunday morning, you’ve got a lovely weekend treat, plus something to grab-and-go inexpensive breakfasts for the rest of the week. These keep best if left on the counter covered with a dish towel. They’re good at room temperature, but warm up best in a low oven or toaster oven.

Sandy’s Scones

Grating frozen butter into the batter and then chilling the completed dough again after mixing is the secret to a flaky, soft scone so don’t skip this crucial step.

A great thing about scones is that they’re flexible when it comes to flavoring. Try studding them with frozen blueberries, chopped peaches, chocolate chips, chopped apples, chopped dried figs, crushed almonds — the possibilities are endless. Just be sure not to use any fruit that’s too wet such as fresh blueberries as that can introduce too much liquid into the dough and to thoroughly chill whatever you add in the freezer. You can also boost the flavor by spreading a light layer of jam or marmalade once the rolled out flour.

My sister uses fat-free milk and sour cream; I use low-fat as they tend to have less artificial ingredients. Yields about 15 scones.

8 tablespoons butter (1 stick), frozen
1 teaspoon of grated lemon or orange peel
2 cups white unbleached flour
¼ teaspoon baking soda
2 teaspoons baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
½ cup + 1 tablespoon sugar
½ cup low-fat milk
½ cup low-fat sour cream
1 egg, beaten

¼ cup dried cranberries
2 tablespoons orange marmelade

Before starting, put your butter in the freezer for at least 15 minutes. Preheat the oven to 425 F degrees. Then, grate the frozen butter with a cheese grater. Place it back in the freezer.

In a bowl, whisk the milk and sour cream together and then put into the fridge. Grate the skin off a lemon or orange into a large bowl. Add in the the flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt and ½ cup sugar and stir together. Lightly dust the countertop with flour.

Get the grated frozen butter and toss it with the flour mixture until all the butter is coated. Fold in the child milk and sour cream mixture and combine until the batter is quite wet. Turn out onto the floured countertop and with floured hands, knead it about six times. Do not over knead it.

Roll the dough with a rolling pin into a 12-inch square. Fold it in half, and then fold again, like folding a napkin. Put it on a plate or similar and put into the freezer for about five minutes. This will rest the dough plus slightly refreeze the butter, yielding a more flaky pastry.

While its in the freezer, dust your countertop with flour again and put a heavy cookie sheet or baking stone into your preheated oven to get it warm. (You might want to use these few minutes to make yourself a cup of tea.)

After five minutes, remove the doll and roll your square flat into a 12-inch square. Push the dried cranberries into flattened batter, then spoon the marmalade into a light layer over top. Roll up the dough and turn it over if necessary so the seam is on the bottom. Gently push the roll down until it’s about three inches wide.

With a sharp knife, cut the roll into a series of triangles. Brush the top with the beaten up and sprinkle lightly with the remaining sugar. Place the triangles on the preheated cookie sheet and bake for 15 minutes or until medium brown. Let the scones rest at least 15 minutes before serving.

You might also be interested in…
- GlutenFreeGourmand: Gluten-free scone recipe
- Jeanette’s Healthy Living: Vegan/gluten-free cinammon-spiced scones

• Feb. 2nd: I’ll be the keynote speaker at “Do Something Healthy” in Tacoma, Wash., a big annual event hosted by Multicare’s Center for Healthy Living, who mission is to promote the health and wellness of its community by helping individuals to make healthy choices. Along with an evening talk by yours truly plus a cooking demo, you can get free health screenings and a great gift all for $10. Full details here.
• March 6th-11th: Paris Cookbook Fair: It’s my first time at the fair this year, and its our first trip back to Paris since 2008. I’ll be reporting from the fair, so watch this space…
• March 29th-April 2: International Association of Culinary Professionals annual conference in NYC: As a member of the board of directors, I’ve been busy helping to make this conference happen. I’m helping to plan the Culinary Book Fair at which I’ll also be signing along with 75+ other food writers on Sunday, April 1st
• Los Angeles Times Festival of Books: I’ll be one of the authors speaking at this great annual event. Exact time, date and subject to come. Email, or watch this space.

I’m also taking my popular weekend food writing boot camp Hungry for Words on the road! We’re working on dates and locations now, so if you’re interested, drop us a line.

The filling incorporates soft tofu in place of one of the cream cheese packages, a tip from vegan recipes. But most recipes call for cup of white sugar, which struck me as excessive. So I cut back on the sweet factor, opted for agave syrup and brown sugar and kicked up the spice quotient. The result? Lighter than either pumpkin pie or traditional cheesecake yet with the same holiday flavor with significantly less sugar and fat.

I try to cut back on hydrogenated oils at every turn and HoneyMaid, the leading graham cracker brand uses the dreaded partially hydrogenated cottonseed oil, so if you can find them, try the ones from Back to Nature Foods. Simply smash them in a plastic bag with the bottom of a heavy saucepan or pulse in a food processor. If you don’t have pumpkin pie spice, simply use a blend of cinnamon, nutmeg and ground cloves.

Crust
1 ½ cups of graham cracker crumbs
¼ cup (3 tablespoons) melted unsalted butter
2 tablespoons agave syrup, honey or maple syrup

Filling
1 16 oz. package silky or soft tofu
1 8 oz. package cream cheese
1 15 oz. can pumpkin puree (about 1 ½ cups)
¼ cup (3 tablespoons) agave syrup or honey
¼ cup (3 tablespoons) brown sugar
2 teaspoons pumpkin pie spice
Pinch of salt
3 eggs

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Combine the cracker crumbs, butter and syrup or honey in a bowl and blend with a spoon or fingers until they’re moist. Press into the bottom of a tart pan or spring-form mold and bake in the oven for about 15 minutes. Let cool before adding the filling or else the heat from crust and pan will start to cook the filling; you can pop the whole pan into freezer to accelerate the cooling process. You can do this a day prior, too; just store the shell in the fridge.

Drain the tofu and crumble into a colander to drain off excess liquid. Blend the tofu, cream cheese, pumpkin puree, syrup or honey, sugar, spice and salt together in a large bowl and using a mixer or hand-held blender or food processor. Taste. If you want it sweeter or spicier, add more sugar or spice. The batter won’t look exactly smooth as the tofu will keep it a bit lumpy, so just blend it enough to get it consistency like small curd cottage cheese. Add the eggs one at a time and blend each one thoroughly into the batter. Pour the batter onto the cooled crust and bake for about 50 minutes to one hour or until the batter firms up and the edges brown slightly and start to come away from the sides of the pan. Let cool, then put into a refrigerator for at least four hours. It can be made up to two days in advance of serving.

Before serving, as a garnish, sprinkle the top with brown sugar, powdered sugar or a very light coating of nutmeg along the top. (The easiest way to do this is to put a small amount into a mesh sieve and wave over the top.) If you’re the type who likes nuts on their cheesecake, you can also garnish with candied walnuts, pecans or similar. Of course, a dab of freshly whipped cream is universally well loved.

You might also be interested in:
- Smitten Kitchen: How to make your own graham crackers
- Confections of a Foodie Bride: Pumpkin cheesecake brownies
- To Live and Eat in LA: Vegan pumpkin cheesecake
- Elena’s Pantry: Gluten-free cinammon cheesecake

For me, the holidays are all about the mashed potatoes and gravy. My niece Sarah won’t eat mushrooms, so I gently coaxed three large sweet onion to caramelize to a mahogany color and used them in a recipe similar to this one. I didn’t have any arrowroot to thicken it, and I don’t like the flavor of cornstarch. In a moment of inspiration, I took some oatmeal and pulverize it in the coffee grinder that I set aside for herbs. Voila! Instantly thickened gravy.

I’ve started to use the caramelized shallot butter from Fine cooking that we put on the roasted brussel sprouts for everything. That stuff’s addictive.

So, now I’m contemplating Christmas Eve dinner and Christmas Day dinner. We’ll have carnivore friends visiting us for the holiday. I’m eyeing the chard and lentil shepard’s pie, another dish from Kim O’Donnel’s book. I can always make a traditional one with beef. That should satisfy everyone, right?

Onion Herb Gravy
The stock determines whether this is vegetarian and the final flavor; traditional English gravies use beef stock. Use oil in place of butter along with vegetable stock to make it vegan-friendly. The onions can be caramelized a couple of days in advance; caramlized onions can also be frozen and make a great addition to virtually any savory dish.

If using a thin vegetable stock, the resulting gravy may need a boost to hit your desired thickness. Add a bit of any traditional thickener, such as arrowroot, potato starch, Wondra, tapioca or cornstarch or try my handy trick of whizzing some oatmeal in a coffee grinder. Be careful and add only a teaspoon at a time and whisk well to avoid creating lumps.

2 large sweet onions, such as Vidalia
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 bay leaf
1 1/2 tablespoon butter or vegetable oil
1 1/2 tablespoon flour
3 cups stock (vegetable, mushroom, poultry or beef)
1 teaspoon dried thyme
1/2 teaspoon dried sage
Coarse salt, black pepper

Thinly slice the onions. Add oil to a large skillet over medium-high heat and add the onions and bay leaf. Stirring regularly, saute the onions for about 10 minutes, adding splashes of water as needed to keep from sticking to the bottom of the pan. After 10 minutes, reduce the heat to medium-low and stir from time to time until the onions are a deep brown color, about 35 minutes.

When ready to make the gravy, melt the butter in a saucepan over medium-high heat. Make a roux by adding the flour and whisk to incorporate and lightly cook the flour until it smells like popcorn. Add the stock and bring to gentle boil while whisking. Add the onions, bay leaf, thyme, a couple pinches of salt and a few grinds of coarse pepper. Simmer for about 10 minutes. Spoon off any foam or fat that rises to the surface. Taste. Add more salt and pepper until it reaches the flavor you want. Remove the bay leaf before serving.

Yes, me, the woman who spent a year at Le Cordon Bleu stuffing meat into other meat and who has deboned and dismembered entire turkey for the past five years will be making a completely vegetarian menu. A couple of months ago, Mike and I watched the documentary Forks Over Knives. The gist: medical research increasingly shows that people with diets high in meat and dairy tend to be the most likely to suffer from obesity, diabetes, cancer and cardiovascular disease. This isn’t exactly breaking news, but the film focuses on an extensive labor of research known as The China Study. Mike and I had already started cutting our meat consumption already, but after watching the film, we made a pact to keep it to less than 10 percent.

Coincidentally, my mother and stepdad watched the film around the same time and came to the same conclusion. My mother went on a mission to get everyone in our extended family to watch it, and thus it’s been a domino effect resulting in all the people who will be seated at our Thanksgiving table this year didn’t want a turkey.

Most of my meat eating these days comes when eating out, as often the vegetarian options on menu seem lacking (or non-existant) and sometimes it’s just socially awkward. Plus, as a food writer, it’s sometimes part of my job to eat or try certain things.

But this new habit has altered my perspective. For example, I never noticed that most restaurants include meat on every single menu item, including salads. I got into a protracted discussion with a hotel restaurant manager in Los Angeles while on book tour after I asked about vegetarian options and the server brought me a kids menu since it offered spaghetti with marinara sauce (from a can) and mac and cheese, their only non-meat options.

It’s discouraging to see the wide swath of real estate devoted to meat in my supermarket here in Florida, only to see the organic vegetable and tofu ghetto stuffed into a dark corner of the produce section.  (The stocker I talked to said he’s “always restocking the tofu” since they sell a lot of it.)

This doesn’t mean that I’ll never write another recipe with meat, or that I’ll never roast another chicken or anything like that. But I think everyone could use shaking up the foundations of their diet and routines every now and then, don’t you?

With that, here’s the basic plan with another vegetable side (or two) to come from my sister. I’ll be sharing what I’m making as we go on Twitter, if you’d like to follow along.

Main dish

• Vegetable pot pie with cheddary biscuit crust courtesy The Meat Lover’s Meatless Cookbook by Kim O’Donnel

Appetizers

• Mushroom and lentil pate
• Pumpkin gyoza (by White On Rice)
• Carrot and rosemary soup (photo above)

Sides

• Mashed potatoes and parsnips (inspired by What Would Cathy Eat?)
• Baked sweet potatoes
• Caramelized onion gravy (similar to this one from Sweet Bean and Green)
• Porcini, apple and sage stuffing (inspired by Two Peas and their Pod)
• Mom’s cranberry and orange relish (similar to Elise’s at Simply Recipes)
• Roasted Brussels sprouts with shallot butter (from my friends at Fine Cooking)
• Green bean casserole with fresh green beans and my version of mushroom soup (recipe to come)

Desserts

• Five-spice pumpkin tofu cheesecake (an adaptation from Relish mag)
• Roasted apple and pear tart on a whole wheat crust

We also have a meyer lemon tree in our yard, so I’m looking for a healthy-ish lemon cream pie recipe. Anyone got one?

1. Get your chef’s knife sharpened. If you’ve got a good chef’s knife, take it in to get it sharpened ahead of the big meal. Some options: Most Sur La Table outlets, cutlery shops, good local hardware stores and even restaurant supply outlets. Don’t have a decent chef’s knife? Maybe it’s time for an early holiday gift for yourself. This is a good time to sharpen your knife skills.
2. Mise en place. In French, this loosely translates to “everything in place,” and it’s a common chef’s strategy for kitchen efficiency. Basically, it means get as much prepped as possible before cooking. In my house, I do most of the peeling, chopping and measuring of ingredients a night or two prior to cooking; simply put chopped stuff into storage bins or bags and mark them as needed. (Above photo.) You can even measure out ingredients for each recipe ahead of time, right down to spices. (Tip: Use little Dixie cups.) Put them all together with a photocopy or printout of the recipe. The next day, it’s not only a simple assembly job, it’s also a great place to steer that relative who arrives midday and says, “Can I help?” Now they can, without bothering you every couple of minutes to ask where you keep various items. Note: The one exception I make are potatoes for mashing. While you can store peeled potatoes in water overnight, they keep their color and taste better when freshly peeled.
3. Butter trick. Take sticks of butter and cut them into one tablespoon squares and set inside your fridge in a bowl. All the pros do this.
4. Hold food over steam, not just in the oven. One of the hardest thing for home cooks putting on a big meal is getting everything hot to the table at once. Most people hold things to keep them hot in the oven, but then that space becomes a premium if it’s still being employed, can overcook food. So, instead, think about those long steam tables at buffets and fill a few pans with water, heat it up, then place your serving bowl or pan in the hot water, cover it with a lid, foil or heat-resistant plastic wrap. Have more food than burners? I keep a couple of trivets near the stove and rotate the foods around as more food finishes as mealtime approaches.
5. If temperature friendly outside, use your grill. It can act as an extra burner.
6. Set your table the night (or even two) days before. Restaurants make sure all their tables are set for the next service. This includes making sure water pitchers are ready for filling, corkscrews are nearby for wine, water glasses are in place and so on. If you’re going to serve coffee, make sure you’ve got the coffee cups and set up the coffee ahead of dinner to be ready at dessert.
7. Inventory your service wear. Set out your serving bowls and serving utensils two days ahead of time. This is particularly important if you’re new to entertaining. Write out your menu, then pull down the dish you plan to serve it in from the turkey platter to whatever you’re serving butter for the rolls on, plus every single utensil you need. Put a post-it note on each item and leave them out if you can. In most cases, “missing” items can easily be borrowed. It’s better to know ahead of time than freaking at the last-minute that you didn’t think about a ladle for the gravy. Also, I can’t stress how valuable little tongs  and pie servers are when hosting a big dinner.
8. Out of counter space? Go vertical. Professional kitchens employ vertical racks known as “speed racks.” Depending on your kitchen, consider clearing out a cupboard hoarding cereals and pantry items and set it into a box in a bedroom so that you can use that area for extra space to set finished dishes, pies or collect all your mise en place while you’re cooking. (While you’re putting it back, go through the box and see what you’ve not used in the past six months and consider donating it to a food bank.)
9. Be safe. Ask everyone in your kitchen to wear shoes with closed toes while cooking; in the unusual activity and chaos that can occur in a kitchen, hot gravy or even a knife can fall unexpectedly and cause injury. Be sure you’ve got good oven mitts or invest in some cloth diapers and keep them handy and dry as anything even moist can transmit heat and cause burns. Keep handwash and paper towels near the sink and be sure everyone washes hands frequently, not just after touching the turkey. Keep counters clear of debris and avoid stacking anything perilously on counters.
10. Have a plan for the dishes. If you’re using separate dishes for dessert, stack them near the table. Count silverware to assure you’ve got enough, or set up a bowl with hot soapy water for a quick cleaning between courses. For years, I’ve employed a laundry basket or recycling bin as a bus tub. As dishes are gathered, they’re stacked in the tub along with non-fragile glassware (such as wine glasses), and set aside until ready for cleaning; the tub can even be set in another room or on the floor. They’re safe, out of the way and it eliminates the “immediacy” of having to race to immediately clean up.
11. Be realistic in your expectations, and forgive yourself if something doesn’t work out. Remember, Julia Child suggested that you avoid apologizing for anything you felt went wrong in the kitchen. So you cooked the green beans too long, or your pie doesn’t look like the picture. So what? No one is going to tell you to pack your knives go home. It’s Thanksgiving, and all you should do is give thanks for the good stuff in your life, and pack up the rest with the rest be leftovers.

In a similar vein over at What Would Cathy Eat?, Cathy Elton has laid down another challenge: a Heatlhy Thanksgiving. Several of my family members have cut down our meat consumption (more on that in another post), so this year Mike and I  decided it’s time for a vegetarian Thanksgiving.

Yes, you read that right. No deboned whole turkey, no heavily buttered white potato gratins. See, I’ve got this thing. I love my husband. He has some not-nice family history with heart disesase and didn’t score so great on a modern medical-style peek at his arteries, so we both agreed recently to cut back our meat and dairy consumption. But his first question was, “Well, when I don’t eat meat, what can I eat?” As it turns out, plenty.

I think that’s why I like Cathy’s site. After a heart condition led her doctor to recommend a bland diet - to which she responded, if memory serves, “No fucking way” – she overhauled her diet and proves that eating well doesn’t mean giving up great food or flavor.

It has always struck me as odd that we celebrate one of the most Puritan of holidays with one of the deadly sins (gluttony). Last year, I gained 10 pounds between mid-November and January 1st. I’m height-challenged at 5’3”, so while that gain might make some people’s jeans tight, it made it impossible to wear most of my clothes. I’ve decided this year, I don’t want to go there.

So, who’s with me? I’m not saying you have to give up the bird, but perhaps don’t wrap it in bacon, avoid the boxed stuffing, try to cut some of the calories out of that pumpkin pie and up your offering of vegetables. (See all of Cathy’s tips.) I’m going to post recipes as I find them, so if you know of some great options (including your own), let me know. I’ll even be hosting an online chat the week of Thanksgiving to answer questions and share what I’ve decided to make. If you’re on Twitter, follow the hashtag #healthythanks

Other links:

• In an embarssment of riches in terms of great coverage, here are a few of the best written reviews of the The Kitchen Counter Cooking School: The Cleveland Plain Dealer, The Wall Street Journal and Associated Press (it appeared all over, but here it is on the Today show site). Thanks for the kind and well thought-out words. I’m compiling a list of all the reviews in the next couple of weeks — when I get a chance to catch my breath.
• Chow Bella: I think that the folks behind the food section at New Times in Phoenix is on to something. They developed an online book club that paired with local bookstore Changing Hands to offer a discount on their selection. I’m deeply honored they selected my book as their first, especially since it prompted my publisher, Viking/Penguin to hastily add another tour date to send me there (as I write this, tomorrow). But it reminds me that even in an age-old industry as newspapers and bookstores, there’s always a new way to do what both mean to do: engage people and bring them together. It’s also made me think, maybe more authors should start online book clubs? I have so many books that I read that I think deserve an audience, plus I love books (especially books about food) and I adore talking about them. Stay tuned.

Registered dietician Samantha Heller said the changes being proposed by the Institute of Medicine are akin to the Energy Star ratings for appliances.

The front of the package would feature a check mark or star markings and the calorie count. The back of the package would have the traditional nutrition facts table. Currently, Heller explained, consumers get mixed messages when it comes to labeling. She said, “A package can say ‘high in fiber,’ ‘a good sourse of calcium’ and be high in saturated fat or sodium. Consumers aren’t sure what they are getting, and it’s very frustrating. … (The Institute of Health’s labels) are looking at calories and then evaluating saturated and trans fat, sodium, and added sugars. If you meet their criteria, you get a check mark for each, or a star. They are still working on this. It’s a work in progress, it’s an enormous undertaking, and food and nutrition is very complicated.”

Watch the full video report over at CBS News or read the full report online at the Institute of Health.

Yes, that's a horse

So I’m two weeks into the book tour for The Kitchen Counter Cooking School. I’m sitting at the hotel in Austin, Texas, gearing up for The Texas BookFest.

 I don’t have children, but I think that giving birth to a book is how you might feel if you had labor planned. I handed off this book nearly a year ago. It was coming out and once it did, there was no way to put it back in. I’m glad to report that it feels like this has been a relatively easy birth. Lots of great reviews, starting with one in People magazine right before our big event in New York at the Institute of Culinary Education. That was a fun night as author Pam Anderson (of “The Perfect Recipe” series and the upcoming Cook Without a Book: Meatless Meals) and Lauren Shockey, author of Four Kitchens and food writer over at the Village Voice. From there, Mike and I winged it down to Atlanta where we led an enthusiastic group through tastings of salt and Parmsean cheese right in the Barnes & Noble bookstore. Then, it was back to Seattle for our launch event at Elliott Bay Books not far from our house.

Lauren, me, Pam at ICE

That first week was exhausting and exhilirating. The second, a little tougher. Bookstore events are feast-and-famine affairs. One night, nearly 70 people in Seattle. At the next few events in California, only a handful turned out to each. That’s OK, it happens. Mike stayed home that week. On my own, I nearly missed a flight, I couldn’t sleep and by the time I got to Portland to hook up with him at the weekend, I was over the whole thing. But then, we had a great event at Quailhurst Winery in Sherwood, Oregon, and it reminded me how fun it can be on book tour. The winery itself is quite the posh affair, and they set up the chairs in an immaculate horse stable with laminated wood walls and old-fashioned gas-style lights. The turnout was great, people wandered in with bottles of wine and we had a great time. It also marks the first time I’ve had a horse attend one of my readings. The next night at Powell’s in Beaverton turned out to be a terrific event, too.

That's me signing her copy of my first book

A lot of authors dread book tour. Not me, at least not yet. Sure, I’m over TSA and airports, for instance. It takes planning to eat vaguely healthy; I’ve taken to carrying a little Built lunchbag with snacks. But it’s great to meet booksellers and readers face to face. It’s kind of like hooking up with old friends and meeting new ones. Plus, I’m interested in what people think about it, the same way new parents seem eager to get feedback on their handiwork. I’ve heard stories from coast to coast about people’s lack of confidence in the kitchen, or conversely, that people who felt confident cooking who have decided to help friends or family members learn a few skills. A couple of people have hugged me and cried; one woman showed me a photo of her first-ever roast chicken on her mobile phone. That’s worth dealing with the 3-1-1 rule on liquids and packing some hummus in Tupperware, right?

I’ll be in Austin this weekend, first as part of LitCrawl on Saturday night and then in a one-on-one chat at 11 a.m. Sunday morning with the wonderful food writer MM Pack. Next stops below. If you’re around, come out and see me! If you know people who live in places where I’m going, give them a heads up!

BAY AREA
Wednesday, Oct. 26th: Books Inc., Palo Alto
Thursday, Oct. 27th: Book Passage, Ferry Building, San Francisco

COLORADO/SOUTHWEST
Tuesday, Nov. 1st: Boulder Bookstore
Wednesday, Nov. 2nd: Tattered Cover, Denver
Thursday, Nov. 3rd: Changing Hands Bookstore, Phoenix

MIDWEST
Sunday, Nov. 6th: Chicagogourmets author dinner, Bistro Voltaire (almost sold out)
Wednesday, Nov. 9th: Next Chapter, Milwaukee

LOS ANGELES
Thursday: Nov. 10th: Diesel Books, Brentwood, Calif.
Friday-Sunday, Nov. 11-13th: Intl Food Bloggers Conference (speaker)

EAST & SOUTH
Wednesday, Nov. 16th: Kitchen Xhibition, Northeastern University, Boston 
         (free cooking demo, open to the public)
Saturday, Dec. 3rd: Malaprops, Asheville, N.C.
Thursday, Dec. 8th: Garden District Bookstore, New Orleans

I had met Jacques a couple of times in passing at IACP conferences, but there we were at his kitchen talking about my personal hero and petting his cute little dog. I gave him a copy of The Kitchen Counter Cooking School and by chance, it opened up on Chapter 2, titled “What Would Julia Do?” We talked about the project and teaching, and he said, “Well, yes, that’s what she would do. She always thought of herself as a teacher. She wanted people to cook and to appreciate food. She believed in it.”

Jacques has a new book out later this month, Essential Pepin: More Than 700 All-Time Favorites from My Life in Food.  He had an advance copy, and we started to talk about author-type stuff and Mike mentioned Author Central on Amazon.com. So then, Jacques invited us into his actual house. To meet his lovely wife. To see what they were making for dinner. Mike even did some troubleshooting on his Mac! In the end, I think Jacques may have been more impressed with Mike than me. When Jacques mentioned he was going out to Seattle to do an event with Nathan Myrvold, he asked Mike if he knew him. To which Mike answered, “Well, sure. I did the first webchat that Microsoft ever did with Nathan.” Then Jacques asked Mike a bunch of technical questions.

Just as we left, Jacques asked where we planned to have dinner after the book event and we told him Bar Bouchee, an adorable French bistro near our bed and breakfast. Unsurprisingly, Jacques knows the owner. When we arrived, the manager brought over two flutes of champagne — from Jacques Pepin. Sigh.

Just then, Mike pinched me. But then, he does that from time to time anyway.