Category Archives: Uncategorized

You may be wondering what a Caesar salad has to do with French cooking. Very little, but I want to feel free with this blog to veer off message every now and then when I get the urge to cook something outside of Julia Child’s culinary canon. I’ve always been a fan of the humbleContinue reading “Hail Caesar!”

After last week’s hollandaise disaster, I approached the challenge of mastering the art of mayo with trepidation. Luckily, the sauce is served cold, which makes it significantly easier to create than its creamy cousin. As with hollandaise, egg yolks are used as emulsifiers, only this time rather than melted butter, the sauce is made withContinue reading “In praise of mayonnaise”

Hollandaise and I have a rocky relationship. It’s not that I don’t like the sunshine yellow sauce – I adore it. It’s just that it’s so damn difficult to make. I remember trying to impress a boyfriend once by cooking him eggs Benedict for brunch and nearly weeping in the kitchen from the stress ofContinue reading “Jolly hollandaise”

One of the mother sauces of French cuisine, béchamel forms the base of a number of classic French sauces and can be made even more marvellous with the addition of butter, egg yolks and cream. While the white sauce has been celebrated in France since the 17th century, its roots like in Renaissance Tuscany, whereContinue reading “Béchamel mucho”

After watching Nora Ephron’s supremely comforting Julie & Julia on Boxing Day, which sees New York food blogger Julie Powell attempting to work her way through culinary maven Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking, I felt inspired to unleash my inner Child. While I’ve long been a food lover, my approach to cookingContinue reading “Unleashing my inner Child”