Friday, June 05, 2009

The Sweet Life in Paris: Chocolate coconut marshmallows

Cute! And delicious, too.

My foolish children objected to the coconut, but I loved everything about David Lebovitz's bouncy little marshmallows. Lebovitz calls for unsweetened coconut but next time (and there will be one) I'm trying sweetened coconut for an Almond Joy effect. Sadly, Lebovitz doesn't offer this recipe on his blog, but he did write a little essay about his inspiration which you can read here

In other news, my review of Michael Ruhlman's Ratio ran in Slate the other day. It was shockingly hard to write because I had so many conflicting thoughts and feelings about the book, so I ended up focusing mostly on my demented, happy experience cooking with his ratios. Baking Epiphanies (who has been baking some crazy-beautiful tres leches cupcakes) pointed out that Ruhlman responded warmly to the piece on his blog. And so he did, though he was obviously ruffled by my description of the book as "pompous." He and some of his commenters made me wonder if had misused the word so I looked it up in the dictionary and decided I hadn't. I thought the book was pompous -- but also "fascinating!" Let's not forget "fascinating!"

Actually, he's very cool about it. If I were him, I would have fixated on the "pompous" and been unable to see past it at all. 

4 comments:

  1. I completely agree with your review and your spot on use of the word pompous to describe R's tone. His writing has become increasingly off-putting.

    Ozzyct

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  2. Besides, when the author himself cops to it and also uses the word "ecstatic" to describe his experience of reading, you can assume s/he isn't too bent out of shape. How fun! Thanks for letting us all in to your kitchen.

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  3. He seemed quite pleased at the effect his book had on you, so I think that outweighs any rufflement. Besides, he is pompous. The whole idea of Ratio is a pompous one. Interesting, but definitely pompous.

    The marshmallow does look cute. One day I'll get around to making those...

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  4. ...i did not read the R's cookbook but it seems to me that ratio does work with certain foods: stews, bread, cookies, salads, soups.... it's sort of throwback idea to the pioneer cook who put in one part this and one part that....pre Fanny Farmer..

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