The Mustard Zone

I’m so excited to be in Boston this Spring since I got to be here to meet the Chocolate & Zucchini Blogger, Clotilde Dusoulier at The French Library!

Clotilde talked about her life (both in California and Paris), her blog, and the process of writing and publishing a cookbook.
She is very passionate about food and gave a very personal talk. She speaks as if she is talking to a group of friends and not giving any kind of formal lecture. She is also very funny and very pretty!

After the talk, there was French wine and a sampling of three recipes from her new cookbook:

Green Bean Salad with Pecans and Dry-Cured Ham
Chocolate Raspberry Cake
(and of course!) Chocolate & Zucchini Cake

I liked the cakes the best.

I spent the rest of the night speaking with Megan and Kelly. They were both so fun and interesting to talk to that I hope we run into each other again for some more French food and drink! We’ll have to try and practice our French next time!

I am counting down the days until July 1st when I move into my new, posh Harvard Square apartment with a real kitchen. I’ve been living in the worst conditions in a tiny studio and sans oven for the last 3 months and oh, how I hate not being able to make all those American dishes I used to miss when I was in France. It’s such a shame to be passing by all those ingredients I now have such easy access to.

I think my first recipe from the book will probably the zucchini carpaccio with raspberry vinegar since that requires no cooking and sounds really healthy.

When Clotilde was signing my copy of her book I asked her if she thinks the French will be as receptive to her recipes as the Americans, since almost all of her recipes use very unexpected pairings of ingredients (avocado and strawberry, beef bourguignon with chocolate, mashed potatoes and anchovies). I only asked because all of the French people I know think it’s a scandal if you even so much as add some exotic spices to foie gras or try and add mushrooms to ratatouille. All the ones I know also never use any kind of spices in their cooking or at the most they’ll use just one since they think that mixing too many flavors together does not complement the main ingredient but is instead overpowering. (She replied that she thinks things in France are changing.) Hopefully Clotilde will one day open a restaurant of her own! She said it wasn’t something she was interested in doing but perhaps she’ll change her mind if we’re lucky.

Congratulations Clotilde and thank you for signing your book for me!

Some of Clotilde’s photos from her book tour can be found on her Moblog.

This entry was posted on Friday, May 18th, 2007 at 3:39 am and is filed under Food, Fun in Boston. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.