A Big Recipe Bundle for You

And a quick dispatch from overseas

For the past week Vincent and I have been bouncing around Europe — we landed in Paris and from there went to Bordeaux, and to San Sebastián in Spain. Now we’ve just arrived up in Bristol to see friends.

The last time, and first time, that I visited France, Spain, and the UK was in 2007. It my first experience traveling abroad and I actually bought a one-way ticket, leaving open the possibility that I might stay. My mom, who’d died a year and a half earlier, had never traveled outside the US but had gotten her passport hoping for a European trip, and so I brought it with me. My budget was also different then, and I was traveling alone, which was something I enjoyed immensely for the first 75% of the trip, and then got quite tired of. It was a privilege to have the time and space to explore as much as I did then — being in France was when the concept of a daily shop (at the outdoor produce market) snapped into focus for me — and when I returned home to New York I was happy about it.

This time, almost 20 years later, it’s been such a pleasure to share the exploring with Vincent, who’s spent extensive time in Spain. It’s also been nice to have more money to spend. We’ve had no more than three nights in any one place, so each day is jam-packed with activities, and I honestly think is the best way to travel. Sure I’ll be exhausted when I get home, but on the other hand, one week feels like a month when there is so much going on. It’s been warm, and a delight to spend the full days wandering on foot.

And of course we’ve eaten so very well. In Paris, éclairs (my favorite) and cafés aux lait galore (I love the laptop-free coffee culture), an incredible shoyu-basted “steak” of celery root from Vivant 2 and a mushroom stuffed buckwheat galette from Brutus. In Bordeaux, we had customary canelés (which originated, I learned, out of the need to use up an excess of egg yolks — the egg whites were needed for clarifying all the wine), and, in our 24-hour turnaround, also squeezed in a quick tour of St. Emilion. In San Sebastián and Basque country, an unbelievably beautiful place, we dove into the chaotic thrill of a pintxos crawl, took in the lushly rolling oceanside landscape, and had more excellent coffee in spaces devoid of laptops. Traveling by train is an utter pleasure, too. If you’re looking for travel recommendations, I’ll be happy to share our itinerary.

But more importantly I’m overdue to share a recipe bundle, one of the perks of your paid-subscriber status. I love sending these, because they give me a look back at the past several months of cooking — the seasons and the various moods that informed the recipes. At the bottom of this message you’ll find a PDF that includes all of the recipes since last May. (If you’re like me, you’ll want to print this out and slip into your recipe folder.) But I’ve also included links to all these newsletters.