EAT DESSERT
STRICTLY SPEAKING, humans don’t require dessert in the same way they do protein or vitamins. Yet people talk about “needing” a little something sweet at the end of the day. Many of the same chefs who insist they delight mainly in savory foods nonetheless get near-rhapsodic about desserts they have known. To pick on one, let’s take Ming Tsai, who once worked as a pastry chef in Paris under macaron king Pierre Hermé. “If I’m going to use up calories I’d rather have savory,” he starts to tell me. Then: “But a really good cheesecake from New York? Absolutely. Oh, and I had the best doughnut recently, and pâte à choux filled with a marshmallow mascarpone cream; I ate, like, ten of those. So, yeah, every now and then.”
Rick Moonen tells me something charmingly relatable: “Growing up I was chubby and I did some whacked-out shit: I’d eat chunks of brown sugar, or we would challenge each other to eat a tablespoon piled high with cocoa, and you’d turn it into fudge with the saliva in your mouth—you would laugh and powder would come out your nose.” But in recent years, says Moonen, he’s all but sworn off sweets. “I don’t like what sugar does to me,” he says. Mark Bittman doesn’t eat sugar during the day, and Nate Appleman limits treats to Sunday with his son. But never having dessert doesn’t work for anyone. Life is meant to be sweet.
Lesson 57: Smart chefs eat chocolate
By this I do not mean brownies, or chocolate-glazed doughnuts, or hot fudge on your ice cream. The number one sweet among chefs who spoke with me is straight-up dark chocolate, usually in bar form. Several said roughly the same thing: “Give me a really good piece of bittersweet chocolate.” Or, “Just a square of dark chocolate,” a square meaning the variably sized piece of a bar they can feel good about eating in one sitting. This is certainly a reasonable way to enjoy something sweet without causing major caloric destruction. Even Art Smith, who, as someone living with diabetes, is extremely conscientious about how much sugar he eats, says, “I still have chocolate every day.” As for other desserts, he advises, “You have to say to them: ‘Yeah, you’re a friend of mine, but you can’t visit often.’” But a small amount of dark chocolate (with a high percentage of chocolate and a lower percentage of sugar) gets a pass from nearly everyone.
Here’s my one issue with the “just a square” proposition: I may need only a square, but when I’m holding the other seven squares in my hand . . . I want them too. Mark McEwan is with me on this: “You could not unwrap a large chocolate bar near me and not have me finish it,” he says. “I’m not capable of not eating it.”
As a compromise, you could buy those individually wrapped bite-size chocolates, but here’s a better solution: more chocolate. Eric Ripert keeps a well-stocked supply of high-quality chocolate bars on the credenza in his office. “You will freak out when you see how much chocolate I have,” he says. I take a peek: It’s an impressive stack, with a dark chocolate–pink peppercorn bar balanced on top.
I soon understood that the idea of polishing off, in one sitting, the supply of chocolate bars in Ripert’s office is absurd. So I started buying more chocolate, keeping three bars at a time in the cupboard. Shared with my husband and son, the chocolate actually lasted more than a week, enjoyed slowly and communally, a few squares at a time each night.
Which is not to say that the bars didn’t sometimes call to me during the day when I was home writing, and I found myself having an inner dialogue that sounded very much like actual conversations I’ve had with my actual child. It usually took place around four p.m. and sounded (silently) something like this:
“There’s chocolate in the cupboard. Can I eat it now?”
“No, the rule is chocolate at the end of the day. If you eat it now, you won’t be able to enjoy it then. And you know you are going to want it.”
“Right.” Pause. “Can I eat it now?”
“No. But I promise you can have a piece later.”
“Okay. Later.”
Then I would forget about it. Before you get really worried about me, those conversations in my head ended as soon as I internalized the after-dinner chocolate rule. I actually stopped craving it at any other time. It helped to know that, as in Eric’s office, there was always a supply. I had a little bit, and put the rest back and revisited it another night. You know what? It was never not delicious.
Lesson 58: They battle temptation by occasionally giving in
If you have to work on your birthday, is there a better assignment to have than to go to Jacques Torres’s chocolate store and interview Mr. Chocolate himself?
I dare not tell Jacques it is my birthday. Last time I came to visit him with my son in tow, we left with a three-foot-tall milk-chocolate Easter bunny and a small retinue of ten-inch rabbits—all of which we had made, with Jacques’s guidance, after donning hairnets and white lab coats. (The big bunny went to an Easter party at a friend’s church, but the three of us carved off pieces of the smaller ones after dinner for many days running. Each night my husband would retell just the punch line of a fairly gruesome joke: “A pig that special, you don’t eat all at once.”) Later Jacques will sweetly chide me, “Why didn’t you tell me it was your birthday?” Self-preservation, that’s why.
A few years earlier, Torres was about thirty pounds heavier. You might think that working around pastry and chocolate for thirty years might have been the inevitable cause of his weight gain. But Jacques is fairly restrained around chocolate, preferring dark to milk, and pure chocolate over loaded confections. We settle into a table in the café area of his Hudson Street location. Is he as distracted as I am by the toasty perfume of cocoa in the air? Perhaps working around it all the time, he doesn’t even notice anymore.
“Can you smell that?” I ask.
“Yes, we are making chocolate today,” he says. “We have five hundred kilos of fresh chocolate. We just roasted the beans and it’s ready, so today it is smelling a bit more.” He is almost apologetic. I am swooning. This is really one of those places where you tell yourself: If I worked here, I would gain weight. How does he not?
“I certainly eat more chocolate than normal people,” he tells me. He’ll pick at dark chocolate, or nuts if they are coming out of the roaster. His biggest weakness is ice cream fresh from the churn. “Yes, this is a problem, because if I pass in front of the freezer when the ice cream comes out, I’m going to get some. It’s the best time to eat ice cream. It’s magic.” Despite occasionally giving in to the call of fresh ice cream, Torres sounds a common refrain: “Having a passion to make chocolate doesn’t mean eating chocolate all day.” Because he can have wonderful sweets whenever he wants, he doesn’t crave them in the same strong way a layman might when entering one of his stores.
Home is another story. In the evening, Torres is one of us. “You watch TV and you think, ‘Do I have anything sweet?’ So I keep no sweets in my apartment. And believe me, I could make some pretty good sweets.” We are sitting next to a column stacked with some of his signature treats: small cellophane bags of dark chocolate–covered cornflakes and milk chocolate–covered Cheerios. For a guy who grew up with the French no-between-meals eating rule, he has certainly mastered the American art of making snack food. “I would not bring this in my home,” he says. “If you open a package, you finish it. I don’t go there.” When he is forced to test his will, he admits defeat. Last weekend he brought home eight cookies, expecting eight guests, but there turned out to be only five. What became of the extra three cookies? Torres admits, as if even he is surprised by what happened next, “For breakfast, I had cookies!”
After our interview, Jacques asks whether I’d like a hot chocolate. This I cannot resist. It is, after all, my birthday.
Lesson 59: If having a little sugar leads to having a lot, smart chefs avoid it
Torres has figured this out for himself: Don’t bring home the cookies/chocolate/ice cream, and you won’t be tempted to finish off the whole package. But what to do when you live with someone who, infuriatingly, can eat one spoonful of ice cream and put the rest of the pint back in the freezer until tomorrow night?
From a gastronomic standpoint, Karen and Quinn Hatfield have a mixed marriage. “I’m the moderate in the family,” says Karen, the pastry chef and manager of the Hollywood restaurant they own together, Hatfield’s. “Quinn is the all-or-nothing guy. You can’t give him ice cream, because he’ll eat the whole container. But he can go without ice cream, whereas I love a little taste, and can have just a little bit.”
It’s true, her husband confirms. “I’m a huge sugar junkie. I’d be eating candy all the time. That’s something I have to try really hard not to do.” Though Quinn now has the physique of a competitive cyclist, back when he was building his career in New York he was heavier and felt he needed to do something about it. “The thing that clicked for me was watching my sugar,” says Quinn. “I lost forty pounds.”
Though she says nothing when she hears this, Karen’s face indicates that she doubts his claim. Quinn counters, citing the numbers, “I went from 210 to 175.”
“That’s thirty-five pounds,” she corrects with a smile.
Regardless, Quinn continues. “Eliminating sugar worked for me. As I said, I have issues with sugar. If I wake up and eat my daughter’s Gorilla Munch, then it’s a sugar day and I eat sugar all day. If I go out to dinner, I’ll eat every dessert on the table, go home, and feel bad about it. The next day, I won’t eat any sugar.”
“Really? None?” I ask.
Karen pipes up again, this time in his defense. “His self-control is very impressive. He can fast. He’s done raw diets. For me, no. I have no desire to go to those extremes. I like sugar; I don’t have a problem with it. When I’m working on a new dish, I have to eat it. So I might skip lunch that day.” In part because she is disinclined to exercise with the same intensity as her husband does, Karen is careful to monitor and balance what she’s eating, whether it’s ice cream or other rich foods.
If she is going to eat dessert, Karen is really going to enjoy it. Here’s what she likes: “Everything. Doesn’t matter if it is fruit or chocolate or whatever. I like desserts made with skill, good ingredients, and balance.” She’s known for tempting diners with sophisticated roasted fruit cakes, and crowd-pleasers like chocolate–peanut butter truffle cake. “There are two schools of pastry chefs,” Karen continues. “You’ll encounter some who tell you they don’t really like sweets. I am not down with that at all. I love it. It’s no mystery why I got into this profession. I started messing around with this stuff at a very young age, and I haven’t changed all that much. I like to bake; I like to see what other people have baked. I like it all.”
Here’s where it gets tricky for her husband and his sugar-avoidance plan. In their house, he says, “She’s always got cookies, ice cream, some See’s Candies. . . .”
“You’re painting quite a picture!” She laughs. “Yes, I always have something. Not all of them at once.”
“She’s good about eating just two pieces of chocolate,” he says with a mix of admiration and envy. “For me, it was a matter of learning I just have to stay away from it.”
Lesson 60: They know what they want (and why they want it)
As dessert is largely a “want” food, not a “need” food, if you’re going to have it, have exactly what you desire. “I go straight for the chocolate,” says Alex Guarnaschelli. “Go for the gusto, sit down opposite the food demon, look him in the eye, eat a block of chocolate, and move on. Don’t kid yourself. Yes, I love fruit. But, really?”
Guarnaschelli tries also to be conscious of why she’s reaching for something sweet. “Food is very personal, and very emotional. If I don’t feel good or if I’ve had a crappy day, I’m going to have to ‘quality-test’ the chocolate sauce. That’s no accident. It’s hard not to say you deserve those things.”
Sue Torres has a different approach to managing what she calls, only half in jest, her chocolate problem. “I’ve programmed my mind to go for the natural sweet. So I have at least a fruit a day, or fruit with yogurt to satisfy that need.”
I have been trying to convince my son that fruit is an acceptable dessert. I’m sure I will be successful as soon as I convince myself of it. What I’ve been able to manage is a combination of Alex’s and Sue’s philosophies: Eat some fruit first, and if the chocolate is still beckoning, have a bit of that too.
If you are always ordering a berry tart because you think it is somehow more virtuous than the flourless chocolate cake that you really want (but never let yourself have), you may consume fewer calories, but will even those reduced calories be worth it?
“I won’t bother with things I don’t love,” says Michelle Bernstein. Here’s what’s worth it, to her: “The Lady M’s crepe cake in New York. It’s probably one of the best things I’ve ever put in my mouth. I’ve had a birthday party in Miami and spent an exorbitant amount of money to order it. It’s a cake of paper-thin crepes layered with pastry crème. You put that damn thing in front of me, and I’ll eat it. I don’t care. If I go to Joe’s Stone Crab, I have to have a piece of key lime pie with a cup of coffee. But I go to Joe’s Stone Crab maybe twice a year.” This is a good test: If you can’t describe from memory a dessert that you ate half a year ago, it probably wasn’t worth having.
Though Bernstein rarely orders much dessert (“an espresso with sugar and a cookie after lunch is perfect”), somehow desserts find their way to her table when she dines out and is recognized by the kitchen. This, she says, is not—repeat, not—a crisis situation. “If they send me out a piece of cake, I’ll eat the cake. I won’t say no to the cake,” says Bernstein. “Rather than think, ‘I can’t eat these things,’ I think, ‘Okay, I’ll have a little cake now, and I won’t have it later.’ If I have it tomorrow, I won’t have it for three days after. You have to compromise with yourself.”
Lesson 61: They know how much dessert they actually need
When was the last time you went out to eat with friends and everyone ordered his or her own dessert? Never, right? Typically everyone gets his own dinner, his own drinks, and then as soon as the dessert menus are passed around, the sharing suddenly rivals that in group therapy. I’m in favor of sharing when it is to divide and conquer more of a menu. But dessert sharing is a pantomime of, “Oh, I couldn’t eat another bite, but the brownie sundae looks pretty good.”
Again, I’m going to defer to Chef Murphy, who has taken a bold stand on his menu: He offers only tiny desserts, too small to share. “If you go out with four people for dinner—what happens at the end? They share because nobody can eat a full dessert,” he says. “But those two like chocolate; these two like crème brûlée. So what are they going to order, the chocolate mousse or the crème brûlée? Two people get stuck not having what they want. Or they order both and overeat and leave your restaurant feeling like shit.”
His solution was to offer desserts that are very small. “You get your chocolate mousse, and I’ll get my crème brûlée, and it’s the right size—three bites. That’s what a dessert should be, or you end up waddling out of there because you’re so stuffed. You don’t sleep well with all that sugar.”
At Sang Yoon’s Lukshon, the dessert is equally small, and free. “We give away dessert here,” he says. “Why? First, most adults, with some exceptions, only want one or two bites of something sweet. Second, economically, most restaurants don’t make any money on pastry. To sell dessert you have to remenu the table. ‘Do you want anything? Should we share something?’ The table is held hostage while you go through this big decision. So we have a pastry chef doing all great stuff, just miniature. It’s like getting an amuse bouche, only at the end of the meal, when it has more impact and value.”
The night I stop in with some friends, my dessert is a Vietnamese coffee custard with coffee streusel and condensed-milk ice cream, served in a shot glass. Just the right amount, though perhaps not for all of Lukshon’s customers. “Some people say, ‘Can I have more?’ No,” says Yoon. “We don’t sell it. It’s like a fortune cookie, or when you go out for Korean or Chinese food, you always get the four slices of orange. It’s that symbolism, but ours is way better. They are gorgeous and rich, and it satiates that craving.”
I think what he and Murphy are doing is perfect. But would everyone share my enthusiasm for the three-bite dessert? I took a classic chocolate mousse recipe—dark chocolate, butter, egg whites, sugar, heavy cream, and vanilla—that is intended to serve four and divvied it up into ten tiny ceramic sake cups. (I had some left over.) Those each hold about thirteen grams—much more reasonable than the 105 grams (including twenty-four grams of fat) in each original serving. Would my dinner guests agree, or would they think us crazy for serving miniature desserts? Too late now, I thought, while melting my chocolate bars in a bowl over simmering water and listening to the very fine first CD from France’s first lady, Mme. Sarkozy. When our friends Mark and Kristina came over, I explained about tiny desserts. They liked the idea—especially Kristina. Everyone raved about the mousse. My son wanted another, so we let him have one. Once there were requests for more, it seemed miserly not to bring the rest out. So Mark had another. So did my husband. The last two little mousses sat in the center of the table while we sipped our decaf and kept talking. Eventually, Kristina and I began eyeing the remaining mousses. They were so small; what could having another one hurt? In the end, we ate more than we intended to. But it was only a first attempt, and I’m willing to try again. Tiny dessert in a restaurant is perfection; tiny dessert at home takes practice.
Jacques Torres’s Chocolate-covered Cereal
If you’ve never cooked with tempered chocolate before, you might believe you can skip that step and coat the cereal in merely melted chocolate. But in order to bring chocolate’s fat molecules back into alignment for a shiny, snappy coating, you need first to raise the temperature of the chocolate (you can do this in the microwave), then lower it to just about 88º, and keep it there while working with it.
makes about 6 dozen clusters
4 cups very crisp cornflakes or other non-sugarcoated cereal
1 pound bittersweet chocolate
1. Temper the chocolate: Place chopped, room-temperature chocolate in a microwave-safe bowl, preferably glass, and melt on high for 15 to 20 seconds at a time, until you have a slightly lumpy mix with about ⅓ of the chocolate still solid. With a rubber spatula, transfer the chocolate to a clean, cold bowl. Using a handheld blender (and a cooking thermometer, though not in the bowl simultaneously), beat the chocolate until it is smooth and the temperature has dropped to between 88º and 90ºF (32ºC). At this temperature, it is ready to work with.
2. Line two rimmed baking sheets with parchment paper.
3. Place the cereal in a large bowl and pour about half the tempered chocolate over the cereal. Using a rubber spatula, toss to coat evenly.
4. The chocolate will begin to cool and set. When the first coating has set, pour in the remaining chocolate and toss again to coat evenly.
5. Working quickly while the chocolate is still pliable, scoop small mounds of the cereal and place them on the baking sheets. Let stand for about 30 minutes, until hardened completely. If your kitchen is very warm, you can place the sheets in the refrigerator to speed the setting, but for no more than 10 minutes.
6. To store: Layer the clusters, separated by sheets of waxed paper, in an airtight container. Can be kept at room temperature for up to two weeks. (Author’s note: If you are able to keep these around for two weeks, congratulate yourself on your willpower.)
Adapted from A Year in Chocolate: 80 Recipes for Holidays and Special Occasions by Jacques Torres. Stewart, Tabori & Chang, 2008.
Alex Guarnaschelli’s Lemon-almond Cookies
Made with beaten egg whites, these cookies are delicate, delicious, and very easy to make.
makes 4 dozen cookies
2½ cups powdered sugar
2 cups almond flour
5 egg whites
½ teaspoon cream of tartar
1 vanilla bean, scraped (or 1 teaspoon vanilla extract)
Zest of 1 lemon
Nonstick spray
1. Coat 2 large baking sheets with a layer of parchment paper. Spray the paper with a thin layer of nonstick spray.
2. Preheat oven to 200ºF.
3. In a medium bowl, sift together the powdered sugar and almond flour.
4. In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment, beat the 5 egg whites on medium speed for 1 minute to combine. Add the cream of tartar and beat the whites on high speed until soft peaks form, about 2 to 3 minutes. Add the scraped vanilla bean seeds and continue beating until it is fully incorporated and the whites are glossy, 2 to 3 minutes. Remove the bowl from the mixer and use a rubber spatula to gently fold in the lemon zest and the sugar-flour mixture.
5. Place heaping teaspoonsful of the batter about 2 inches apart on the prepared baking sheets. Take care to leave space between each cookie, because this batter spreads as it bakes.
6. Put the tray in the center of the oven and bake for 8 minutes; then raise the temperature to 375ºF and bake until the cookies are golden brown around the edges and form a nice shell-like exterior, about 10 to 15 minutes. Remove from the oven and allow them to cool for a few minutes before carefully removing them from the tray.
Recipe courtesy of Alex Guarnaschelli.
Karen Hatfield’s Apple Galette
“Having friends over is one of our favorite things to do,” says Karen. Well, it was before they had two small kids. But even when it was just the two of them, they kept meals simple and rustic. “Quinn and I are kind of traditional—we’re not home experimenting.” She’s also not a big home baker—her finely calibrated ovens and measuring instruments at the restaurant have spoiled her for the inaccuracies that can come with nonprofessional tools. She loves fruit tarts, though, and this one is easy enough for the amateurs among us to execute.
serves 4
FOR THE GALETTE DOUGH:
4 ounces (1 stick) cold butter
¼ teaspoon salt
1⅓ cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon sugar
FOR THE FILLING:
2 large (about 8 ounces each) Granny Smith apples
Granulated sugar for sprinkling
Melted butter for brushing
1. Cut butter into 2-tablespoon-size pieces and place in the freezer for 10 minutes. Measure the salt into ¼ cup cold water; stir well and place in the freezer for 10 minutes.
2. In the bowl of a food processor, place the flour and sugar. Pulse to combine. Remove the lid, add the butter, and pulse to combine until the butter is pea-size. With the motor running, stream in the water. As soon as all the water has been added, turn the motor off and scrape down the sides of the bowl. Pulse until the dough just comes together. Wrap in a large piece of plastic wrap and chill for at least 2 hours.
3. Preheat oven to 400ºF. Roll out between 2 sheets of parchment paper until the dough is about ¼-inch thick and almost 10 inches in diameter. Keep refrigerated on a parchment-lined baking sheet until ready to use. Meanwhile, peel and core the apples. Slice the apples thin, about ⅛-inch thick. Sprinkle 1 to 2 tablespoons sugar over the bottom of the dough. Arrange the apple slices on top of the dough in a circular fashion, overlapping the slices just slightly. Using a pastry brush, brush the apple slices generously with melted butter and sprinkle with sugar. Bake until apples have browned slightly and the dough is fully cooked and lightly browned, about 35 to 40 minutes.
Adapted from Karen Hatfield.
Gregory Gourdet’s Spice-roasted Stone Fruit
“Work takes up twelve hours of my day, so cooking at home has to be quick and easy—including dessert,” says Gregory. “This dish is packed with ripe fruit and big flavors.” It is also vegan. (He likes to serve it with a nondairy coconut ice cream.) This works well with any summer stone fruit; or in fall with pears. Don’t leave off the last drizzle of olive oil or the chili flakes.
4 to 5 ripe, fragrant plums or other fruit, washed, pitted, and cut into eighths
6 tablespoons agave nectar
½ ounce fresh gingerroot (about a 1-inch knob), peeled and cut into thin matchsticks
1 tiny pinch red chili flakes
Olive oil
Sea salt
4 cinnamon sticks
4 whole star anise
Zest of 1 lime
Nondairy coconut ice cream (optional)
1. Preheat oven to 425ºF.
2. Coat the inside of a small (8-inch square or similar) ovenproof dish with a very thin layer of oil.
3. In a medium bowl, toss plum slices with agave, gingerroot, and chili flakes. Place in the prepared baking dish and drizzle with olive oil and a tiny pinch of salt. Place the cinnamon sticks and star anise over the plums.
4. Roast until soft and caramelized on the edges and juices thicken, about 30 to 40 minutes. Let cool to just warm.
5. Divide the plums, avoiding the sticks and stars, among 4 dessert bowls. Finish each with a sprinkle of sea salt, a rasp of lime zest, the ice cream (if using), and a drizzle of olive oil.