We eat thousands of meals in our lifetimes, but just a fraction of them are impactful enough to endure in our memory. And sometimes eating, much like breathing, becomes nothing more than a secondary action. Repetition of any action dulls the senses over time, but imagine if you could hit reset and treat each moment as the first. Even the most ordinary things can unlock the most profound inspirations.
For me, my first real memory of food is a simple one: the warmth of the baguette between my legs as my dad drove home from the neighborhood bakery; the smell of the yeast filling the car; the crinkle of the wax paper bag; and the crunch of the crust as I wrestled off piece after piece, starting from the heel, and devoured them with delight. That baguette did not survive long enough to make it to the family dining table. The vividness of this memory lingers in my mind like a scene from a dream.
Just what about this baguette—from a no-name bakery, made by the hands of an unknown baker—made it stand out from all the other more extravagant meals I’ve had? I struggled to find the answer for years, and then realized it was all about timing. So much of food and good cooking is just that: paying attention to the invisible yet indispensable ingredient of time. Just as every flower blooms until its peak right before the blossom wilts, all foods—in fact, all creations—have that perfect moment as well. And when the timing is right, a simple thing can become transformative. Pure and immaculate, it can nourish not only the senses, but also the soul.
Preparing a great pastry is always a rush or a wait for that perfect moment.
Every crusty, custardy, sweet cannelé resists the shortcuts cooks try to use in making them. There is no cheating when it comes to a cannelé, and in these pages you’ll learn why. I’ll talk about madeleines and how they’re similar to cherry blossoms in the beauty and the brevity of their shelf life. Just five minutes out of the oven, and they are a completely different product. The opposite holds true for the macaron, and I explain why it’s one of the items not meant to be eaten fresh. Finally, I share my story of why I’ve never had a decent chocolate chip cookie in France, and why I think moments in time have everything to do with that.
We live in a world where every creation strives to be both instantaneous and eternal. To respect time as the supreme ingredient is a battle of breaking habits and changing perceptions. Nobody likes to wait; nobody likes to rush. But when you treat time as an ingredient, it changes everything.