Sound speed.
Cameras rolling.
One alpha take two, A and B cam only mark.
That wasn't a very energetic (clap)
Welcome to my Connecticut kitchen. I'm Dorie Greenspan and I'm a cookbook author.
It seems that I've lived most of my grown-up life in New York City,
here in Connecticut, and for the past 20 or so years in Paris, France.
Sometimes people will say oh you've got three houses and I think, Mmm I have three kitchens
because everywhere I am the kitchen is the most important place for me.
Today we're in Westbrook, Connecticut
which is along the Connecticut shoreline.
I didn't even know Westbrook existed until we bought this house.
We were coming up weekends and
I felt like I was breathing differently
to be here.
I've written some part of every book here
and I find this just the best place for me to work.
So this is the dining room and looking out is my desk and my
kitchen. So this is the ideal spot for me.
I can be in the kitchen working
If I have an idea, I can walk right over to the desk and tap it out.
If I'm at my desk and working and it's not going well, which happens
I say, "Oh, I can go bake."
I'm gonna make my French Vanilla Sablé.
This is a classic, classic French cookie.
So when Michael and I got married, we made a deal.
I would cook. He would clean.
He had experience cleaning. I had no experience cooking [laughter]
He's the best person to have in the kitchen.
If we're cooking for a bunch of people, he'll do some of the cutting.
He'll always clean as I'm always messing up things.
We all know this — there are a million other things to do when you're cooking
and Michael does those. It's great!
And he's a better dishwasher than I am [laughter]
When I'm working on a cookbook
I try to start with a list — my dream list of all the things
I would love to see in the book. And then, I never seem to follow the list
I know about how many recipes I want and I always have the chapters listed
but I don't always pay attention to those either.
I probably could be more productive if I paid attention.
Books for me kind of grow organically. I get excited
about something or I'm traveling and I see something and think, Oh, maybe I could
turn that into a recipe.
I would kind of by inspiration.
I work kind of by inspiration until I'm working by desperation which is, "Oh no! The deadline!
And do I have everything?"
I try to work on a recipe every day.
When I'm not working on a book I seem to be baking every day anyway.
Because I'm so far away from a supermarket, I really have to be thoughtful and organized
about what ingredients I need and where I'm going to get them.
It's not like shopping in Paris where if I want
Moroccan preserved lemon.
I can get it in Paris at like the equivalent of the 7-Eleven.
And I realized when I finished Everyday Dorie, I looked at the recipes
and I thought about how I had worked on the book
and I thought, This is my Connecticut book! This is the book with
the ingredients that came from the supermarket.
So I was pulling, coaxing
trying to get the most flavor out of every ingredient and to use every
ingredient in the most imaginative way that I could.
When I said, Oh I'm buying all of these ingredients from the supermarket, a friend of mine said
"Now you're cooking like all of us."
Michael's the bread baker and the family but he wasn't always.
Sometime before he was 30 he was out of work
and I came home and found his grandmother's soup pot
filled with baguettes that were still hot. And you know when you bake
bread the French call it "the music of the bread."
That you can hear the crust crackle when it comes out of the oven
And I got home just in time to hear the song of the bread.
I love when I come in and there are loaves in the oven.
Just whole house fills with this wonderful aroma of bread
and then we get to eat it. It's pretty great. It's pretty great.
I love tools.
I have way too many
But do you know how, when you're working
and you grab the right tool for the right job, I sometimes just take a moment and
think this is really nice.
Something as simple as a spatula
a silicone spatula. I have a few of them because if ever you find something good
buy more than one.
They have this lovely round, narrow handle
and so, when you're working you're often you know scraping something or you're stirring and you
want this to be able to move around comfortably in your hand.
They also come in baby size.
It just makes me happy to look at them.
I have, what I think of as a wardrobe of cooling racks
You can't have too many cooling racks
and you need at least three.
Here are some of my favorites.
This is a really old one, it's a French one
and the grid is kind of narrow.
This is a newer one, American, it's wider.
Better for cookies, good for cakes. Both are fine.
And my favorite rack for cookies
a nice big one so it's about the size of a baking sheet.
You can really get bunches of cookies.
This one's a keeper.
And my favorite, favorite rolling pin.
So I have a rolling pin that — it's a French pin meaning it doesn't have
handles. It's rounded at the edge; it's all the same size; and it's made of nylon
so it could go in the dishwasher.
So this rolling pin has travelled.
Oh this was a horrible story.
I went to Washington, DC. I think I was making a gingerbread house
for an NPR segment and I brought my rolling pin and got stopped by the TSA.
They called my rolling pin a lethal weapon.
So lethal that I was surrounded by TSA officials.
They brought in a female TSA
person to pat me down just in case I had, I don't know what, cookie cutters on me or something.
It was terrible!
So they took my pin. They said, "We have to take it. We're keeping it."
I said, "But it's my favorite pin!" They didn't care. They didn't care
They didn't care that it was my favorite.
When I cried, they felt sorry for me.
And so they let me take my pin.
It would have been terrible if they had taken my pin.
So sablé is a French word. It means sandy, which is not the prettiest word for food
but it describes how a shortbread, when it breaks there are
these little crumbs like sand.
I love to bake them in rings
so they're all the same size
and so I bake them in a muffin tin
and I like to sprinkle them with sanding sugar.
So I think inspiration comes from everywhere.
For me, ingredients always say something. They always suggest—
I'm not a crazy person. I don't walk through the supermarket listening to the zucchini
but because I think the only thing that I have in my brain is food.
Thoughts of food, thoughts of food.
Kind of no matter what I'm looking at there's an idea for something new.
The muffin tin keeps them from spreading, gives them just a little bit of height
a beautiful brown edge and this gorgeous texture
The house has been so many different things for us.
It was a runaway. It was a respite.
It was a vacation house.
It was always a good work space for me.
And it's lovely to be someplace that's known so many parts of your life.
If this kitchen could talk, it would say
You know, I think it might say I'm glad you're here.
I think it likes to be used.