formalities

Weddings in the Mountains

Occasionally I come across young event planners doing creative, highly-individualized events that are so good I just have to tell you about them. Virginia Edelson runs Bluebird Productions, an event coordination and design firm based in Aspen, Colorado. She works throughout the West, specializing in innovative, personalized events, and she revels in making every detail of a party or wedding unique and memorable. Photo by Rebecca Sanabria Virginia manages all aspects of her events, from design to budget to selecting the […]

recipes

Pear Clafoutis

Pear Clafoutis Serves: 8-10 Prep time: 1 ½ hours, plus 2 ½ hours for dough to chill For the pastry dough: Note: This is more dough than you will need for a single 9-inch pie pan. However, if you use a spring form pan, as I did, and you want to push the dough up the sides of the pan, this will give you enough dough to do that. For the poached pears: Glaze for pears:

food

Pear Clafoutis

Sometimes the visual element of cooking is so overpowering that how a dish tastes becomes nearly an afterthought. This pear clafoutis (pronounced claw-foo’-tee) looks as if it belongs in a Dutch still life, with ethereal-looking Bosc pears poking out of a golden custard as if they’re rising from the earth. It evokes a primal memory, like Stonehenge or Carnac: the solstice beckons. Emerson once said “There are only ten minutes in the life of a pear when it is perfect […]

food

Roland Mesnier, White House Pastry Chef

Every now and then in life we meet someone who is so very gifted, so extraordinarily skilled at what they do, that it takes one’s breath away. Roland Mesnier is one of those people.  He is a genius. I had the privilege of working with him at the White House, and it was a memorable experience for me. Roland was the Executive Pastry Chef in the White House from 1979 until 2004. His creations were so technically perfect, culturally astute, […]