Desserts & Sweets | Gourmandistan

Chocolate & peanut butter ripples across Atlantic, threatening Nutella domination.

December 9, 2012 by Steve

Gourmandistan wants only to spread the love, so we must first say that we adore Nutella. Steve, particularly, has been a fan of filberts for as long as he can remember, and we’ve both appreciated schmears of the nutty stuff on crêpes purchased from Paris metro station vendors. But seriously, Europeans need to get better acquainted with peanut butter, one of those magic foodstuffs (like tomatoes, potatoes, pineapples and processed cheese product) brought to life in the New World. We […]

Categories: Chocolate, Cookies, Cooking, Food, Old cookbooks, Recipes, Vegetarian

Martha Stewart, Mitt Romney and making bank off Salty Peanut & Chocolate Chunk Oatmeal Cookies

November 25, 2012 by Steve

One of the benefits of being around since the middle of the last century is that we Gourmandistanis may confidently say we were hip to Martha Stewart before Martha Stewart became hip. “It’s a good thing” was a catchphrase in our various domiciles as we cooked, stenciled and collected assorted tchotchkes such as the fake topiary Steve dubbed “the puffball on a stick.” While even Michelle is not as craft-tastic and decorative-ish as she used to be (the puffball, too, […]

Categories: Chocolate, Cookies, Cooking, Food, Nuts, Recipes, Vegetarian

Calvados overdose: Calvados Ice Cream with Apple Calvados Compote (now with bonus Calvados!)

November 3, 2012 by Steve

Those Norman French sure love their apple brandy. A sidebar next to this recipe in Susan Herrmann Loomis’ French Farmhouse Cookbook lists seven rounds of Calvados served at the end of old-school Norman meals, including the coup de pied au cul or “kick in the ass.” Gourmandistan’s recent relocation to Normandy saw us imbibe several shots throughout many meals, some as apéritifs and some in desserts, but never seven in one sitting. (Steve would not have fared well, as Steve […]

Categories: Apples, Cooking, Food, France, Fruit, Ice cream, Recipes, Vegetarian

Progressive Farmer Pecan Praline Bars

October 23, 2012 by Steve

Michelle’s 98-year-old grandmother passed away peacefully a few months ago, inside the farmhouse she and her husband built on their Western Kentucky acreage. Postwar poster children for America’s re-energized agricultural community, they were named 1950’s “Master Farm Family” by Progressive Farmer magazine and the University of Kentucky Extension Service. While “crops, pastures, livestock, farm equipment and farm management procedures” gained Papo recognition, Mamo was declared “the Master Farmer’s Wife” for her “home furnishings, comfort devices, labor-saving equipment and home management […]

Categories: Brownies, Chocolate, Cooking, Family, Food, Nuts, Recipes, Vegetarian

Food, Photoshop & Frustration: Chocolate Pear Macaroon

October 5, 2012 by Steve

Making the chocolate pear macaroon dessert wasn’t really that difficult. A few pears, a bit of cocoa powder (Steve would have preferred a bit more cocoa, actually), almonds, an oven, etc. The difficulty comes from Photoshop, a program Michelle has always seen as a time-sucking vortex from which she will never escape. Inspiration for both the dessert and Michelle’s new obsession came from the same place: Roger Stowell of the Food, Photography and France blog. As part of our recent and […]

Categories: Chocolate, Food, France, Fruit Desserts, Pears, Recipes

In France, In a contest, Incensed at the Internet

September 3, 2012 by Michelle

We’re back in France, and we’re very happy about it. We’re also happy to be nominated for the Country Living Magazine “Best Food Blog.” We’re not so happy about our current Internet situation, where we’re limited to an extremely expensive and incredibly slow 3G connection. (Both of us are having AOL International flashbacks, which are not pleasant.) So while we urge you to go to CountryLiving.com and vote for our blog (every day for the next week or two please!), […]

Categories: Food, Fruit Desserts, Strawberries

Plum, Dumb & Full of Crumb

August 21, 2012 by Steve

Sorry, people who put him in the “crazy” camp: Steve was not doing exactly the same thing and expecting different results. After all, these smaller, redder plums were purchased from a different vendor. And this time Steve did not leave them sitting in a bowl on the counter. He left them sitting on the counter in a paper bag, which somehow rendered them invisible. Fortunately, these plums ripened much less violently than their predecessors, with only a few having matured […]

Categories: Blueberries, Cooking, Food, Fruit Desserts, Plums, Recipes, Vegetarian

Impulse to action via Roasted Plum Frozen Yogurt

August 13, 2012 by Steve

We have been talking about fresh plums all summer long. When we finally spotted them at a recent market, we (OK Steve) couldn’t resist snapping up a bagful without bothering to ask the vendor anything regarding variety, locality or organicity. When we returned home all we knew was they were big, very purple and seemed very, very unripe. A few days later we also discovered they were very, very sensitive, as almost half of our purchase “ripened” into juice-weeping balls […]

Categories: Cooking, Food, Fruit Desserts, Ice cream, Plums, Recipes, Vegetarian, Yogurt

A parching, painterly interruption leads to Peach Ice Cream Pie

July 29, 2012 by Steve

Horrifying heat is not good for ice cream. Neither, it seems, is it good for house painters. After weeks of weather-related delay, our house and kitchen were freshly painted and finally freed from painters. The outside, in its lovely new creamy white color, was baptized by a couple of non-drought-relieving nickel-sized hailstorms (thanks again, global weirding!). After restoring the cookbooks, WWII posters and various tchotchkes to our kitchen we were ready to once again bespatter its freshly painted walls with […]

Categories: Cooking, Food, Fruit Desserts, Ice cream, Peaches/Nectarines, Pies & Tarts, Recipes, Vegetarian

Gourmandistan

A fabled land of farmers, farm shares, fancy (and not so fancy) restaurants, family meals, food projects and more.

Category Archives: Desserts & Sweets