Guimauve — the French marshmallows — is the stuff clouds are made of. They have the soft and cottony flavor of childhood, and resistance is futile when I spot the pretty pastel cubes in pastry shops.

Rarely am I disappointed, but I do have to mention this one recent time when I bought an assortment from Pain de Sucre and got mostly weirdo flavors nobody in their right mind would want in their marshmallows — I’m talking chicory and whiskey, angélique, or saffron and chili pepper. I mean, really, I’m as open-minded as the next person, but what’s next: reblochon? Fortunately, I’d had the wisdom to get a few of their coconut-coated chocolate marshmallows as well, so I was able to make it up to my seriously shaken palate.

Painful memories aside, guimauve has been a long-time resident on my make-my-own list. I’ve been collecting recipes for French marshmallows for years like they were butterflies, but never actually followed through. Why? Because they all called for sirop de glucose, a thick glucose syrup that’s dearly loved by professional pastry chefs but has yet to become a home baking staple. I know where to find it, but I don’t feel like buying a 2-pound tub just to make marshmallows.

Guimauve is the stuff clouds are made of. It has the soft and cottony flavor of childhood, and resistance is futile when I spot the pretty pastel cubes in a pastry shop.

And then one day, Christophe Michalak came along and showed me the way. As part of the publicity for his recent book C’est du gâteau !, an interview of him appeared in ELLE, along with his basic recipe for guimauve. And, miracle or miracles, that recipe called for honey, not glucose syrup.

I clipped it and threw out all the others*.

Rose and chocolate are Maxence’s and my favorite guimauve flavors, respectively, so my plan was to make a single batch and flavor one half with rose syrup, the other with cocoa powder, guestimating the amounts of flavoring because the printed recipe didn’t include these measurements.

The whole project worked out so well I had to pinch myself to believe I had really brought into this world such ideally fluffy cubes of French marshmallow perfection (rather than sleepwalked to the nearest pâtisserie and pillaged their stock).

And if my datebook is to be trusted, it seems Valentine’s Day is around the corner, so if you’re the sort who gives a fig, this might just be the perfect gift. You can dream up endless variations in terms of flavoring and coating to match your sweetheart’s tastes: I recommend orange blossom water and fruit purées of all sorts, and chocolate-dipping is always a winning strategy.

Don’t be intimidated by the length of the recipe; it’s not difficult at all. The version that was published in ELLE had been streamlined in the extreme to fit the narrow side bar, but I reincorporated as much detail as I thought would be useful to a first-time guimauve-maker.

* I’m kidding. I would never throw out a recipe.

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Earlier this week, I attended a two-day conference on molecular gastronomy — sometimes refered to as the “science of deliciousness” — and the relationship between technique, technology, and science.

It was a free and public session, organized by the INRA, the French institute for agricultural research, and the engineering school AgroParisTech. Our lecturer was none other than Hervé This*, co-creator of this scientific discipline that studies the physical and chemical phenomenons that take place in cooking. In passing, 2008 marks the 20th anniversary of molecular gastronomy, and I hear this will be suitably celebrated in Paris around March 20.

I am no longer used to sitting for hours in a cramped classroom, and my right knee made a point of telling me that, but someone like Hervé This makes you want to unearth that satchel and do it all over again: his passion, his enthusiasm, his talent for teaching, and his facetious ways make fourteen hours of lecture go by in a blink.

You should note that Hervé This hosts monthly seminars in Paris — also free and open to the public (by email registration). These are a fantastic opportunity to witness debates and experiments during which you’ll finally get to the bottom of such vital questions as: does adding a potato to an oversalted soup have any sort of effect? Should one beat meat to tenderize it? Do hand-cut fries actually taste better than machine-cut fries? (The reports are then made available on the French society for chemistry’s website.)

I’ve learned a lot during these two days, and the contents of the lecture will soon be published in book form by the INRA, but here are a few bullet points handpicked from my notes.

* The “h” is mute here, and This’ last name is pronounced “tiss”.

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We all have our siren ingredients, those that call to us in voices of sugar from the printed page of a cookbook — or the pixelated page of a food blog — and charm us into dropping whatever we’re doing to run to the kitchen and reenact the recipe.

Cornmeal is one of my sirens, and I find it particularly beguiling in baked goods*. This is the only way I can explain such a short TTO (time to oven) for this cookie recipe, which I chanced upon last week on Ivonne’s fine blog, Cream Puffs in Venice.

Crumiri, sometimes spelled krumiri, are traditional Italian cookies that hail from the Piedmont region. The origin of the name is hazy: crumiro means strikebreaker, so that can’t be it, and while some say the cookies were named after a Tunisian liqueur called Krumiro (or Krumiria, presumably like the Maghreb region) that the baker-inventor liked to swill, the Internet knows nothing about this mysterious beverage. No matter.

These cookies can take on different shapes, but they generally wear a ridged outfit, created by the star-shaped tip of a piping bag. Alas, I am a poorly equipped baker and my flimsy piping bag did not resist the assault of such a thick dough**. After a brief but irritating struggle, I resigned myself to forming vague lumps.

Aside from this minor hurdle, these are precisely my kind of cookie: crumbly, with the teasing crunch of cornmeal between your teeth, delicately flavored, and not too sweet. And in keeping with the regional theme, I have found them to be ideal companions to a scoop of homemade Nutella ice cream***.

The recipe Ivonne posted comes from a book called Italian Baking Secrets, written by an Italian priest; I modified it to reduce the amount of butter and sugar slightly. If you want to make ridged ones, make sure you use a professional-grade piping bag and tip that won’t burst and poop out on you. I’m just saying.

* If you share my cornmeal enthusiasm, consider trying my go-to recipe for shortbread, or these violet cornmeal macarons.

** It has to be thick, otherwise the ridges will just soften and melt away in the oven.

*** Yes: before it became a world-renowned addictive substance full of transfats, Nutella was a piedmontese specialty known as pasta gianduja.

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If you keep an eye on my book list, you may have noticed I am currently reading Michael Ruhlman‘s recently published, orange book*. In The Elements of Cooking, he proposes to break down and discuss the building blocks of the cooking craft, like William Strunk Jr. and E.B. White did for writers in their classic little volume The Elements of Style, to which the title and format are a homage.

It is an engaging and educational read that retains a strong sense of the author’s voice and idiosyncrasies, unlike other reference books like, say, The Food Lover’s Companion, which I consult regularly but wouldn’t think to read from cover to cover.

The bulk of the book consists in an Acid-to-Zester lexicon of concepts, techniques, preparations, and ingredients, which Ruhlman prefaces with a section in which he lays down his founding principles, addressing such themes as salt, heat, and finesse.

In his essay on tools, he begins by asking the reader to “imagine the kitchen as a white box with nothing more than a stove, fridge, countertop, and sink — not a single other element for cooking in it — and then to pose a hypothetical question: if you were asked to outfit the kitchen with as few items as possible, the absolute minimum you could possibly get away with and still be able to cook most things, what would those items be?”

This question is of particular interest to me as it conjoins two topics I find endlessly stimulating: the desert island question (if you could only bring along five books/CDs/articles of toiletry, what would they be?**) and the neverending battle one has to wage to keep one’s home and life clutter-free.

So I’d like to submit the question to you: if you could only have five tools (pots, utensils, cutlery, and let’s add appliances) in your kitchen, what would they be? Note that we are considering your cooking needs only, setting aside the question of baking equipment. (If you’re the playful type, I suggest you come up with your own list before scrolling down to see Ruhlman’s and mine.)

* The book was sent to me as a review copy.
** Great car game, too!

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