[Scones au Gouda Vieux et Poires Séchées]

Before we begin, I would like to address the scone/biscuit question. To Americans, a biscuit is the hand-held version of a quick bread, leavened with baking powder. Usually round and savory, the American biscuit may be served in place of bread to accompany a main course, especially if said main course involves a gravy component. The closest equivalent the British and the French can think of is the scone, thus named in honor of the Scottish Coronation Stone I believe, but most scones I’ve come across are sweet — though subtly so — and served for breakfast or tea with clotted cream and jam (yum). There are scones in America, too, but in my experience they are most often triangular, sweet as a muffin, and meant to be eaten on their own, sans spread.

To the British and the French, who have such a long history of seeing eye to eye on everything, a biscuit (from the Old French bis cuit, twice baked) is a thin, crisp, and usually round confection that Americans would call a cookie, a term that the French themselves use for what they think of as American-style biscuits — round, large, and loaded with chocolate chips.

I am telling you, somebody out there is trying to make the life of the transatlantic food writer more difficult than it really needs to be. In any case, the golden rounds I baked the other day were what I would personally call savory scones, but because I am a very tolerant, live-and-let-live person, I’ll let you decide what name seems the most fitting to you.

The idea for them came as I was leafing through the very refreshing More from ACE Bakery cookbook, which its author, Linda Haynes, sent to me: on page 28 was the picture of a (sweet) oatmeal scone, flavored with dried pears and hazelnuts, sitting side by side with a (savory) cheddar chive biscuit that called for aged white cheddar.

Both sounded very good, but seeing as I had dried pears in a tin box on my counter and a hunk of 36-month-old gouda in my fridge, the two recipes somehow merged in my mind and became aged gouda and dried pear savory scones.

Linda’s biscuit batter recipe produced a sumptuous texture — a crisp shell and a moist, slightly brittle crumb — and the gouda/pear pairing made for a very pleasing balance of flavors, the sweetness of the fruit responding to the discreet pungency of the cheese. We ate some of them with a carrot-cilantro soup while the rest was cut into bite-size pieces to nibble on with a pre-dinner drink the next day, but they would also be perfect for brunch or with a simple salad of greens.

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I slow-roast tomatoes all through late summer, when I can lay my hands on cheap and tasty specimens, and I like to make dried pears in the fall, too: the drying heightens the pear flavor to a hauntingly sweet concentrate of itself.

This does mean it is a good way to cut your losses on below-average pears, but for superb results you should of course use superb pears. The technique works best with fruits that are ripe but firm and not too juicy, so they will retain their shape and not drip all over the floor of your oven.

Not only are dried pears easy to make and delicious, but the resulting strips are also surprisingly versatile: they can be eaten as a simple snack (their texture, crisp at first but gradually turning chewy in your mouth, makes them quite satisfying), they can be served with cheese (especially washed rind and blue cheeses) or game birds, they can be added to scones, oatmeal cookies, and granolas, and they enter the preparation of berawecka, a dried fruit loaf that is traditionally made for Christmas in Alsace. And in my opinion, they make very pretty edible gifts, too.

My latest batch was made with Louise-Bonne pears, a variety I’d never seen or heard of before: these pears were tiny, their skin green and lightly freckled with yellow, their off-white flesh fragrant and acidulated, and they played along remarkably well in the drying game. (Check back on Friday to see what I did with them.)

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[Click here to enlarge.]

As those of you who subscribe to the C&Z newsletter already know, my upcoming cookbook is now available for pre-order on Amazon (and on Amazon.fr, too).

It feels quite peculiar to see it there, as does each step that leads to the book’s release* and makes it more real: I have seen the production schedule, I have gone over the first-pass pages laid out as the final book will be, I will soon receive blads and galleys, and meanwhile I dream about the book one way or another almost every night. Sometimes I dream I am leafing through it and feeling pretty pleased, sometimes I dream I am leafing through it and finding horrifying goof-ups, and just last night I dreamt I was suddenly realizing that the book was 100% British recipes — don’t ask.

If you’d like to read more about the bookwriting process, check these past entries:
– Part I: The Book Deal
– Part II: The Recipes
– Part III: Recipe Testing
– Part IV: Food Photography
– Part V: Done!
– Part VI: What Happens Next?

* The book is scheduled for publication on May 15, 2007 both in North America and the UK.

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As a side note, yesterday’s New York Times T:Style Magazine included an article (free registration required) I wrote on Guy Savoy and two potato recipes — one for his purée de pommes de terre à la truffe and one for his pommes dauphines. It was great speaking with Mr. Savoy and having the recipes demonstrated to me in the rue Troyon kitchen as I took frantic notes in my faithful Moleskine, and I hope you’ll enjoy the piece.

[Flambé Banana Bread with Caramelized Pecans]

One of the things I love the most about kitchen activities is that they come in all shapes and sizes to fit your mood, and how much time you have on your hands. Whether you’re looking for instant gratification or a way to spend some quality moments with your pans and spatulas, there is a project out there that’s perfect for you. And even for one given dish, there are always plenty of options, high-road or low-road, super quick or more involved.

Take banana pecan bread for instance, a.k.a. the most rewarding way to salvage bananas for those of us who always buy far too many at a time. If you’re expecting friends for brunch and you woke up a little late, you can whip one up in under 20 minutes, and it will bake as you shower and set the table. But say you have a lazy Sunday afternoon ahead of you, no obligation of any kind, and a simple desire for something homemade and sweet by tea-time. Perhaps then you will choose to kick things up a notch, caramelize the pecans, and flambé the bananas in a little rum.

A little more time happily spent at the stove, a tad more cleanup — but really, what’s a saucepan and a skillet in the grand scheme of things –, and the reward is this: a warm, moist-crumbed loaf with a top that has developed the shadow of a crisp, crunchy morsels of pecans to encounter in every bite, and a concerto of rich, aromatic flavors brought to you by the bananas, the muscovado sugar, and the rum.

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