Chocolate and Zucchini

I’ve been reading Chocolate and Zucchini by Clotilde Dusoulier, a Parisian food blogger. The success of her blog led to the publishing of her book with the same name.

While the book is mostly a collection of recipes, I have been enjoying the introductions she has written in which she gives the story behind each dish, they have a wonderful personal quality that makes one feel like a friend instead of a distanced reader.
For an idea of her writing style, rather give a selection of quotes, I recommend a visit to the Chocolate and Zucchini blog. http://chocolateandzucchini.com/

While there are many recipes in the book that don’t appeal to me – anything containing fish for example – there are a few that I would love to try. Maybe they will be the stimulus I need to take charge of the kitchen myself, giving Gloria a break from food preparation.

One of my favourites has been waiting for suitably cold weather before I even think of attempting it. Clotilde’s Beef Bourguignon lists chocolate as one of its ingredients, and any recipe with chocolate sounds all right to me (as long as it doesn’t include fish).

For some reason when I ordered the book from my local book shop they obtained the American edition instead of the one intended for Australian readers (the British edition). Therefore the names of some ingredients and the quantities used are the American terms instead of those that are more familiar to me. I also understand that there are a few differences in the recipes included in the different editions. Fortunately, being a part of the greater American Empire ruled from Hollywood, I have enough familiarity with the American terminology for this not to be a great problem.

(And did I mention I don’t like fish?)