Barbra Austin

Though irrefutably Bordelais, the little cakes known as cannelés have conflicting origin stories. One attributes their development to a group of nuns. A more sentimental spin credits resourceful Bordeaux residents, who scooped up flour spilled from sacks during unloading at the port and used it to make the cakes for impoverished children.

When I was visiting my brother over the holidays, he told me he wanted to say something, and that he hoped it wouldn’t upset me.

“Uh, OK,” I said.

“We’ve made the Banana Nuggets according to your recipe, they don’t turn out the way Mom’s did, and we think it’s because of the butter. We’re pretty sure Mom used shortening.”

Should someone come to his senses in the next day or so, this is what we’ll be eating on Sunday.

This salad is stupidly delicious.

If you hide a dried bean in this pastry and eat it on or around the 6th of January, it’s called a Galette des Rois. The rest of the year it’s a Pithiviers.

This was supposed to be applesauce cake.

Fresh figs rate among my very favorite fruits, and they show up at the best time of year, when summer produce is having its last hurrah and fall’s firmer fruits are showing up.

Generally, when fruit is as beautiful as this collection of late summer jewels, I hesitate to manipulate it in any way.

If you’re like me, then when you hear the word “gazpacho” you probably start seeing red.

We call this pudding but there’s no cornstarch to thicken it, no skin on top to poke through. No, this is just a rich crème Anglaise with lots of chocolate added, enough to thicken the mixture as it chills to a spoon-clinging custard that melts in your mouth almost like a truffle.