From the Kitchen
Some meals feed more than hunger.
Garlic Confit
Always in the fridge. Usually in an old Bonne Maman jar.
(From the pantry)
A small luxury that turns up everywhere.
There’s almost always a jar of this in the fridge.
Soft, golden cloves tucked under oil, waiting to be spread onto toast, folded into dressings, slipped into a pan before anything else hits the heat. It’s the kind of thing you make once and then wonder how you ever cooked without it.
It’s not flashy. It doesn’t ask for attention.
But it changes everything it touches.
Ingredients
250 g garlic cloves (peeled)
250–300 g olive oil (enough to fully submerge)
3–4 sprigs fresh thyme (optional)
1 small bay leaf (optional)
3 g kosher salt
Method
Place the garlic cloves in a small saucepan or oven-safe dish.
Pour the olive oil over the garlic until fully submerged.
Add thyme, bay leaf, and salt if using.
Cook very gently:
Stovetop: Lowest heat for 35–45 minutes
Oven: 250°F / 120°C for 45–60 minutes
You’re looking for a slow poach, not a fry. The oil should be still, maybe an occasional lazy bubble.
The garlic is ready when the cloves are completely soft and lightly golden, but not browned.
Let cool, then transfer to a clean jar, making sure the cloves stay covered in oil.
Notes
Keep refrigerated and always use a clean spoon.
The oil becomes just as valuable as the garlic—use it anywhere you’d start with olive oil.
Spread the cloves onto bread like butter, mash into potatoes, or whisk into vinaigrettes.
It’s the quiet base note in a lot of good cooking around here.
Some things in a kitchen don’t announce themselves.
They just sit in the background, deepening everything over time.
This is one of them.
Clătite (Romanian Crepes)
Rolled, filled, and eaten faster than they can be stacked.
Some recipes are written down. Others are learned by standing too close to the stove.
My Husband’s grandma Letty didn’t measure much, and she definitely didn’t explain herself.
She made crepes—clătite, as her family called them—the way you make something you’ve made a thousand times—quick, quiet, already knowing how it ends. Romanian by way of habit more than declaration. Just something you fed people.
By the time the recipe made it here, it had shifted a little.
More cinnamon than she probably used.
Avocado oil instead of butter.
A splash of beer— not hers, but one that stayed.
A few small corrections that keep things from going sideways in a modern kitchen.
Because crepes are unforgiving like that.
They’re either cooperative… or they humble you immediately.
And in this house, they don’t make it to the table in neat stacks.
They get eaten standing up.
Hot.
Rolled tight like a jam-filled cigar the second they hit the plate.
You have to actively defend the stack if you want one.
Ingredients
250 g all-purpose flour
3 large eggs
480 g whole milk (see note below)
120 g beer
36 g sugar (or vanilla sugar)
15–30 g water (as needed)
15 g avocado oil (plus more for the pan)
Pinch of salt
1–2 tsp cinnamon (or more, depending on the day)
Method
Build the batter
Whisk eggs, milk, beer, sugar, salt, cinnamon, and avocado oil until smooth.Add the flour
Whisk in the flour until fully incorporated. The batter should be thin—closer to cream than anything resembling pancake batter.
Adjust with a splash of water if needed.Let it sit (optional, but better)
20–30 minutes if you can manage it. If not, carry on.Heat the pan
Medium heat, nonstick or well-seasoned. Light coat of avocado oil.
(Skip the butter. Skip the coconut oil. They separate, they burn, and they will stick just when you think you’ve got it figured out.)Cook
Pour a small amount, swirl fast.
30–60 seconds until the edges lift, flip, another 20–30 seconds.Repeat
Stack them if you can.
Or try to.
At the stove
The first one is a throwaway.
Always has been.
After that, it turns into a rhythm—pour, swirl, flip, repeat—while someone hovers a little too close, waiting.
They’re best eaten immediately.
Spread with jam, rolled tight, gone in two bites.
If you manage to build a full stack, it’s only because you were willing to swat a few hands away.
A small note—
Sometimes I add a scoop of sourdough discard—leftover from something else, the way things often are in a kitchen.
It makes them a little softer, a little more forgiving.
You wouldn’t notice unless I told you.
Which I usually don’t.
(If you do: add 100 g discard and reduce the milk to 380 g.)
This is the kind of recipe that doesn’t live on paper for long.
It lives in repetition.
In the sound of batter hitting a hot pan.
In how thin you dare to pour it.
And eventually, in someone else’s kitchen—slightly changed, but still recognizable.
The same way most things find their way to the table here—passed along, adjusted slightly, and eaten before they ever really have a chance to settle.
The House Loaf
The sourdough that usually waits on our table — more often torn into before it’s had the chance to cool.
This is the loaf that usually waits on our table — sometimes sliced neatly, more often torn into before it has properly cooled. It’s the bread I referenced in The Culture of a Table, the one that seems to appear whenever people gather.
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Ingredients
(Makes two loaves)
Leaven
200 g warm water
200 g bread flour
1 tablespoon active sourdough starter
Dough
700 g warm water
200 g leaven
900 g bread flour
100 g whole wheat flour
20 g fine sea salt
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The Night Before
In a bowl, stir together the starter, warm water, and bread flour for the leaven.
Cover loosely and leave at room temperature overnight.
By morning it should look airy and full of bubbles.
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In the Morning
In a large bowl combine:
700 g warm water
200 g leaven
Stir gently to dissolve the leaven in the water.
Add the bread flour and whole wheat flour. Mix until no dry bits remain and a rough dough forms. Cover and let rest for 30 minutes.
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Add the Salt
Sprinkle the salt over the dough and add a small splash of warm water.
Work it in by squeezing and folding the dough until the salt disappears into it.
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Bulk Fermentation
Let the dough rise at room temperature for 3–4 hours.
During the first two hours, give the dough a fold every 30 minutes:
Lift one side of the dough and fold it back over itself. Turn the bowl and repeat until you’ve gone all the way around.
With each fold the dough will become smoother and stronger.
At this point, the dough could be just as easily become focaccia— pressed into a pan, dimpled with oil, and whatever the season calls for.
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Divide and Rest
Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface.
Divide it into two pieces and shape each into a loose round. Let them rest for 20–30 minutes.
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Shape
Shape the dough into rounds or long loaves and place them seam-side up into well-floured bannetons, or bowls lined with floured kitchen towels.
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Final Rise
Let the loaves rise for 3–4 hours at room temperature,
or refrigerate overnight for a slower rise and deeper flavor.
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Bake
Place a Dutch oven in the oven and preheat to 500°F.
Turn a loaf onto parchment and score the top.
Bake:
20 minutes covered
20–25 minutes uncovered at 450°F
The crust should be deeply golden and sound hollow when tapped.
Let the loaf cool before slicing — though in our kitchen it is usually torn into long before that.
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From the Kitchen
This is the bread we make most often.
It shows up beside soups, under soft eggs in the morning, and in thick slices the next day for toast.
More often than not, it arrives at the table still warm.