Come to think of it, I probably should call it Things-I-Love-And-Use-Myself-That-Will-Also-Make-Great-Holiday-Gifts Guide. I know it’s long and cumbersome, but it tells you so much more about the things that go into this guide I’ve put together for you. But before we even get to the guide itself, I’m going to introduce you to something else rather useful. It’s an image-tagging service called Thinglink.

Thinglink-ing chez Pim

Thinglink, from the brilliant minds of my friends Ulla-Maria and Jyri Engeström, makes image-tagging super simple. Any image on Chez Pim with Thinglike icon (4 black dots) on the top left corner has Thinglink tags in them. Roll over the image and you’ll see more dots popping up inside the image. Each dot is a link, on a thing, get it, Thinglink? Pretty brilliant, no? Point at one of those dots, you’ll see a small pop-up that tells you what the thing is and where to go to buy or learn more about it. Now images on Chez Pim help me tell stories and help connect you to useful things.

These are not advertising or sponsored links, by the way. Except for a small percentage of Amazon Associate Fees I get when I link to products on Amazon.com, I don’t make any money from these links. I simply point you to where I myself would buy or learn more about these items.

P.S. If you’re reading this post via an RSS feed, I’m sorry but Thinglink doesn’t work via RSS, so you’ll have to click through to Chez Pim to read and see the links on the images.

Now, let’s get on with my list, shall we?

Fiesta’s “Head Chefs” line of silicone kitchen tools for kids

I’ve only recently discovered these adorable kitchen tools, and now every kid in my life will get one (or more) as a present this holiday. I think one of the keys to get kids to eat well is to get them interested in food and in cooking, and what better way to do it than making it fun? Auntie Pimmie is going to be so popular with the kids this holiday, I can tell you that.

Tiny but not wimpy cameras

I am asked all the time what camera I use on the blog and when I travel. Here’s my answer, my absolute favorite camera, the one I carry with me pretty much all the time, is this Panasonic Lumix GF1 with the 20mm f/1.7 lens. I don’t think I’ve ever loved a camera more, and I’m sure I’ve never spent money better than when I bought it. The Micro 4/3 format basically allows DSLR cameras to shrink to this size, which is just a bit bigger than your tiny point/shoot. This camera let me geek out all I want on a shot, by manually doing everything, or just set it to Auto and have the camera do the thinking for me. And with a lot of the controls on the outside – knobs and dials and things – it’s actually quite quick to switch from one mode to another.

The GF1 is the first small camera that made me leave my big Canon 5D-Mark II at home when I went to Japan and Australia earlier this year. That’s how good it is, and how confident I am with it. Panasonic just announced the launch of the next model Panasonic Lumix GF2 in January, so you might want to check that one out instead. I can’t vouch for it since I haven’t used it myself.

Shooting with the fixed 20mm lens will take some getting used to, especially if you’re accustomed to the point/shoot with 10x zoom or something. But the lens is so fast and so awesome that it’ll be worth it. If this still doesn’t sound like a good idea, you could buy the GF1 with a more flexible 14-55mm lens.

I’ve been poo-pooing pocket point/shoot cameras for a long time now. No matter how well they advertise their “low light” ability, it’s just never adequate for me. The new CMOS sensor that recently came on the market changed my mind completely. The quality difference between shots made with the old CCD sensor and the CMOS sensor is truly night and day. Pun intended. I’ve been playing a bit with the Nikon S8100, another pocket camera with CMOS sensor, but the one that I really, really like is this Canon SD4000IS. The guys at dpreview like it a lot too. (I hope he doesn’t read this but that’s what you-know-who is getting for Christmas.) If you take photos of food when you go out to a restaurant, then get one of these and put aside your massive, embarrassing DSLR for other occasions.

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I have a soft spot for Italian cookies. They are not delicate, intricate confections like the French macarons or madeleines. Italian cookies are made of sturdy stuff, like biscotti that will break your teeth if you dare to eat them without first dunking in coffee to soften, but somehow, when faced with Italian cookies, my usual resolve – to daintily eat sweets but a few pieces at a time – melt away faster than the Arctic glaciers. I simply cannot resist them.

So when my friend Gina DePalma, the fabulous pastry chef of Babbo in Manhattan, sent me her Italian dessert book Dolce Italiano, the first chapter I poured through was for the cookies. I didn’t get very far, mind you. I stopped at the very first one, these adorable Chocolate Kisses, Baci di Cioccolato, made from ground almond and sandwiched in between a layer, a kiss, of chocolate ganache.

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Just in time for Thanksgiving, here’s an adapted version of my popular Cheesecake in-a-jar recipe, this time with pumpkin, and with a crust made from ginger snaps. It’s a perfect make-ahead dessert recipe that comes together super quickly in your food processor. Plus, you can gather up cute jars and vintage glasses in your collection to bake these little cheesecakes in.  Here I baked mine in these adorable tea-colored vintage glasses (about 7oz or 20cl) I found at Stripe in Santa Cruz. These cheesecakes bake in a low oven in a water bath, so most thick-ish glasses or jars you have around should work fine.

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Here’s an alternative for the far too cloying candied yams for your Thanksgiving table. To my absolute delight, the tender and delicate Delicata squash seems to be everywhere this year, far more than years past. If you’ve ever wonder what to do with them, try this recipe.

Actually, this is so easy I can hardly call it a recipe. Here’s what I do. Take some beautiful Delicata squash, cut each one straight in half, and scoop out off the fuzzy bits in the middle and discard. Then each half again into two, but this time cut in the diagonal so you get two pieces of squash vaguely resembling little boats. You’re following me?

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Not that I’m saying there’s anything wrong with yo’ mama’s sugar cookies. (Really, feel free to send some my way.) But you don’t need a class on that, do you? Oh, wait, you don’t know I teach? Well, now you do. I occasionally teach classes at the new Love Apple Farm’s super cool teaching kitchen. So far I’ve done sold-out classes on Thai curries and what to do with our beautiful local Meyer Lemons.

For this class, Not Your Mama’s Sugar Cookies- Unique Ideas for Holiday Baking, we’ll explore some fun new ideas for your holiday baking season.  You’ll learn unique recipes to produce delightful holiday gifts that’ll have your friends and neighbors talking about them well into next year.  You’ll also learn crafty packaging ideas so your sweet presents are every bit as pretty as they are delectable.  We’ll be making my famous Pain d’Epices (French Spiced Gingerbread) with pear, walnut, and marron glacé compôte, Salted Butter Caramels, Financiers, and Alfajores, and might even be more.

The class will be this Sunday, November 21, from 12.00-4.oo PM. Go sign up and I’ll see you there!

That’s Mamma herself, giving me the very simple recipe for her famous Coniglio al Rossesse e Olive. How I got this footage was not so simple.

When everyone from Michelin starred chefs, world famous food writers, to even your lowly line cook friends on the Côtes d’Azur all tell you to go eat at the same place. You go, of course. One little problem: no one seems to know name of the place! Everyone refers to this little restaurant – in this tiny speck of a town, way away from the glitzy coast – Chez Mamma. Why? Because, as you see from the video, it’s the charming Mamma who is the force behind it.

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Keeping the romance alive

What do you do when you’ve been blogging for the better part of a decade? You take a break, a breath, and then find a way to refresh and renew the love that inspired you to do it in the first place. That’s what I just did. Welcome to the new Chez Pim.

Moving to WordPress

Change is tough, changing blogging platforms even more so. I was with Typepad for pretty much the entire life of the company Sixapart. That’s a long, long time, and it’s been a great collaboration. I cannot thank the Typepad team enough for their attention and support in those years. I send my best wishes to them on their new path at Say Media. I cannot tell you what peace of mind it’s been, to know that no matter what my Typepad blog was always there. It ran how it should no matter how crazy my traffic spike and valley. I still recommend Typepad wholeheartedly to anyone who wants to start a blog without knowing or ever caring about what’s under the hood.

As comfortable as I was with Typepad, I’ve long outgrown the platform. I pretty much single-handedly built and tweaked the old Chez Pim templates by myself. With my scant skills, it’s like building a house with the help of duct tapes and gorilla glue. It wasn’t pretty, I can tell you that. Plus, as a hosted platform, Typepad wasn’t flexible enough for me to do what I wanted to do. It’s time to move on. Say hello to my shiny new WordPress blog.

Not just a new coat of paint

The new design is not just a new palette of colors and some nifty graphics. It reflects a fundamental rethinking of where online publishing is today. “Blogging” is breaking away from the stranglehold of chronology. Content is no longer just about what’s new and fresh and MORE. Now it’s all about relevance.

So, the new Chez Pim is no longer calendar-driven series of blog posts. Old contents that are relevant today are given just as big a lead-in as the newest post I wrote this morning. That’s what the picture carousel of top of the main page and each category page does. It features not only new content, like the video post of La Mamma’s braised rabbit that I shot in Italy, but what’s useful and relevant now. Chanterelles are coming into season again, the recipe post on pickled chanterelles from last year is welcome back on the main page.

Visual storytelling

The picture carousel is also about telling stories visually, which has become a real passion of mine in the last few years. I love going to cliché places but not bringing you back the same cliché frames everyone else sees. I went to Tsukiji market in Tokyo, but if you expect that shot of rows of frozen tuna at the famed auction, you’re in the wrong place. My Tsukiji is a bloody cutting board, a rusty scale, a bucket of tuna bones, and an old proprietress in her cubbyhole “office”. And I hope you enjoy this Tsukiji as much as I do.

More focused content

Breaking from the chronological mold to one that’s more subject driven will also help me better focus my storytelling. Pulling out the wine and drink posts onto their own page made me realize how little I’ve done on the subject I love so much. So expect to hear more, a lot more, from me on that. Also expect to hear more on the Travel section, you’ll be seeing handy city guides by me and my trusted friends from around the world.

Dinner @ 8

Perhaps what I’m most proud of, and the one we’ve worked the hardest on, is the new feature Dinner @ 8. I wanted to find a way to break from the norm of cooking blogs. Instead of presenting single recipes one at a time, Dinner @ 8 takes a holistic approach to cooking a meal.

The step-by-step guide takes you through the process of the entire meal, with steps from all the recipes woven and arranged logically and efficiently so you can put dinner on your table on time. And I’m not talking a semi-home-cooked silliness. I’m talking a proper debut menu of Dorie Greenspan’s recipes from her latest book, Around my French Table: 3 courses, 4 dishes to cook, all in 3 hours. Yes, you heard me the first time. Three hours. You don’t believe me? Here’s what Dorie herself said about this new feature..

“I’m thrilled any time Pim wants to cook from my recipes, but I’m thrilled and honored that she’s kicking off Dinner @ 8 with a meal made from my new book.

Pim explained a little about her site’s redesign to me when we met in San Francisco last month and it sounded pretty terrific, but nothing prepared me for how terrific it really is.  This morning she sent me a link to the site and I clicked through just as my husband walked past my desk.  He did a double take as he exclaimed: “What happened?  You’re sitting there with your mouth wide open!” What happened was Pim’s site!

It’s beautiful, of course – Pim only does beautiful– but it’s also chockfull of great information and tips, and it’s so sensibly and helpfully laid out, and so logical that it makes everything really doable and doable in 3 hours sharp.  I love this!

I know that I’ll be cooking along with Pim and I hope you will too.  I can’t wait to hear about your adventures.”

– Dorie Greenspan, 10/13/2010

There is, of course, wine pairing suggestions for the meal. It wouldn’t be a holistic look without including the wines.

I didn’t do it alone

I couldn’t have done it alone. Meet my friend Ryan Wilke, pixel-pusher extraordinaire and véritable WordPress wiz. I cannot recommend Ryan enough. He’s fast, responsive, and crafty in some very astonishing ways. I should also mention how patient he is. I’m not an easy client to please. I knew precisely what I wanted and I wanted it precisely that way. And he managed it, every time. To Ryan, you amaze me. Thank you ever so. (Check out his site to see his take on the work he’s done on Chez Pim.)

And a giveaway, of course there’s a giveaway

This is, however, not one of those easy giveaways that you just need to leave a comment and then you’re eligible. Sorry. It’s a big prize, so you’ve got to work for it. What’s the prize, you asked? The winner will get a copy of Dorie’s new book, Around My French Table, and a copy of her last pastry book, Baking: From My Home to Yours (both courtesy of Dorie Greenspan). Plus, there’s more. From me, you’ll also receive two of my favorite pastry books, Desserts by Pierre Herme, and Paris Sweets, both also by Dorie. That’s $150 worth of books, and they will be priceless once they are signed and personalized to you by Dorie herself.

To win them, you must go to Dinner @ 8 and cook the Dorie’s French Supper menu. You don’t have to serve it at 8, eat at 7 or whenever you want, by all means. Just make sure you follow the steps and see if you could do it within the 3-hr time frame, more or less. You know, even if you’re 15-20 minutes behind schedule, you would still finish that meal faster than if you were to go at it by yourself.

So, go forth and cook, and don’t forget to enjoy yourself. You have until Monday December 6 to post evidence of that meal somewhere online. Your blog, your Foodbuzz, your Flickr, your Facebook page, anywhere you want. Go start a thread on Serious Eats if you must. Just post about it somewhere online, and then leave a comment and a link on the Dorie’s French Supper post to let us know. Dorie and I will pick our favorite 10, and will draw the winner from those 10 names.

The Foodie Handbook: Making a Rustic Fruit Galette from 4SP Films on Vimeo.

Now, here’s a timely recipe to try out my One Pie Dough to Rule Them All recipe I gave you last night.  Try it before the fleeting cherry season is over.  Do try, even if you’re one of those who couldn’t stand the generic, gloopy cherry pie – I’m looking at you Matt. Because this recipe, this ain’t your usual, generic cherry pie.  It might even be the best cherry pie you’ll ever tasted.  You try it and tell me.

The secret to this pie is the spices.  When I was tinkering with my cherry pie recipe, I thought adding some spices to it would be fun.  So I went to my spice rack and found a blend that I made for my French spiced bread, Pain d’Epices.  It’s got the usual cinnamon, nutmeg, and clove, but also with a generous amount of ginger powder, giving it an interesting, unusual character.  It turned out beautifully in the first cherry pie I baked for the season.  Now I won’t ever bake my cherry pie without it again.

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