743: Bringing The French Countryside To East 10th Street with Lucie Franc de Ferriere

13:34Lucie Franc de Ferriere:Totally. I'm curious how you landed on the location. Did you know that you wanted to be in the East Village?

13:39Adam E. Roberts:Not at all. I was trying to work with a broker and they were giving, I was giving them my like price range and they're like, oh, this is not possible. Like, you know, Manhattan is expensive. And I was like, well, I can't open a bakery. And then I was getting so annoyed. It was like months. And then I just kind of sat in front of my computer and I can't remember the website. It looked a little dodgy, but I was like, this looks like a real space. And then I emailed their email address and I was hoping, you know, it wasn't a scam. And the guy was like, yeah, do you want to come and see this kind of dark space in like two hours?

14:14Adam E. Roberts:And I was like, why not? And I remember texting my husband being like, just so you know, if I don't come back in an hour, there's something going on. And then I saw this space and it had like a little bit of sun coming through the window. And, you know, the floor was moldy. The ceilings were like very different. And I was like, I think we can make something happen. And that's when I started a Kickstarter and everything to kind of go with it. And the price range was the one I wanted. Do you know what was there before? It was like a vegan restaurant that was quite popular at the time. But I think they were doing this whole system because it was vegan raw food.

14:48Adam E. Roberts:And so I think they're using sort of like the basement as the fridge. So that's why the whole like floor was like moldy. I don't know. It was something happening. So that took a little longer than I thought.

14:59Lucie Franc de Ferriere:That's like the classic New York story. Exactly.

15:01Adam E. Roberts:You find it immediately and then it takes forever to actually open. Oh, my God. I thought it was going to be like three months. And like nine months later, I was like, OK, we got to open this place. But we were living in the East Village at the time, too. So I was like, this is perfect. It's across the Turkish-Russian baths and next to Tompkins. And I was like, this can't be better, you know.

15:18Lucie Franc de Ferriere:Yeah. And it's such an interesting, like, I feel like there are a lot of bakeries in the East Village. It's become kind of like a pastry neighborhood in its own right.

15:25Adam E. Roberts:It wasn't really, I feel like, you know, back in during COVID. I mean, there was a few really, really good bakeries. But it just kind of like kind of happened all at once after COVID, which is amazing. because then everyone can get a bit of it. And all the bakeries are very different too, which I really like. And I see customers that, you know, go to Honey's Bakery for like this specific muffin and then they come for the cake here and then they go to a small bakery. And I love that whole like people coming with four different types of bakery bags. But my favorite customer is a customer that's going to the Turkish Russian bath and come and have like their mini cake and brings it to the Turkish Russian bath.

16:00Adam E. Roberts:And I'm like, are you about to eat this while you're bathing?

16:03Lucie Franc de Ferriere:But they did. In the sauna, they're like digging through the frosting. That's funny. This episode is brought to you by Masterclass. You know how on the show, we're always talking to people who've spent decades obsessing over one thing, whether it's modern Korean food, new expressions of the Jewish deli, or the perfect Vampiro taco in South LA. That depth of knowledge is the thing I find endlessly fascinating. And honestly, it's a big part of why I'm into Masterclass. There are classes taught by some of the best chefs, writers, and thinkers in the world. People who've put in the work. And the lessons are short enough that I can actually fit them in.

16:40Lucie Franc de Ferriere:Thought leaders like Michael Lewis, Amy Poehler, and chefs Gordon Ramsay and Roy Choi all teach their own masterclasses. I've been using audio mode on my commute, and it genuinely feels like time well spent. With plans starting at$10 a month, billed annually, you get unlimited access to over 200 classes. And every new membership comes with a 30-day money-back guarantee, so there's really no reason not to try it. Right now, our listeners get an additional 15 % off any annual membership. Go to masterclass.com slash tastecooking. That's masterclass.com slash tastecooking. I like this idea of how the bakery has evolved based on customer feedback.

17:20Lucie Franc de Ferriere:I'm curious if there are any like specific menu items or just kind of like other parts of the business that really emerged from that customer feedback.

17:30Adam E. Roberts:I mean, I think it's more so like me still sticking to what my flavors, like the flavors that I like and then testing on people and seeing if they stick or not and then removing it. Like, for example, last Valentine's Day, we did a raspberry chocolate nougatine cookie that were based on these cookies that I used to have growing up from the supermarket. And they had the nougatine that I really like in it. And they took a long time, but we were like, OK, let's do it for Valentine's. And then people really loved them. Took it off the menu because it was too time consuming. And now I'm getting, you know, harassed by people being like, is it coming back on Saturday?

18:07Adam E. Roberts:I'm like, I'm so sorry, I can't. And so it's just hearing them and saying, yes, it will, no, it won't. But then there's a few cakes that I know are probably a little different than what people would usually go for, because I still have the carrot cake, the chocolate cakes that are classics. But then you'd have, for example, the chocolate stout cake with a rosemary crème fraîche sort of buttercream on top. And people at first are a bit confused or like scared because, you know, you want to make sure you like your cake. So usually what I do is I just start by giving away samples the first week. And then people just, you know, tend to be like, okay, this is really good.

18:42Adam E. Roberts:But I think there's one thing about it as well where as much as customers want a specific cake, sometimes it's good to push them into a direction that they're not, you know, sure they want because it's the most interesting one. And I love herbs and I love florals. And I want people to see that sweets are not just like pure sugar. It can also be very subtle, different flavors, you know.

19:02Lucie Franc de Ferriere:Totally. And I think it speaks to how the bakery exists in a community that you're able to have people coming back and that maybe one time they try a sample and the next time they get a slice of the whole cake.

19:12Adam E. Roberts:Exactly. And that's why I like these villages so much is because it's not an easy neighborhood to access. There's not that many subways, if you think about it. It's like the L train and the other one.

19:23Lucie Franc de Ferriere:You have to like – you could, you know, walk from Union Square where there are a lot of trains. But it's not like there's a lot.

19:28Adam E. Roberts:There's a strong community of people living in these villages that come every day. Like there's two people above the bakery that come every single day for the raspberry cheesecake brownie and the coffee. And then my neighbor who owns this like amazing CBD oil business right next to me. He's been in business for 16 years there. And he closes his shop every day at 4 p.m., like locks it, comes to me, gets my lemon bar and sits with his dog for 15 minutes with his like phone in case someone calls the store. And I'm like, that's what I love about the East Village, you know.

20:01Lucie Franc de Ferriere:I love that. It feels very like what I would imagine like French or Parisian in some kind of way as well. The kind of like neighborhood-y vibe. Yeah.

20:08Adam E. Roberts:It's like take a two-hour lunch break. Yeah. I feel like, you know.

20:11Lucie Franc de Ferriere:The New York version is the 15-minute lemon bar break. But it's a great lemon bar, so I think that's worth it. What kind of dog is it?

20:19Adam E. Roberts:I don't even know, but it's the tiniest dog I've ever seen in my life. Like, it could fly away with a bit of wind, you know. Keep him inside. It's always barking, but happy.

20:29Lucie Franc de Ferriere:That's funny. So when you started thinking about the cookbook, what did you kind of envision? What kind of cookbook did you want this to be?

20:37Adam E. Roberts:That's a very good question because I think a lot of people who write cookbooks know what they want and they really think about it. I think mine happened when I opened the bakery at the same time. So it's not that I didn't have that much time to think about it, but it was very intertwined with opening the bakery and transferring from a home baker to a professional baker sitting. And so that was really the ethos of the book is kind of bring those two worlds together and making someone at home feel comfortable with doing recipes that, you know, are easy but can also look professional in that sense, especially because I wasn't a proficiently trained baker.

21:18Adam E. Roberts:I was an at-home trained baker from my mother, from a lot of YouTube videos, from a lot of, like, other people that I respect in the industry, and also learning a lot from my employees now who are incredible. And, you know, every day you just learn from a lot of people. So it was—the idea was really to make a book that feels accessible for people to just start baking even if they've never baked before.

21:42Lucie Franc de Ferriere:Totally. And what amount of the recipes are tied to things that have been sold or are sold in the bakery as opposed to just separate?

21:50Adam E. Roberts:Oh, I would say like all of my recipes at the bakery are in the book for sure. But then a lot of them, there's different chapters as well. I don't know if you want me to go through the chapters. Totally. I love the chapters. But there's four different chapters. The first two ones are like cakes, like you'd think cakes in America with the frosting on top. The first one is called simple, sample. So they're all kind of, you know, could be French words, could be English words. But the first one is sample, simple, which is more your cake that you could make on a weekday night or that you don't have to think too much about it and that don't require too many ingredients.

22:30Adam E. Roberts:For example, the carrot cake that people love is in that chapter because it is kind of an easier cake to make. And then chapter two is called pièce de résistance, which is something that you use, I feel like, in English as well. It's more like the show supper cakes in the sense of it's a cake that you would bring maybe more to a party or to an event to try to wow your friends a little bit. and those take a little bit more time, a little bit more focus, I would say, because it's a bit more technique driven. And they usually have ingredients that are like either a bit more high end or that's when the florals or the herbs come in a bit more.

23:08Adam E. Roberts:And then the two last chapters are a bit different. The third one is called dessert, dessert, which is a take on all the sort of classic French desserts that I grew up eating on with like a little spin. So, for example, you have the, you know, the classic rice pudding in France, but I just added a bit of lavender in it or the mousse au chocolat that has mint in it as well. So those are kind of, they don't require any cream or anything on top. And then the fourth chapter is called goutte, which that one doesn't translate to in English. It didn't work, but whatever. And that is the 4 p.m. snack that you'd usually have after school growing up.

23:47Adam E. Roberts:that can go from bread with chocolate in the middle or just like a cookie or banana bread. So those are the recipes that I have a lot at the bakery as well.

23:55Lucie Franc de Ferriere:Yeah, I love that breakdown because the book is called Cake from Lucy, but it is like cake and more from Lucy that's going on.

24:02Adam E. Roberts:I know, it should have probably been cake and more, right? I don't know, I just like the word cake in the middle. I was like, this is kind of fun.

24:08Lucie Franc de Ferriere:No, I think it's like a surprise in some ways because you come in knowing that you want cake and then you leave knowing that you want rice pudding and all these other things as well. Did you develop the recipes at the bakery? Did you check them in your home kitchen? How did you kind of bridge that gap?

24:23Adam E. Roberts:It was a bit of both, but it was mostly in my home kitchen just because I wanted to work with a home kitchen. I just realized, obviously, the bakery oven is so different. And you just have to, you know, bring down attempts and change the amount of times. And I was like, I'm actually just losing time by doing that at the bakery first and then trying at home. and I had to work with a recipe tester as well. And she was just like, wait, this doesn't make sense. Like the time is wrong. So I was like, okay, I'm just going to focus on doing it at home. But a few of the recipes obviously were already made at the bakery in large batches.

25:01Adam E. Roberts:So that was a challenge as well as to kind of decrease it to, you know, a one or two person bake. But I got there.

25:07Lucie Franc de Ferriere:Yeah, I can imagine there was a lot of math involved.

25:10Adam E. Roberts:Oh my God, I'm so bad at math.

25:11Lucie Franc de Ferriere:So bad. That's why you have a cross tester, I guess. Exactly. I think that is a part of the cookbook process that maybe these days people who follow food media know more about. But I think like as a kind of cautious baker, like I feel nervous baking because there's so much time put into things. And then you kind of put it in the oven and pray. I think it makes me feel a lot of relief to know that recipes have been cross tested and kind of ensured to make sure that they'll work out.

25:36Adam E. Roberts:Oh, yeah. And I think the other thing as well is just that I was mentioning that ethos at the beginning of like just trying to make it feel so easy for someone at home. I really kind of wrote it with so much detail so that someone hopefully can't get it wrong, if that makes sense.

25:52Lucie Franc de Ferriere:Totally. And you've talked about how this book is kind of rooted in French techniques. I'm curious if there are any kind of French techniques or maybe even like flavor combinations in the book that you are especially drawn to.

26:03Adam E. Roberts:Yeah, I mean, I don't know if I can specifically say French techniques per se, because that just makes me scared because it's so like professional. But it's just more like techniques that I took from my home per se. But also, I don't know if it's the word technique is the right word. It's more tips and tricks because I've learned the hard way of like seeing that the cake doesn't, you know, rise the way I want it. So it's just using different tools that helps you make it easier and like bulletproof so it doesn't go wrong. And that's why throughout the book, I have a few sections called how to's.

26:42Adam E. Roberts:So like, for example, how to make whipped cream, how to make Swiss meringue buttercream the way I like it and the way I learned to like it over the years of failing and trying again. And so it's just kind of holding someone's hand while they're doing it and telling them like, you're doing a good job. this is what I would do so it makes it easier for you you know so those are those are more like my

27:03Lucie Franc de Ferriere:I guess my techniques but yeah it's like the the building blocks of the recipes exactly because

27:08Adam E. Roberts:like to be honest when I first started making a Swiss meringue buttercream I was like oh my god this is terrifying and I wished it was someone and some tips um in a book that could just I'm sure there is but I'm just saying the books I had didn't have those tips it just went straight to a Swiss meringue recipe and I was like okay this is this is a lot you know yeah I might as well break it down to the base level. Exactly. Especially like you're saying, because you spend so much money on all the ingredients, like Swiss meringue buttercream requires a lot of eggs and eggs are expensive. And you want to make sure that you actually end up with something that's edible.

27:38Lucie Franc de Ferriere:Yeah, I think to me, the scariest part about baking is I feel a lack of control. Like, I think when I'm cooking, you can taste as you can go and you can, you know, try to keep an eye out for indicators. And a lot of bakers that I know do say that, you know, you can always salvage a dessert. But I think sometimes I've made something that just it can't really be salvaged.

27:56Adam E. Roberts:Yeah, no, I feel like once it's there, like you're saying, once it's in the oven, it's in the oven. And you just have to like pray and wait. But that's, I think, one thing I like about baking because my brain is so all over the place. It's the one moment where I have to really focus. Before I even start the baking, I have to focus on my planning and exactly the amounts I need. I like to prep everything in advance. So I'm not like looking at the recipe as I'm baking. I've looked at it before. I've written my notes. and I'm just like ready to make this thing exactly the way it should be because like you're saying, it's such a science too that you can't get it wrong.

28:31Adam E. Roberts:And then you can have fun with the flavors you're putting together. But the actual scientific part of it needs to be perfect. Totally. Is there a recipe in the book that took the longest to perfect? Oh my God, so many of them. But I will say the chocolate mousse cake is actually the one that took the longest because it's based on this like French, like tiny cake that this chef Anandoukess makes. And it's so refined in like his restaurants, but I wanted to make like the homemade version of it. And even though it looks really homemade, it still requires like three to four different layers. And we've done it at the bakery.

29:11Adam E. Roberts:It takes a long time to make every time. And I've changed the recipe so many times, but I finally got it to where I wanted it. But that was a lot.

29:18Lucie Franc de Ferriere:That must feel really satisfying to have, you know, gone through that and have it exactly where you want it to be.

29:23Adam E. Roberts:But my employees were just like, maybe we don't need to sell at the bakery.

29:27Lucie Franc de Ferriere:Do you find that that often happens, that there's like a fantasy for selling something and then like the actual reality of making it proves to be too laborious?

29:36Adam E. Roberts:Oh, yeah. All the time. I mean, that's where it's interesting because I have all these crazy ideas and then I'm like, OK, well, you know, as much as it is my ideas, I do have to put it on my employees to do it after. with me and I don't want to do that to them. So I'm very honest from the beginning and I asked them like, do you think this is something that is too crazy or is something that could be done? And they're usually very honest with me, but it is because when you're scaling and you're, you know, you're doing larger batches as well, some cakes just don't do as well in that sense, like a lot of cakes, for example, that require all the egg whites to just make it, you know, fluffier.

30:12Adam E. Roberts:Sometimes they get lost if you're doing a large batch. So I've learned a lot by just failing and trying again at the bakery.

30:19Lucie Franc de Ferriere:Yeah, and I can see also not having a big space to work with and trying to have a lot of production. It's just kind of a tricky balancing act.

30:27Adam E. Roberts:Yeah, we've definitely learned to know each other at the bakery in a sense because you're just constantly going. And I work with a lot of women in the kitchen. It just kind of happened that way. But they tend to just say, you know, oh, my God, I'm so sorry. So sorry. Every time we like sort of touch because it's such a tight kitchen space to the point where my manager, she was just like, okay, guys, you're going to have to really say just like behind. And if you touch someone, it's okay. Like we don't have to say sorry and stop every time. So it's been kind of a funny learning curve for that. That's funny.

30:59Lucie Franc de Ferriere:Do you guys listen to anything in the kitchen when you're baking together or you just chat?

31:03Adam E. Roberts:Oh, yeah. And it's like, I feel like we try to have everyone have the moment with the playlist. And it goes from, You know, like a podcast at 5 or 6 a.m. to opera to a lot of people love musicals in my bakery. So I love musicals to, you know, Bad Bunny the other day, obviously. Perfect. So it's all over the place.

31:25Lucie Franc de Ferriere:I think it was Kamari Mick, who's such an incredible pastry chef, who told me on the show that her pastry team listens to a lot of murder mystery podcasts when they're doing production, which I thought was so funny because I think there's so much to be said about, you know, whatever emotion you're feeling is baked into the desert. And the emotions that they're feeling are like fear, trying to figure out what's going on, getting to the bottom of things, which is so fun.

31:48Adam E. Roberts:I know. And I was like, I wish they could. But because we're open at the same time, it happens sometimes that I come into the bakery and there's something on. And I'm like, whoa, this is interesting for a client to walk into. But I kind of like it. That's funny.

32:02Lucie Franc de Ferriere:I guess that is pretty fair. Yeah. I really liked the photography and the design of the book as well. What kind of vision did you have for that part of it?

32:10Adam E. Roberts:I mean, that one, I just knew that I wanted to work with Lucia, who shot the book. And she has, in that sense, I really wanted to be a collaboration, if that makes sense. I really like her world. I like her vision about food and photography. She's not trying to make this fully staged look that you see, obviously, in most cookbooks. I really liked her candid moments. so especially for the lifestyle moments I was like we need to go back to my place in France and shoot there we spent a whole week just the two of us and that's me again being innocent didn't know that you're supposed to have a food and prop status for those moments as well so it was just Lucia and I and my family and honestly it did turn out to be the best thing because those photos reflect that that no fuss realness side of where I come from and then we came back oh and then the other thing as well that I really loved is that Claxton Potter don't usually do film photography but they did allow her to shoot the lifestyle portion on film and actually the cover of the book is film which is pretty incredible but she's just so talented about that and I think that really gave that feel to the book and then we came back to New York and shot most of the recipes in studio but we shot it after we did the lifestyle so that really helped us to kind of already have that world we had all those lifestyle pictures on a board in front of us and then I worked with Rebecca and Pearl as well for the food and prop and same thing I really digged into like what their work was before and if that could kind of collide with our worlds but we had the best week ever shooting the cookbook in the studio just because it felt very natural and and you know kind of tied together

33:59Lucie Franc de Ferriere:Yeah, I think it makes a lot of sense to have those kind of lifestyle photos as the guide for the recipe photos because that is where the inspiration for the recipes came from. For sure.

34:09Adam E. Roberts:I looked at the book for the first time the other day and I gasped. I was like, oh my God, this is just more than I could think of. And the one thing that we really wanted with Lucia throughout this book and even Cox and Potter really resonated with is the fact that this book is a bit more timeless and doesn't really have sort of a moment, a trend, a marketing vision of what is in at the moment. It's more like, I want to see this book in 50 years on a bookshelf. And it could be from the 90s. It could be from, you know, early 2000. It could be from the future as well. And I think that cover really kind of impersonates that.

34:47Lucie Franc de Ferriere:Yeah, is that why you wanted to shoot it on film?

34:49Adam E. Roberts:No, I mean, to be honest, that cover was not supposed to be a picture. That was just a picture she took in like a two-second moment. And we had four or five different options for covers. And most of them were on digital from the studio. And they were lovely. but this one even the Clarkson Potter team coming back to it because it just I don't know why it just kind of impersonated a whole book and you want to just open it to see the world that the

35:13Lucie Franc de Ferriere:cake is in you know yeah I'm looking at it right now it has this kind of beautiful lit from within kind of feeling almost like a painting in that kind of way which I think it does kind of get that timeless nature across and it's just like a table I would like to sit down at yeah I know that's my

35:28Adam E. Roberts:table that spends three hours having lunch at. But I also like how the cake is cut open. You know, it doesn't feel like, oh my God, this is a serious cake. It just feels like, oh, I could make that.

35:39Lucie Franc de Ferriere:Yeah. I mean, it has this kind of level of, like it's in progress, right? Like people are eating it. It's beautiful, but it doesn't feel like it's so polished and perfect, which is nice as well.

35:49Adam E. Roberts:Exactly. I didn't want to scare people because initially we were going to put a tiered cake on the, one of my tiered cakes on the cover. And I was like, I just feel like if someone saw that, they'll be like oh that's not for me I can't do that. Well this is it's two levels but yeah

36:02Lucie Franc de Ferriere:it's cut in half. Like you know like a three-tiered and so like a wedding. Yeah exactly. To me as a nervous baker I look at this and I'm like I don't know it looks like I'm having to stack something.

36:11Adam E. Roberts:I know but then at least the jam is oozing out and you're like oh this doesn't look perfect. Yeah. The ethos of the bakery again.

36:17Lucie Franc de Ferriere:Totally. I'm always curious when I speak with bakers and pastry chefs to ask about their relationship with savory food. Do you like to

36:24Adam E. Roberts:cook also um that's a good question i am according to my husband i'm not the best cook in the world and he's not wrong um i i think i especially because like he grew up in a indian household where spices were the main like the center of the food um i grew up in france where mustard is my spice which is not a spice um so food is more like butter and you know garlic and so it's very different ways of thinking about food. And so my food is always a bit bland. And it's true. I don't put enough salt. So no, I'm not a great cook. I do like the idea of coming home and cooking. And again, my new apartment has a kitchen that's separate from the living room and everything, which is not often anymore.

37:07Adam E. Roberts:I feel like, you know, like you have the living room space that's connected to your kitchen. And I like the idea of like going into my little kitchen, you know, closing the door and having that moment to just cook for myself and for my husband. So in that sense, I do enjoy cooking, but I am terrible because it's too much freedom.

37:26Lucie Franc de Ferriere:Yeah, I understand that. And this is such a New York response. But the fact that you can close the door to your kitchen, like I have a separate kitchen.

37:32Adam E. Roberts:That's mentally, there's no door. I mentally close the door, but no, there's just a little archway.

37:37Lucie Franc de Ferriere:I was going to make, I'm really happy for you that you can close the door. That's like next. This is like when I, my first apartment that had a window in the bathroom. I was really excited about this.

37:44Adam E. Roberts:I have a mini window in the bathroom. And that is one of the reasons why I got that apartment because I was like, yes, it's a true luxury. It's a dream.

37:51Lucie Franc de Ferriere:Well, I think if you spend all of your time or a lot of your time baking, then you can be excused from having to go home and cook as well if you don't want to.

37:58Adam E. Roberts:I mean, no, yeah, we still definitely order in a lot or just kind of, I mean, a good dish that I think is a good dish if I'm lazy is just pasta with really good olive oil, sea salt and pepper, and then a little bit of parmesan on top. So it's like cacio e pepe light. Exactly. But I could eat pasta every day if I could.

38:19Lucie Franc de Ferriere:Do you ever put savory things in the bakery?

38:21Adam E. Roberts:We have a savory scone that we offer, and people would like to come and eat it in the morning, and it has a black olive, tomato, fita, chive sort of situation in it, and it changes sometimes. But I definitely want to increase the amount of savory food. It's just the space that we have in the kitchen is so limited that we need to kind of work around with that. That's totally fair. and I do love the sound of that savory scone. So yummy. Especially it comes out of the oven every like hour so people get it still warm, you know.

38:49Lucie Franc de Ferriere:You need like one of the signs. You know like Krispy Kreme donuts has the sign that goes on when the donuts are warm. Yeah, I should do that. You can have like a scone sign.

38:56Adam E. Roberts:Honestly, I should do the cookies because I get a lot of people that come and they're like, you know, did you just bake the cookies? And I'm like, yeah. So we bake them like hourly so that people really get that chocolate still like melted, you know.

39:05Lucie Franc de Ferriere:Oh, I really like that. That's a really nice kind of level of care.

39:08Adam E. Roberts:Mm-hmm.

39:10Lucie Franc de Ferriere:Okay, I want to close today by playing a rapid fire game with you. So I'm going to have you pick some favorites. Okay, a favorite cookbook right now.

39:18Adam E. Roberts:A book I love right now is The Farm Table by Judas Roberts. I just think his recipes are always exact and they're so yummy. And it's like the chapters are depending on the season. So it's really easy. You're just like in winter, you're like, what do I need? You know?

39:31Lucie Franc de Ferriere:Yeah, I love that. And I love following him and just pretending that I live on a farm in the English countryside. It's the best. Your dream birthday cake.

39:41Adam E. Roberts:From my recipes or just in general? Just in general what your dream birthday cake would be. Okay, my dream birthday cake would be a Paris Brest, which is like the French. It's like not really a cake, honestly. It's more like a choux pastry with a sort of like an almond mousseline buttercream inside. That's my favorite. I could eat that every day. Do you make your own birthday cake? No.

40:06Lucie Franc de Ferriere:Is that sad? No, I think that's like draw a line somewhere, you know?

40:09Adam E. Roberts:Yeah, I feel like the last, actually last year I didn't have a birthday cake. And that was an issue I pointed out to my husband. I was like, wait, there's no cake tonight? Well, to be honest, we were on a trip to his friend's wedding and we were in Japan. And we were at this place and I don't think he had, like they didn't have cake and he couldn't make a cake. But that really was a moment where I was like, I need a cake. You got to speak your mind. I know. That's it.

40:34Lucie Franc de Ferriere:A favorite spot in the East Village?

40:36Adam E. Roberts:I've been going to S'more Bakery a lot. especially for lunches because it's always nice. There's always a table, and the food is amazing. They do kind of Scandinavian open toasts. Yeah. Do you have a go-to toast there? Right now they have like an egg salad with salmon on top. That's really, really good. They put a lot of dill in it, which I love. That's my favorite.

40:56Lucie Franc de Ferriere:A favorite place for French food in New York?

40:59Adam E. Roberts:I just went to Le Chêne by Alexis Duchesne the other day in the West Village, and the food was incredible. She does like this incredible pétillier. So I definitely recommend that one.

41:11Lucie Franc de Ferriere:What is that? I've never had one.

41:12Adam E. Roberts:A Petivier is like a puff pastry dough that surrounds a whole, it's like a minced pork cabbage. And so you cook it in the pastry dough. It's a bit like a pie, but reverse, because it's like a beautiful dome. Wow. She just makes it so beautifully, too. But the flavor is incredible. Oh, I love that.

41:32Lucie Franc de Ferriere:Okay, I will. Your favorite ice cream flavor?

41:35Adam E. Roberts:I'm going to sound boring, but a really, really dark chocolate ice cream. It's my favorite.

41:40Lucie Franc de Ferriere:Your go-to movie snack? If I'm at the movie theater, Bunch of Crunch, for sure.

41:47Adam E. Roberts:No question. And if I'm at home, it's 85 to 90 % dark chocolate, but the whole thing.

41:55Lucie Franc de Ferriere:A French dessert that you think should be more popular here in the United States?

42:00Adam E. Roberts:Again, the Paris-Brest. I don't see it enough, and I want it every single day. That's very fair. Maybe I should start making it at the bakery.

42:06Lucie Franc de Ferriere:I can tell already that your lovely employees are going to not want to put that out every day.

42:12Adam E. Roberts:But there's also a sense of like, for some reason, the things that I want to eat the most or I respect the most, they almost feel inaccessible for me. But I should start making them.

42:21Lucie Franc de Ferriere:I would love to be able to come and eat one. So I think you should try it.

42:24Adam E. Roberts:I should start making small ones.

42:26Lucie Franc de Ferriere:Okay, finally, a fictional food scene like from a book or a movie or something made up that you wish you could eat in real life.

42:32Adam E. Roberts:Oh, I actually met the woman who made the cake for Little Women. That scene where she brings the cake. The other day she came to the bakery and I was like, that cake looked beautiful, but also I just wanted to eat it. So definitely that one.

42:47Lucie Franc de Ferriere:Well, I think that's a great answer. And this has been such a fun conversation. Thank you for coming on the show.

42:51Adam E. Roberts:Thanks for having me. It was amazing.

42:58Lucie Franc de Ferriere:This is Taste is hosted and produced by Matt Rodbard and me, Eliza Abarbanel. The show is edited by lead producer Clayton Gumbert and supervised by Pat Stango, director of media production and development at Penguin Random House. Thanks to Shalia Harris and the production team at Penguin Random House. Theme music by Steve Rydell. Episode portraits by Louise Zergang Pomeroy. Logo design by Ellie Skurzat and Ian Dingham. Visit Taste Online at tastecooking.com and make sure to subscribe to our newsletter to keep updated on all cool things in the world of taste.