Messy, gorgeous and dramatic: The berry Pavlova is a spring-into-summer stunner

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My friend Jenni has an incredible flair for entertaining. Talk about making things look effortless: You can arrive for a dinner invitation at Jenni's at 7, and she'll just be walking in after a day at the office, bags of groceries in tow. You think: Did I get the day wrong? 

You didn't. She just doesn't fret about doing everything (or anything!) in advance. It'll be 10 p.m. before we eat, you think. And then whooosh!!! – Jenni goes into action, chopping onions, tearing lettuce, tossing things in a pan. Here, you slice the zucchini; I'll do the garlic. Out on the counter goes a fat, oozy burrata, a slick of olive oil, some pesto and prosciutto, crusty bread. Wine corks pop. Flowers land in a vase. Everyone's nibbling, and sipping, and laughing. Somehow before you know it, you're at the table – and wowed by what's before you. A butterflied leg of lamb strewn with rosemary branches. A spectacular salad, grilled asparagus, roasted potatoes. How did she do this? (She shares her delicious secrets at her blog, Jenni's Table.) 

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Jenni and her husband Philip are from South Africa; we met through our kids when we all lived in L.A. (Wylie and their son, Max, were playing on opposing baseball teams, and we moms got to talking in the bleachers.) Now they live in London, which is where her family's originally from. Every couple of years we have a reunion in Southwest France, where Jenni's mom has a house, not far from Thierry's family. There we cook out of the garden, bake the orchard into pies. Sisters show up, and their husbands. Everyone's happy in the kitchen. Joy camps out in the garden. We always eat outside.

One of those crazy marvelous evenings at Jenni and Philip's house in the hills of L.A., Jenni whipped up a gorgeous, dramatic dessert: a magnificent Pavlova piled with whipped cream, smothered in berries from the farmer's market and strewn with pistachios. She must have made the Pavlova shell – a giant cushion of French meringue – that morning. Or maybe she'd snuck home at lunchtime, who knows. 

Anyway, impressive as it looks – the thing makes a pretty incredible statement! – it's actually very easy to put together, more time (unattended in a slow oven) than effort. And once you know how to make a Pavlova shell – the base of it – you have the perfect vehicle on which to show off all kinds of summer fruit: ripe peaches, plums and nectaries; macerated apricots with toasted sliced almonds; peaches tossed with blackberries – even something like mango and roasted pineapple showered with grated toasted coconut. Curiously, the Pavlova isn't South African or British; it's Australian, named for the Russian ballerina Anna Pavlova, as the story goes, after one of her tours through Australia. (It may possibly have been invented in the U.S., however.) 

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Egg whites and sugar whipped to stiff peaks

But let's get to the important part: how to make one. To create the shell, whip room-temp egg whites till they hold soft peaks, then gradually add sugar, and continue whipping till they hold stiff peaks; whip in vanilla. 

The Pavlova, ready to go into the oven

Spoon the meringue into a thick circle on a parchment-lined baking sheet, and make a slight depression in the center with a spoon (just so the edges are slightly higher than the center). Put it in a 350-degree oven and immediately turn down the temp to 300. Let it bake for an hour and a half, then open the oven door and let it cool like that. Nothing to it! It'll look all craggy and rough. 

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The Pavlova shell: ready to dress up!

But those cracks and crags are just the thing for catching the whipped cream and berries and juices you'll pile on top. 

Jenni tossed berries in sugar and added a spoonful of Banyuls vinegar – very French (and hard to argue with). Lately I've tossed them in Grand Marnier. Whip up a pint of cream and mound it on top. Spoon on those juicy berries and scatter toasted chopped pistachios over them. Or leave out the nuts and fold some chopped fresh mint in the berries. Riffing is encouraged! The Pavlova itself is easy and forgiving, crisp on the outside, like a cloud inside. When you eat it, you swim through a whirl of textures and tastes, cool and creamy and pillowy-crunchy, all bright and sweet and juicy.

Ready for the recipe? Here you go . . .

It's a summer fruit game-changer, for sure.

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How to be French: First get your hands on some duck legs

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Have you ever wanted to be French? It's not that hard. Here's how to do it without breaking a sweat.

First get your hands on some duck legs, maybe six of them, or eight. Finding them is not as challenging as it used to be. 

Open a jar of Dijon mustard. Salt and pepper the duck legs and rub them with herbes de Provence. Now slather some of the mustard all over them. Sprinkle them liberally with panko, then drizzle a little melted butter over them. Slide the duck legs into a slow oven and forget about them for an hour and a half. Take them out.

Et voilà. Now you are French. I don't even need to tell you to grab a glass of red wine, as you are already French. 

If you're feeling contrary (hey – you must be French!) you can leave out the herbes de Provence. 

It was my friend Regina Schrambling who created this dish. Regina credits the great cookbook author Madeleine Kamman, citing a Kamman recipe for Dijon-rubbed duck legs sans herbes de Provence, and with standard bread crumbs instead of panko. But I love Regina's Reginafication of it; the herbes de Provence definitely add that certain je ne sais quoi. 

It's a great dish for entertaining, as it requires minimal effort yet delivers fabulous flavor and marvelous crunch. Plus you shove it in the oven and forget it, so it's absolutely stress-free. 

Because you're French, if it's a proper dinner you're scheming, you'll start with asparagus vinaigrette or leeks vinaigrette or an artichoke vinaigrette.

Or begin with céleri remoulade or a little frisée salad with walnuts and Roquefort, and serve some butter-braised asparagus avec. Just use this recipe and substitute frisée for the escarole. You could roast some potatoes in duck fat, if you had it – which you will after you make the duck legs, so next time. Haricots verts blanched then finished in butter are very French too, and here's a bonus: You could serve any old green beans and call them haricots verts. 

If you want to blow your friends' minds and be super-French, serve a salad after the duck legs, then some cheese, then some fruit. 

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Or make a lemon-raspberry tart, and call it a day.

Bonne nuit.

Bring on the eggs, hold the carbs: Introducing the best Caesar salad ever

I make a lot of Caesar salads, always have. I love them for their crunch, for their garlicky-anchovy-Parmesan wonderfulness. 

Wylie has loved them since he was a wee toddler, and I converted many of his childhood friends to salad eaters by persuading them to taste my Caesar. Not that it was so special – it was really a minimalist one. I never felt croutons were worth the effort or calories (unless my brother Johnny makes them; then they're totally and one hundred percent worth it!). So I do without croutons. And for eons, I've done without the traditional coddled egg – just because Caesar was my quick go-to starter, and who wanted to coddle an egg? 

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But lately I've been thinking my Caesar could use an upgrade. No, not grilled chicken. (Horrors!) And I've never met a Caesar made with white anchovies I'd loved, so I'd stick with the salt-cured ones. In fact, very few futzed-with Caesars I've tasted have bettered a traditional one. 

Still, I kept thinking I could improve it. 

Got it! I'd bring back the egg, but instead of having one coddled egg that got so thoroughly mixed in no one would notice it, I'd use two gorgeously coddled eggs that you would very much notice, sort of broken into pieces so you could see and taste a just-starting to set golden gelatinous yolk here, a bit of white there. And I though a bit of lemon zest – an interloper, as it wasn't in the original Caesar recipe – would sing with the freshly grated Parmesan. 

I tossed it up, breaking up the egg but not completely. Garnished it with extra parm and lemon zest, a few extra grindings of fresh black pepper. Oh, baby – it turned out pretty great.

You might say it's not legit, as it does without the croutons. You can add some if you like. But in my world, the less white bread, the better, and I don't miss it. OK, here goes. I'm saying it officially here: This is my new Caesar. Try it! And tell us how you like it.