THE ART OF ACCESSIBLE DESSERT

DAVID LEBOVITZ HAS BUILT A LOYAL FOLLOWING WITH RECIPES THAT OFFER SHORTCUTS BUT MAKE NO COMPROMISES

- Story by JULIA MOSKIN / NYT

n internet time, pastry chef David Lebovitz has been a food blogger for all eternity.

He wrote his first post in 1999, before most people knew what the word blog meant, starting a website with the vague notion that it would help promote his first cookbook. An early adopter - especially for a baby boomer, now 67 - he has embraced Substack, where his newsletter has more than 256,000 subscribers.

He moved to Paris permanently in 2003 to join his partner, artist Romain Pellas, whose chunky glasses and cheerful smile have won him many fans on Lebovitz's Instagram feed, which has 330,000 followers.

Today, Lebovitz writes not only about French food, drinks and sweets, but also about the emotional and bureaucratic roller coaster of making a home here. (He says that being a pastry chef, with its strict rules and dedication to order, is good training for living in France.)

In his kitchen, where chocolate chips and molasses brought back from the United States share space with Chartreuse liqueur and butter from Normandy, he develops new recipes using both French and American ingredients and cookware.

"Most French ovens aren't big enough to hold even one of our sheet pans," he said.

For his ninth book, published in September by Ten Speed Press, he revised and reshot his greatest-hits recipe collection from 2010,