Culinary Muse

TRULY DIVINE CHOCOLATE GIFT GIVING

The first in our series of chocolate holiday gift ideas comes from our friends at Holy Orders. They are the exclusive purveyors of this truly divine Italian chocolate made by the Camaldolese Monks. For $22.00 you will receive two 150 gram bars of chocolate, one light, one dark. You will love ordering from HOLY ORDERS the answer to your gift giving prayers. They sell hand made gifts from monasteries and cloisters around the world.  If you are looking for gifts with soul and meaning this is the place.

OTTO AND THE PIE or A TALE OF FEARLESSNESS IN THE KITCHEN

On the eve of Thanksgiving it seems appropriate to tell the tale of our friend Otto and his first pumpkin pie. Otto began baking just two months ago. Why? Because he had three ripe bananas sitting on his kitchen counter and he had a craving for banana bread. My phone rang late one afternoon. He was ready to make banana bread. He had a recipe. Now what? Talking someone through their first baking experience is a lot like talking a pilot through an instrument-less landing in the fog. There is so much you need to tell them. And because baking is really chemistry, an experienced baker knows that one wrong turn can result in a crash landing. But this was Otto. A cockeyed optimist. I had great faith in his ability to follow instructions. And I knew that if he did have a disaster he would be able to see it for what it was - a learning experience - and would always have Plan B ready to go. We talked through the basics of quick bread baking. He called four hours later. The bread was great. The neighbors loved it. They wanted to know what he would be baking next.

DUNGENESS CRAB, HOT

We have a couple holiday food rituals in our home. The best one is the Dungeness Crab Feast. This involves the kitchen table spread with newspaper, a loaf of sourdough bread, a jar of Best Food’s mayonnaise, a couple sliced lemons and a whole cracked crab at each person’s place. And a very cold bottle of Sauvignon Blanc.

I was in my twenties before I realized that people ate crab any other way. Sure you could add mayonnaise to crab or even indulge in a crab sandwich at Fenton’s. But hot crab? Why? Here is the dish that introduced me to the pleasures of cooking with crab. It is an elegant dish served to me by one of the first real gourmets I ever knew. Once I get my fill of crab a la kitchen table this is where I turn for my Dungeness fix.

IS SHE READING MY MIND?

Well, either my phone is being tapped or Lynne Rossetto Kasper and I are channeling the great culinary unconscious. It is uncanny. Last month my friend Otto, a novice baker from LA, called to ask about what basic baking equipment he needs to get started. Within two days I receive the Baker’s Chronicle newsletter with suggestions for baking equipment. If I tell Otto he should really try a very simple chocolate torte recipe, Lynne sends out a recipe for Signora Bimbi’s Double Dark Chocolate Torta. Yesterday I was having a conversation with my friend N about what to feed her house full of relatives who will be descending upon her in December. I suggested Turkey Enchiladas. Today’s Weeknight Kitchen newsletter includes a recipe for Turkey Enchiladas.

A word about The Splendid Table Radio Series: This is a weekly radio show hosted by cookbook author Lynne Rossetto Kasper. It is produced by American Public Media (think Prairie Home Companion) and sponsored by our friends at Super Target. It was a fellow food writer, Christine Hill, who introduced me to this wonderful program. You can listen to shows on-line with your RealPlayer or download the podcast to your Apple iPod. Enjoy Lynne, her guest roster of great culinary talent and recipes. You will want to sign up for the weekly newsletter.  You can imagine how many newsletters arrive in my email daily.  This is the only one that I always read and save.

Now, back to tapping into the great culinary unconscious....

A THOUSAND CRANES, A THOUSAND WISHES

We interrupt your Thanksgiving preparations to bring you a special Christmas request. This will only take a few minutes to do, it costs nothing and you can get back to packing or menu planning or whatever else it was you were doing just now. Our friend, W, sent us an email this morning with a very simple request. To take a moment and make A WISH FOR THE WORLD. Each wish will be inscribed upon an origami crane which in turn will be used to decorate the Christmas tree in our City Hall this December. There will an opening celebration at City Hall on December 5. When was the last time that you made a wish? Probably around the time that you saw Pinocchio and heard Jimminy Cricket sing ‘Wish Upon a Star’. This is your wish for our planet not for a new pair of Manolo Blahniks. Take a few moments. Take a deep breath and think about how you feel when you see the headlines in the morning papers. What upsets you the most? Stories about war? Global warming? Hunger? Now imagine that you could make a simple wish, along with thousands of other like-minded folks, and that it would make a difference. Who knows, this could be the beginning of your involvement in something bigger than yourself...

Check out RAINBOW WORLD FUND for more information. About the Rainbow World Fund:

"Founded in 2000, Rainbow World Fund (RWF) is a humanitarian service agancy based in the gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and friends community. RWF’s mission is to promote LGBT philanthropy in the area of world humanitarian relief. RWF works to help people who suffer from hunger, poverty, disease, oppression and war by raising awareness and funds to support relief efforts around the world. RWF provides a united voice, a large visible presence, and a structure to deliver LGBT charitable assistance to the larger world community."

Okay, you can get back to your grocery list now....

THE LEE BROS HIT TOWN

If you have ever had the pleasure of reading an article by Matt and Ted Lee in the New York Times, you will not want to miss the chance to meet them and get your own copy of their new cookbook THE LEE BROS. SOUTHERN COOKBOOK: Stories and Recipes for Southerners and Would-Be Southerners (W. W. Norton). They will be appearing at Borders Books & Music, 400 Post Street, on Thursday, November 9 at 7:00 PM for a discussion and signing. At over 500 pages this could be the last word in Southern Cookbooks.

Whenever I am asked to review a new cookbook I choose the recipes with the least number of ingredients to test. This may seem lazy but I assure you that it is far more difficult for a simple recipe to work than it is for a recipe with 20 ingredients. (This is the same way I go about evaluating a pastry shop. If they can’t make a simple lemon tart there is little hope for the rest of their offerings).

The Brothers Lee don’t disappoint. While including all the Southern classics you could hope for they have also updated simple recipes like Pimento Cheese spread. Instead of using a little jar of gooey pimento pieces, they have you blacken a red bell pepper to remove its skin. This adds a lovely smokey quality to the spread. Nice touch. Adding a generous pinch of spicy smoked red paprika to finish off their delicious deviled eggs brings this classics into the 21^st Century.

If you want an immediate Southern hit but don’t feel like getting into the kitchen yourself you can visit their website THE LEE BROS. BOILED PEANUTS CATALOGUE to mail-order a variety of pantry staples and their new cookbook.

VOTE TODAY

It is our right.  It is our privilege.  Please vote today. 

BUILD YOUR OWN CHOCOLATE BOX

I can walk into a SEE'S candy shop and rattle off exactly what I want in my one pound box: four butter chews, four dark coconuts, two rum nougats, two dark chocolate covered toffee, that chewy one with the walnuts, two cups of dark molasses chips, the date nut one (which, thankfully, they no longer call the ‘Arab’) and, if there is any room left, a slice of rocky road. I live near the original See’s San Francisco store on Polk Street so this is an easy and pleasant monthly ritual. But what if I wanted to create a custom box of chocolates in the comfort of my own home? What if I wanted to send a unique combination of confections to my friends in New York? Read on....

Our friends at Cocoa Bella have just launched 'BUILD YOUR OWN CUSTOM BOX', a brilliant service that allows you to customize your own 18 or 36 piece box by dragging and dropping your selections into a virtual box which will then be packaged and mailed. So smart. And with their selection of small batch artisan chocolates from around the world they have already weeded out the losers.

A word about COCOA BELLA...a lovely confection of a chocolate store where only the best is allowed in the door. Michael Freeman, purveyor, has searched out and selected the finest chocolate from Europe and the United States. You are in good hands here as Michael is the former chocolate buyer for the Duty Free Shops (DFS) and has a fine palate. Visit their site to create your own custom box or place yourself in their capable hands and order their new ‘World’s Greatest Box of Chocolates’ which is an assortment of 18 of the "best of the best" handcrafted chocolates. Our favorites include the hand-crafted champignon from Michel Cluizel (France), the rainbow-colored rosemary caramel from Christopher Elbow (Missouri) and the roasted almond cluster from Charles Chocolates (U.S.).

TEA AND CHOCOLATE

I taste a lot of chocolate. My personal purist preferences run to plain chocolate bars but I have never been known to turn my nose up at a well done confection. I can work my way through a box of See’s faster than you can say ‘Nuts and Chews‘. Lately there are a variety of new confectioners on the scene who become breathless as they describe their out of this world, previously unknown bon bon combinations. Some of these new confections work, some do not.

I recently had the opportunity to taste a new collection of fine chocolates created and co-branded by Charles Chocolates and Teance Fine Teas. At first thought chocolate and tea may seem an unusual combination but only because it has not been explored in depth. It may be that the combination works because the cacao seed undergoes many of the same flavor developing processes that tea does, namely fermentation and drying. There are a few chocolate bars on the market that add dried tea leaves to plain chocolate and call it a day. This new collection goes beyond the simple stirring of ingredients together. Experienced alchemists are at work here. By infusing cream with the highest grade teas and then adding milk and bittersweet chocolate to create a ganache, Chef Marika Doob of Charles Chocolates and Winnie Yu of Teance Fine Teas have created a new dimension of chocolates.

The elegance of the signature handmade edible chocolate box hints at the sublime flavors of the chocolates inside. The lid shows a hand-drawn painting of the tea mountains of China. The chocolates are inscribed with the handwritten Chinese characters that describe each of the five different flavors: Formosa Baochong, Special Jasmine, Osmanthus, Lichee and Charcoal Roasted Oolong.

Now, how can you enjoy these new confections? You can purchase them on line from Charles Chocolates. Or you can go to Teance’s new Tea Shop in Berkeley at 1780 Fourth Street, between Peet’s and The Pasta Shop. The new tea shop will be pouring Tasting Flights, ranging in price from $11.00 to $15.00 per flight. Suggested pairings of individual chocolates are available for an additional charge.