Lent And Fish

Today is Ash Wednesday which starts off Lent. It's when some Catholics and other Christians give up meat completely,Fish is allowed by the church so it's also a good time to try a pescatarian diet.

Alison Roman gives us a good fish recipe in today's New York Times Food section,It is salmon with whole lemon dressing.It's an easy dish to make on any fasting days like Wednesdays and Fridays.The fillet is dressed with a blend of lemon, white wine vinegar, shallots and olive oil. Herbs such as oregano, marjoram and thyme give the salmon a lovely green flavor.It's mixed and then poured  over the fish . After the fillet is baked for fifteen to twenty minutes or until the flesh is an orange-y pink.It's served on a bed of butter or Little Gem Romaine lettuce. Ms. Roman also has sliced cucumbers and radishes for crunch but you can omit these if you want.

You could easily make any kind of fish for this Lenten season. Cod is good and it can be prepared a variety of different ways. The simplest is buttered cod cooked in a skillet. The fish is first seasoned with paprika, salt, pepper and garlic powder then sauteed. Serve with a side of steamed spinach for a light, yet filling supper. Try it Greek style where it's lightly coated with flour spiked with coriander, paprika and cumin. It's first seared then baked with lemon  juice, olive oil and a lot of minced garlic.One of the best fish to eat during this Lenten season is salmon. It's chock full of Omega 3s and Vitamin B's along with reducing the risk of heart disease. Try them in steak form with a marinade of Worcester sauce , lemon juice and butter. You could also try air fried salmon patties for a different spin on the fish.

Lent is a time of fasting and giving up. It's also a time for discovering healthier eating and healthier foods. Try the fish diet during this period. It may be the first step towards better eating.

Big Meal Little Kitchen

Thanksgiving can be the most stressful meal to make for any home chef. Imagine preparing and cooking in an apartment, where space, especially kitchen is rare. Alison Roman will do just that. How? Consider it kitchen magic.

Ms. Roman's battle plan was the main topic of today's New York Times Food section. Ms. Roman, known for her Instagram pictures of drool worthy dishes, is a well known internet chef along with being a regular contributor to the Food section. Cooking is her life and she has turned it into alchemy. That alchemy involves cooking in a small Brooklyn apartment. Can it be done? Yes!!! There are clever ways to store food and serve it cooked.There is also a practical plan on when to buy and prep certain dishes along with recipes that can take you from the first course to dessert with ease.It pays to heed her advice. It starts with planning the menu, three days ahead (although you could start planning the weekend before). Then,, of course there is the actual grocery shopping. Ms Roman strongly advises
also stocking up on aluminum foil, plastic wrap, paper towels and resealable bags for leftovers. Also it's a good time to order the wine you'll drink too.  She recommends something sparkling and festive and later on light reds.The day before should be all about the prep, from tearing bread for the stuffing to making the crust for the pies and galette. Another must - going to bed at a reasonable hour to be ready for the big day. The next day she chronicles what to do from eating a sustaining breakfast with coffee to finally sitting down to the eat.

Ms.Roman has a good handful of recipes that anyone can make. Her turkey is dry brined with sheet pan (!) gravy. The brine is more of a rub made with salt ,pepper , brown sugar and red onions along with garlic and onions. Keep it dry brined for a day or at least eight hours in the fridge. The gravy starts with Ms. Roman's own Cheater's Stock or chicken stock with the leftover roasted bits from the turkey. An unusual ingredient, soy sauce is used for saltiness and vinegar is used for tang. What goes with this? Buttered stuffing with celery and leeks. This is a traditional savory bread pudding, made even better by using such crusty bread as sourdough or ciabatta and flavored with a typical stuffing ingredient  - celery and a not so traditional one - leeks. It's a buttery, crunchy delight spiked with celery leaves.Of course there has to be potatoes and Ms. Roman makes hers with sour cream, chives and dill. She also takes the traditional squash dish and caramelizes it with maple syrups. Some home chefs would stop there but she then adds red pepper and smoked paprika for zing. Hazelnuts are also tossed into the mix for crunch.There is the traditional green bean recipe but brightened with kale and shallots. Other sides are fancy canned cranberries zested with oranges or tangerines and red onion and a mixed herb salad with spicy greens such as arugula, mizura and mustard greens. The piece de resistance is the dessert - a deep dish honey apple galette with homemade crust. The crust is buttery with a slightly spiced apple filling, There are even sesame seeds sprinkled on for crunch.

Imagine making all this in a small apartment's kitchen. Ms. Roman has - and quite successfully. It can be made  in a larger with the same results - good food with good flavor.

Mix Versus Scratch

There is a huge controversy going on right now -and it's not what baby box Sussex will be named. It involves cakes mixes versus the all natural scratch cakes. Both have merits.Both have their detractions. What's a home baker to do?

Scratch cakes have been around since Roman times when special breads were baked with honey, butter and eggs. The18th, 19th and the first thirty years of the 20th Century saw housewives mixing ingredients such as eggs, flour, sugar  and butter into crude pans and baking them. They were eaten no matter how they turned out. The 1930's saw the birth of cake mix and it took twenty years for it to be a household staple.Now there's an internet controversy about which is better. Many home bakers- especially moms of young children - prefer using scratch recipes. The ingredients are natural plus they can change the recipe to suit gluten and allergy problems.One of the pluses of the internet age is that there are tons of scratch cake recipes from basic chocolate and vanilla to rum and strawberry flavors.Thanks to grocery stores , Amazon and King George's Flour ,all ingredients such as corn starch and vanilla pods can be found. Yet , despite  all this are scratch cakes better? Is the taste better? What about the crumb?

I baked both scratch and mix cakes during my lamb experiment.What produced a better bite? The box mixes, of course. As with scratch ones I could alter the recipe, getting rid of the vegetable oil, adding double the amount of eggs along with including a cup of cold water. The crumb was dense and moist, perfect for the lamb cake and a good foil for the super sweet icing that would frost the lamb.The baked vegan lamb was not that great tastewise. The recipe was from Vegan Cooking In Colorado which was taken from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over The World and modified. (I bought the cupcake book and will be experimenting with its recipes soon). To me there was too much almond extract - four teaspoons - that gave the cake a sickly sweet taste. The crumb was so delicate that the lamb's head fell off. Maybe the recipe would have worked  for cupcakes or layer cakes. The color was very pale too. There was no richness there. The mix cakes - all Duncan Hines blended with Dream Whip had this , possibly because of the addition of Dream Whip. I won't rule out homemade cakes yet when I want to impress  - then it's a Duncan Hines cake mix all the way.

What's the best recipe to use when making a cake? That's really up to the home baker. What works for one baker may not work for the other.As with cooking the answers lies with experimenting.

The Best of 2018 Issue

What was the best recipe of 2018?Or the best restaurant? Or the best wine? The answers are in today's New York Time Food section. Foodies and readers may agree or may have a few of their own choices. Let's see if your choices were in the top.

So, what where the best recipes? One turned out to be the one that was my biggest disaster Julia Moskin's chicken franchese. Done right it must be magic.I realize that some recipes just don't translate to vegan. It is a great dish,perfect to make for a holiday dinner party with friends. Add some fettucine along with a flute of Prosecco for a really festive meal.Another chicken recipe also became a Times reader fave - Melissa Clark's sheet pan chicken , Even novice chefs can make this tasty mix of chicken, bell peppers and sweet potatoes. It's spiked with sage,paprika , and cayenne. If you prefer mild then try Alison Roman's baked mac and cheese -  creamy with sharp cheddar and given texture with a sprinkling of bread crumbs. There is also Sam Sifton's adaptation of Jonathan Wu's beef and broccoli using chuck steak, and butter! End with salted chocolate chunk  shortbread cookies, from Alison Roman . These new classics won hands down as one of the best recipes, as it married everyone's favorite flavors dark chocolate and butter.

The best restaurants and quick bites are internationally varied. Reviewers went wild over Lagman House that produces the varied noodles, from Gulshat Azimova. a Dungan cook. She is from a small minority from southern Kazakhstan. with ancestral influences from the Muslims who traded on the Silk Road and the Han Dysnasty. Bab Marrakesh gave reviewers  a taste of Morocco. with lamb shanks amid prunes and almond and the meat pie, bastilla, dusted with confectioner's sugar. Ho Foods has its; lu  rou fan, pork belly soaked in a combination of Taiwanese beef and rice wine, along with orange peels. What wines were the stars of 2018? Eric Asimov cites the grand  Chateau Lafite Rothchild Pauillac 1868 (!), He was fortunate enough to attend the 150th anniversary celebration of Lafite's acquisition by the famed Rothchild family. According to Mr. Asimov,this was the wine of a lifetime. For more down to earth wines, there's the Noel Verset Cornas 2004, a syrah and the Italian La Stoppa Emilia Macchione from northwest Emilia -Romana,known for its' purity and depth.

These are some of the best - tastes and flavors that made 2018 sing . Will they continue on in 2019?Or be replaced by even better and tastier foods and wines. Time will tell.

Rethinking Cauliflower

One of the staples of any holiday dinner is cauliflower. It can be served raw as in salad or crudites or cooked with lemon or garlic. Many home chefs are put off by it. They shouldn't be. It;s an easy, versatile cook.

Allison Roman wrote about this beloved veggie in yesterday's New York Times Food section. Her guide and recipes are extensive. The guide is very useful and the dishes are re-imagining cooking and spicing the florets. keep in mind the weight. A fresh picked one will retain water .Also the outer leaves should be compact and have clusters of florets. Avoid those with dark spots and a soft spongy texture. They are way past their prime. You can buy your Thanksgiving cauliflower now, They will last a week in the fridge. Wrap it tightly in plastic though. The florets' size more or less determines what you can do with them. Try to break them into bite size pieces using your fingers or a knife. The core and leaves are edible and actually delicious. Cauliflower leaves taste like cabbage  The core is more meatier than the florets. but its' flavor is the same. Use it as opposed to just throwing it in the trash. You can slice the head into thick slabs to grill,Just keep in mind that the smaller arts will fall offing during roasting. Ms. Roman suggests  roasting them until they're extra crispy or save them for salads.

As for the cooking them, Ms, Roman suggests almost every method to cook them. You can steam . saute , roast or puree them. You could just serve them raw. They're great for dipping and crunching. Steaming is another method which produces a blank canvas. Try the steamed florets with cheese or browned butter, topped with chopped crunchy nuts.Better methods are roasting which gives an even coat of caramelization. Add cumin or hot pepper flakes for bite. You will need plenty of olive oil for the florets. Cauliflower can also be gratined too.Add heavy cream and Gruyere for a really lush dish. You could add onions , garlic and leeks  but that may sully the flavor .Pureed cauliflower is another option. You can start off the holiday dinner with a silky soup, Just remember that it does take more work by transferring the creamed veggie to a blender. You can use either chicken or vegetable broth for a thinner texture or milk or even cream for a thicker potage.For a truly hip dish, think pickled florets.Sub in the cauliflower for cucumbers in any pickling recipe.

Cauliflower is one of the most versatile veggies out there. Pick a good one. Then decide what to make of it.

Chickpeas From Savory To Sweet

Chickpeas are quickly becoming a kitchen staple. They can be used in any lunch or dinner recipe and now they also an ingredient in breakfasts and desserts. These creamy little peas are becoming the powerhouses of the culinary scene and with good reason.

This amazing little pea , also know as the garbanzo bean has been around for 7,500 years.We modern cooks weren't the first to popularize it. Ancient Roman, Greek, and Egyptian chefs  also cooked with it and centuries later the Spanish brought it to the New World. It also made its way to Spain via North Africa and India, thanks to the trade routes. Chickpeas are the backbone in Indian vegetarian cooking, allowing it to be the much needed protein. The beans are divided into two kinds , desi and kabuli. The first is a small dark ball while the kabuli is the smooth creamy white one we use. Surprisingly you can start off your day off with a chickpea scramble. It's mixing chickpeas with turmeric (to give it that scrambled egg look) along with white onion and garlic.If this is too strong in the AM, just omit the onion and garlic and sub in spinach and mushrooms. A nice brunch idea is a savory muffin ,using a can of them drained with  a package of spinach. The best thing about the recipe is no flour is used,perfect for those with gluten and wheat allergies. The peas and spinach are pulsed in a food processor with nutritional yeast and Parmasian cheese, Eggs are added for binding and then the mixture is poured into a greased muffin pan. The muffins are baked the same as regular muffins  - for about twenty-five minutes.


Of course chickpeas have been used in lunches and dinners since the Neolithic Era. Hummus is a classic lunch as well as party dish and anyone can make it. What is good about the recipe is that you can add anything you want to i, from spinach to red peppers. The basic recipe is mashing the peas with lemon juice and olive oil. The traditional one calls for tahini sauce but this can be omitted. Minced garlic is added for bite. some home chefs even add sun dried tomatoes for color and to amp up the taste.Now the age old dip is entering the dessert realm.Because of its' mild taste companies and home chefs are pairing  the pea with chocolate and sweet spices. Sweet hummus dip has a stronger, texture than the regular, in a way resembling cookie dough.Use unsweetened cocoa  when making it and palm sugar.Of course the chickpea water, aquafaba has hit the baking world in a big way. Bakers are whipping in into vegan meringues  with excellent results. It can also top both Key Lime and lemon meringue pies too for a healthier spin. Chickpeas , though, shine their best in stews and soups. A hearty chickpea stew is loaded with protein and flavor. Add tomatoes along with bell peppers and onions for one that is tasty and filling. Or try it with cauliflower, spiked with curry for a different spin.Minestrone soup can benefit greatly from the addition of a can of chickpeas.A cup of them can go a long way in adding flavor to a pot.

Use this amazing little powerhouse any way you'd like, Start the day with it or make a refreshing lemon hummus for a healthy lunch, Have it for dinner or even dessert.The chickpea is versatile.

Your Pancake Guide

One of the best cold weather breakfasts is a plate of pancakes. They make for a hearty starter or even a Sunday  supper too..Best of all the recipe can be varied to suit different tastes and needs.

Pancakes are one of the oldest dishes in the world, first being made by the ancient Greeks. They were call tagenites and made sort of similar to today's recipe.The first recipe involved wheat flour mixed with olive oil, honey, and curdled milk and served for breakfast.They were topped with honey, cheese and sesame, possibly a form of tahini The ancient Romans made something similar. .It was Middle English that gave us the word pancake.Almost every country has some variation of the cakes.Most Americans and Canadians are familiar with flapjacks or griddlecakes. The US also invented the smaller pancake, the silver dollar, ever popular in pancake houses across the country. The French variation , the crepe, was a trend in the Seventies when a chain creperie , The Magic Pan hit the malls. Italians have a similarly textured one called the crespelle.Now we can experience the Indian varieties which, like crepes, are both savory and sweet.The Chinese have been offering savory ones for years in the shape of their tasty scallion pancakes.

Pancakes are one of the easiest breakfasts to make. Most home chefs turns to that classic , Bisquick to make hearty and sometimes heavy ones.There's also Aunt Jemima, the country's oldest mix , first being made in 1889 by Chris and Charles Underwood. Store's such as Stop & Shop and Trader Joe's also have their own brands. These are great if you're in a hurry and want to whip up a quick batter. The best,though are the scratch ones. Try the All Recipes one which has all purpose flour and baking powder for lift. Also eggs and milk are added to give the finished product a cakey texture.For richer pancakes sub in heavy cream for milk.Recipes like these also increase the butter amount too. Usually there are two tablespoons added but you can go up to a quarter of a cup. Pancakes are versatile. You can add nuts such as chopped almonds and walnuts or go the fruit route with blueberries, strawberries or coconut. Once you've mastered the basic pancake, then try the gem of the breakfast world - the Dutch baby. This is a German style one, similar to Yorkshire pudding. You do need a cast iron skillet for it because the skillet has to sit in a 450 degree Farenheit oven before the batter is poured in.It a richer version of the basic pancake recipe using more milk and eggs.It puffs up and is served with everything form lemon and powdered sugar to maple syrup.

Pancakes are the best defense on a cold January morning. This ancient recipe is still on trend thanks to being hearty and rib sticking. Make them your first meal , complete with butter and drenched in maple syrup.

Women In The Kitchen

With this being International Women's Day . it's time we celebrate the impact of women on food and nutrition. After all it's not our dads anf grandads that fed us but our mothers and grandmothers. Yet there seems to be more male chefs than female chefs, while it seems there are more waitresses than waiters. What gives?

Since the earliest of our days, it's been the females that have been providing food, whether from the earliest hunter-gatherers to the first "home chefs" roasting meat on  wood spits over a fire. It's the women who ground the wheat  to make the bread that fed the family. They made sure children had the best nutrition for the time, as they tended to gardens. Our sisters from antiquity probably introduced fruits and vegetables to their families diets, expanding both their husbands and childrens' palates. Some of these recipes exist today in the form of matzoh and pita, roasted lamb and dumplings . The home chefs  that lived during the Roman and Greek empires and the Han Dynasty realized the importance of meals being eaten together too, and how it would strengthen family ties.They passed down themselves and their stories in dishes that the next generation of both girls and boys are making today with electric stoves and all sorts of modern gadgets .Believe it or not we're all eating some form of the Paleo diets thanks to our early female ancestors.

You would think that with women ruling the kitchen , they'd be ruling the culinary world. Not so much, even in this day and age.The cookbooks, were written by women, with the first real one penned by Isabella Beeton in the 1860's but a woman owning a restaurant was unheard of , unless she ran it with her parents  husband, or children.It was a man who gave us the famed Gilded Age eatery Delmonico's in lower Manhattan.it was the great chef Auguste Escoffier , a Frenchman who was the world's first celebrity chef. It took a century later for the first female, chef, Julia Child who captivated American home chefs and foodies in the 1960's./. She also laid the groundwork for the celebrity chef culture that came thirty years later in the 1990s. Still, there seems to be an imbalance with the number of male chefs to female chefs today.   The only successful female chef  now is Lidia Bastianich who has her TV show , restaurants,products and cookbooks. She's on the same par as Bobby Flay, and Gordon Ramsey but she' really the only one. There's an imbalance lower down the culinary ladder too.. Most of the fast food managers are men, Assistant managers are women, but it seems that this is the highest they can go. The first tier workers are usually female also. Could it be that boys would rather work in the Apple stores as opposed to  a Wendy's or McDonald's? Or that girls are just pointed to kitchens.?

Today is the Internatioal Women's Day. We have fed and nurtured the world for millennia. Yet in some sectors of the food industry  we're still treated like underlings. It has to change- and we have to change it.

Honey Versus Sugar

Everyone needs some kind of sweetener, whether in their  coffee or tea along in their baked goods. We all know white sugar is bad for you. There is honey and raw sugar.The question is which is better? Which works well with drinks along with cooking needs.

Honey is nature's sweetener.It's been used since ancient times, starting with the Greeks and Romans.Depending on the flowers involved in making it, the stuff contains niacin, riboflavin and calcium,It also has iron in it along with zinc and potassium.,Honey also contains Vitamin C and is useful in tissue and cell repair. Raw sugar is actually white or refined sugar but with out the processing. It really is devoid of everything from calories to vitamins.It's slightly better for you than white sugar..If you want a more substantial sweeteener than go for molasses or even the cactus based agave.Honey also  adds more depth along with antioxidants to breads, cakes and cookies. Because of its' slight acidity, it reacts with the baking soda creating a moister, denser cake or loaf.

As far as portability raw sugar does win. There are packets that you can easily stash in a lunch bag or at your desk without any fuss . It also is easier to bake with as well  however honey is still the healthier ingredient.  Then there's the sticky  residue. Honey can be messy when it's spilled and a pain to clean up. Raw sugar can just be swept away.It's also better to take on vacations too because it is easier to pack. Then there' the coffee conundrum.Coffee almost cries out for sugar packets, Putting  an aromatic honey in a good cup of joe may clash with the drink's rich flavor. It's better with any kind of tea. Leave the raw sugar for your cappuccinos or lattes.

Honey or sugar - which is the better choice. For home stick with honey. It is used more and can be used in baking  and just to sweeten teas. For the office and vacations use the packets, but use them sparingly, You can have both , and both work well in those different and diverse situations.

Passover Cuisine

Tonight and for the next eight days is the religious observance of Passover. The holy days have their own foods ; each with a special significance . Each dish has been handled down for centuries, some with modifications , others with the same ingredients from ancient times.

There are the traditional foods that symbolize various meanings. There is matzoh, the unleavened bread, that symbolized the Israelites quick flee into Egypt. Th Passover table also has horseradish and bitter herbs to stand for slavery's bitterness. Charoset, a, mix of chopped apples. nuts wine and cinnamon represents life's sweetness while a roasted egg symbolizes life. There are also vegetables and lamb which symbolizes hope and sacrifice. A bowl of salt water symbolizes tears shed while there are four glasses of wine on t he table one for Elijah.


Of course over the centuries additions have been made to the table. various countries such as Italy and Spain have added some of their influence especially with the Roman and Sephardic Jews. Flourless cakes and pastries are also included to give some kick to the meal.


A Passover table is one of the most symbolic tables . Each dish has a meaning that goes back eons . Yet every year it still remains relevant.

Saffron The Delicate Spice

Nothing gives flavor, substance and color like saffron. It's the most delicate of all the spices yet it can transform simple dishes into gourmet treats. Even though it is one of the most expensive flavorings, the price is well worth it. Its' mellow taste and golden color is worth a million bucks and really, no other spice is comparable to it.


Saffron 's history starts off 3,500 years ago. Cooks first noticed that crocuses produced stigmas coated in a flavorful pollen. It was a staple in many Bronze Age Greek dishes as well as being a dye and a medicine during that time It was so populat that even. Ovid mentioned it in his Metamorphosis. Other ancient cultures used it in their cooking and for therapy as well. Saffron became the gold of spices during the Middle Ages and was also thought of as such, centuries later, in the American colonies. Even the Pennsylvania Dutch had an offshoot sect where the worshippers put saffron on a pedestal, using it in many trout, cake, chicken and noodle dishes.


The best known saffron recipe today is risotto Milanese. This is where alborio rice is cooked with onion and chicken stock. A generous amount of saffron threads and butter are later added to produce the most heavenly dish on earth. I love this form of risot (as we call it). Actually it tastes better reheated with more butter. There's something in the reheating that brings out the true flavor of this spice. Saffron can be used in other rice dishes such as paella. The English were famous for making saffron buns which are a nice treat if you're having a formal tea. You can add it to any chicken or fish dish for flavor and color.

The one spice to add to your spice rack is saffron. Never be without it. It adds to so many different dishes, transforming ordinary dishes into gourmet fare. it is just pure magic!!!

Where Do Sporks Come From?

Ever wonder how your common utensils came to be? That was the question that was brought up by my brother over lunch today . Since I sometimes write about the history of food, why had I never written about the history of utensils, he had wondered. Where did forks, knives spoons and even that modern invention , the spork come from.


The spoon is the earliest invention. It's name drives from the Anglo Saxon spon meaning chip or splinter. It gives you an idea that the earliest ones were taken from tree bark and somehow fashioned into scoops. The Romans had two kinds of spoons, one a cochleare for eggs and shell fish, the other,a ligula for soups and sweets. Forks were a bit trickier to sell to the public. People were using their fingers just fine and thought that any imitation of body was an insult to the Creator. After all we had been made in His Image. Despite the fact that the clergy deemed forks scandalous , they prevailed and were often seen at the end of dinner knives. The spork , the marriage of fork and spoon, came in 1909 in a supply catalog.It wasn't until KFC used it in their meals in the 1970's when it really gained popularity.

Luckily knives were seen as blessings, used for both killing one's dinner and cutting it up into pieces. It was Louis XIV that decreed that all sharp knives be outlawed from the dinner table and the birth of the butter knife came into being. The American colonists loved this idea and quickly incorporated it into their table ware. Of course with the birth of the steak house , sharp knives were seen at tables once more.


So that's where our basic utensils came from. To be honest you never really think of them as being nothing more than a utensil as opposed to being an object of history. Now it's fascinating to know who used the earlier versions of them and where.

Torrone, An Italian Christmas Treat

Christmas in any part of Italy is amazing. There are so many lush varieties of holiday foods that it's like a foodie wonderland. Rome has amazing Hanukkah dishes, while Naples serves up its' traditional thirteen fish dinner on Christmas Eve. Everyone has panetone and pan d'oro. Kids have especially good with a big treat - torrone from Befana, Italy's female version of Santa Claus. This is a wonderful chewy nougat that's eaten this time of year.

Torrone has its roots in ancient Rome where it was literally served up as foods to the gods. It was made and still is made with the basic,s honey egg whites and pistachios or hazelnuts. Squares of it were presented in Roman temples to the various deities for their help or as thanks.Torrone didn't get its' name until 1141 when a pastry chef made it in honor of one of the Sforza's (one of Italy's most powerful medieval families ) married. The marriage was held in Cremona, in central Italy where it was known for its' big tower or torrone. The chef made the candy in the shape of it and guests were impressed with this and the treat's smooth, sweet taste. Nowadays Italians put their own spin on it. Torrone is made with Strega in the Abruzzi region while Sicilians flavor it with orange and lemon.

Torrone can be made at home but it is labor intensive. You have to use egg whites and honey - not an easy combination at times and boil to the soft ball stage. It also requires wafers similar to what is given out in Holy Communion. Like all candy its' best to make torrone on a cool dry day. Make it on a warm humid one and you'll have candy that "weeps" . Clear fluid will ooze out of it creating a sticky mess. Sometimes it's best to stick with the store bought ones.

Torrone is a great treat this time of year. It's a reminder of why the Italians do candy right and produce this amazing mixture of just honey and egg whites.

Raspberries - A Late Summer treat

Surprisingly enough you can still go berry picking this month. September is raspberry season. This is the time of year when the late summer warmth produces another round of ripe sweet, berries., If you missed the first season back in June , then make sure you don't miss this one.

Raspberries have been around for over 2,000 years. They were popular in Roman ruled Britain with the agriculturalist, Palladius wrote about them in his journals.The red ones were imported to New York in the 1770's by the British while the black variety were indigenous to our Southern states (in fact North America is the only continent that produces them). Both are rich in calcium and Vitamin C. Not only that they are tasty, leaving a sweet, sensual flavor in your mouth.

Raspberries are good paired with almost anything and everything. My favorite is Delicious Orchard's Raspberry Jam on croissants. It just turns this elegant treat into something that's pure heaven. You can also use raspberries in reductions for any game fowl or even sprinkled on salads.Take freshly crushed raspberries and mix them with oil and vinegar for a raspberry vinaigrette.As a dessert think about spooning some over a rich devil's food cake or chocolate ice cream. Raspberry ice is also a lovely way to end a meal. Raspberries also look good decorating cupcakes while icing with them is perfect for any simple chocolate cake or cupcake.

Now is the season to pick raspberries. They'll be quite ripe under a late summer sun and bursting with flavor. Use this September to pick your finest basket of them!!!