Have you all experienced what I have lately? Family members and friends who are asking for your “list”. Items that you would like to have as a holiday gift. If you are like me, and you love food, cooking and all things kitchen related, I may have just done your work for you. Following in the footsteps of PB&Julie, Pixie and Emiline, and I am sure others, I have put together a list of my favorite kitchen related items from this year, a la Oprah Winfrey. There is a variety of items and prices. These are things that I have and love, as well as a few things from my own wish list, that I may not have had the pleasure of using yet.

Lisabeeen Coffee
I have spoken quite often about Lisa and her amazing beans. She hand-roasts them lovingly at home in a coffee roaster she made by converting an electric grill. To see how she does it, click here. She has a small cottage industry going on from her home in beautiful Bennington VT. Try some today!

Kalamata Gold Greek Organic Extra Virgin Olive Oil - 500 ml bottle
I love olive oil and for Mediterranean cooking (my favorite) you must have a good olive oil, no scratch that you must have an EXCELLENT Olive Oil, Extra Virgin, please. I know everyone has their favorites, but I favor Greek Olive Oil (I know, I am a bad bad Italian). It is like liquid gold – full of freshness, floral hints and a peppery afterbite.

Mediterranean Diet Cookbook: A Delicious Alternative for Lifelong Health
Speaking of the Mediterranean Diet, this cookbook is a must have. It is a culinary tour through all the regions of the Mediterranean, from Italy to Greece to North Africa, Spain, The Middle East and Southern France. It is full of SUPER healthy AND delicious recipes that feed your spirit, tastebuds and stomach, in that order. I could not LIVE without it. Seriously. To read more about it, click here.

Dolce Italiano: Desserts from the Babbo Kitchen
Speaking of Italian things and cookbooks, this is one of my new favorites. I had the extreme pleasure of meeting Gina DePalma, the author and pastry chef for Mario Batali’s Restaurant, Babbo, through cyberspace. I was able to join a few other American Expats in Italy by trying several of Gina’s recipes and it was a wonderful experience. Through the experience I realized I had found another “can’t live without” cookbook! Thanks Gina! To read more about the event and contest click here and here

Bialetti Moka Express, 6 Cup and Shin Bistro Milk Frother By Bodum
Continuing on the Italian theme (see I am redeeming myself after confessing to preferring Greek Olive Oil) here is a product I use EVERY DAY. I love it and when using Lisabeeen’s coffee, I now cannot go out to get good coffee without complaining, because this is just SO MUCH BETTER. To read more on this topic – my devotion to coffee, click here (Don’t worry Cris, I will be talking about Brazilian coffee very soon!)

Sherry Vinegar 6.8 oz
I don’t know how I lived without this product for so long. I just didn’t get it. I thought with Balsamic, Red Wine, White Wine, Rice Wine and Apple Cider, you had all your bases covered. I wasn’t feeling all these extraneous vinegars. I mean how many vinegars did one person need. I already have an olive oil problem (too many!), I didn’t need to start on the vinegars. How wrong was I. Since I discovered this Sherry vinegar, I have been converted. We had it at the cooking school where I work, and I added it to a red pepper dip I was making, and it turned that dip to magic. It was amazingly better. So I knew this was something I needed to add to my repertoire!

So this begins my own wish list section!

NEW! Short Hair Black Cat Cork Bottle Buddy Wine Stopper
Enough said. I love all things Black Kitty as they remind me of my own sweet kitty (even though this one looks lke a boy cat and she is a total GIRL).

Solid Pewter Coffee Scoop with Matching Hook, Floral Design, Made in USA (Handcrafted)
Tin Woodsman is an Oregon company that makes handcrafted kitchen “jewelry”. It is so beautiful. Paula Deen uses the fish measuring cups and spoons on her show and they have more than just cups and spoons, they have things for tea and coffee, salad spoons, and even holiday things. Really cool stuff! Also made in the USA, by a true artisan. Love that.

Vita-Mix 1321 Professional Series, Ruby
This is the ULTIMATE in kitchen appliances. We have one at the cooking school and I have so enjoyed using it. I always describe it as a manual vs. automatic (in car terminology). There is an on-off switch but there is also a speed dial that allows you to easily control the blending, grating and pulverizing this machine can do. Yes, it is expensive, but with it, you replace a blender, food processor and coffee grinder. It even comes with a HUGE cookbook that has many tasty recipes! It is very very cool and comes in a lot of wonderful colors like Ruby, Onyx and Platinum. I like the red.

Also guys, help a fellwo foodie!!! There is a wonderful new blog that Jennifer at ….and the eggs has started called: People + Food. It is all about people and their relationship with food through a food memory. I am being featured today so please go and check it out! She is looking for more participants so please send her your food memory TODAY!!!! For more info check out The Leftover Queen Forum

Coming up:
Holiday Cookies
A Gift From Brazil

Here is the final installment of our vacation to New England that Roberto and I took in October. Amazing how time flies!

One of our other stops during our New England trip was in Bennington Vermont, visiting our friends Nicki and Lisa (you will remember them from our Ft. Lauderdale trip although we all had slightly different hair at that point….). When in Bennington you must go to The Bennington Battle Monument. The monument was built in the 1880’s at the same location in 1777 during the war of independence, that the American colonists maintained a store of weapons and food, which the British knew was critical to capture in order to restock their own troops.

Besides the history the Bennington Monument is a great place to look out over Bennington and see the landscape which at this time of year which included many beautifully colored trees. You get to the top of the monument by going up in an elevator. It is cold up there so be sure to bring a jacket.

Another must see outdoor monuments of sorts is the great poet, Robert Frost’s grave at The Old Bennington Cemetary. It lies in a small cemetary that houses many old and ornate tombstones and also those that are fairly plain. The cemetary goes back to the American Revolution. In 1920 Roberto Frost came to Shaftsbury, VT (one town over from Bennington) to live. His wife died suddenly 13 years later and he went to their old farm in Derry NH to scatter her ashes per her wishes, but the place was run down. He kept her ashes until he bought 2 burial plots at the Old Bennington Cemetery behind the Old First Congregational Church.

We were a little chilly after our trip to the monument and cemetary, so we decided to look for some indoor activities. There is a local winery in Southern Vermont called The North River Winery. All of us (Me, Roberto, Nicki & Lisa) having been residents of Vermont at some point and had all been to this winery in the past and had vowed to never go back. But it is just a thing you do when you are in VT – it is like a weird kind of pride for the state thing – local wine. North River Winery makes all their wines from fruits grown in Vermont – apples, raspberries, blueberries, rhubarb, etc. Sounds good right?

Well not so much…all of us really liked the IDEA of these kinds of wine, but the taste leaves something to be desired. I think it would make nice salad dressing, but drinking wine? Um no. I wish it weren’t so. As I love the idea of using local ingredients to make everything! But if you are ever in the area, do take the tasting and make up your own mind. They do stay in business so someone is buying the wines!

Anyway, Bennington is a wonderful place for a fall getaway full of beautiful leaves, historic monuments and local products! Go Vermont!

I am so pleased to be able to end this fabulous event we have been doing for the last 2 weeks! Thank you so much to Gina for writing this amazing cookbook, to Shelley for organizing the event and to Sara, Ilva and Michelle for participating and putting your culinary genius to work! This has just been so much fun and I am so happy I was able to participate!

Now on to the final recipe.

Fresh bay leaf also known as laurel, has a long history in the cuisine and culture of the Mediterranean. Crowns of bay leaves were used by the ancient Romans to award heroes in battle and the winners of sporting contests. It is used so much in Mediterranean cuisine and adapted so well to the Mediterranean climate that many think it is native to that land although it originates in Asia.

I am very interested in the history of food and especially how culinary influences from other cultures can change the cuisine of another country through the trade and communication between the two places. Food is an amazing tool that brings people together, teaches about other cultures and places and warms the soul. Bay leaf is just one of those ingredients – you see it in the cooking all over the Mediterranean – from Greece to Italy to North Africa you can taste its influence and see how it traveled as trade increased between those continents and empires.

I had never thought of using bay leaf in a sweet dish, so when I saw this recipe in Gina’s cookbook: Dolce Italiano, for Vanilla Bean and Bay Leaf Custard, I knew I had to try it. It would be a new flavor combination and something different from what I was used to. These are the kinds of recipes I am always drawn to. Some people are chocoholics, I on the other hand am a “vanilla-o-holic”. I love all things custard and cream. So the fact that this was a custard recipe, just put me over the edge! Roberto got his Chocolate Salami, this one was all about me!

Now if you are new to this Dolce Italiano contest that is going on, here are the quick details. You can win a signed copy of Dolce Italiano, by visiting these blogs below and commenting on the posts about the Dolce Italiano Recipes. Since I am ending this event – what a great honor I might add, I will make it easy for you. Here is where you have to go and comment:

Sara – Ms. Adventures in Italy made:Mosaic Biscotti & Sicilian Pistachio Cookies

Ilva – Lucullian Delights made: Chocolate Kisses & Cassata alla Siciliana

Michelle – Bleeding Espresso made: Ricotta Pound Cake & Sweet Apple Omlette

Shelley – At Home in Rome made: Chestnut Brownies & Chocolate & Tangerine SemiFreddo

Jenn – The Lefotver Queen made: Chocolate Salami & Bay Leaf Vanilla Custards – See it right here!

Please visit these sites and comment on those entries listed above for your chance to win the signed cookbook!

On to the recipe:
Read the rest of this entry »

This month’s Royal Foodie Joust was really a challenge of tastes, using one of my most favorite combinations: Chocolate and Chilies. There is just something so warming and sensual about this mingling of flavors that when Ley of Cilantro & Lime, the winner of last month’s joust, chose these ingredients, along with a grain of any kind, I knew we were going to get some imaginative entries this month and that we most certainly did! If you have not had a chance to check them out, you really should click here , as I am sure many of you would enjoy the recipes. If you are not familiar with The Royal Foodie Joust, it is a monthly event where you have three ingredients you must use to create a recipe. The winner picks the three ingredients for the next month. I cannot tell you how impressed I am with the culinary ingenuity that comes with each month’s competition. The competitors just always push their skill to the next level and I am impressed each month. It has become quite an event and to commemorate last month, our largest number of entries to date, I decided from now on to award the winner of each month with an apron that has the Royal Foodie Joust Icon, the name of their blog and their winning entry.

Here is a quote from last month’s winner, Ley:

“I was so excited that I jumped up and down, squeaking. (Thanks, Jenn. Now my new neighbors think I’m a bit off.) I immediately ran inside, put it on, and proceeded to take about 50 pictures of myself in the bathroom mirror.”

If you want to read her whole story about receiving the apron click here.
It is a hoot!!! Not only is Ley a great cook, but she is a comedian as well!

So if you want to win a super cool personalized apron, make sure to enter January’s Royal Foodie Joust. Once the winner gives me their choice of ingredients, I announce it on The Leftover Queen Forum and the competition begins! So please check in frequently. So on that topic, I will now announce the winner of December 2007 Royal Foodie Joust:

Emiline of Sugar Plum with her Chocolate-Chipotle Bizcochitos

Second Place Tie:

Ben of What’s Cooking? with Pumpkin Mole Over Mexican Rice

Brittany of The Pie Lady with Mayan Chocolate Boca Negra

Third Place:

Nuria of Spanish Recipes with Rabbit and Red prawns with Chocolate Sauce

Thanks to all the participants!