Just in case you don’t read French, this sign says that smoking is no longer allowed at restaurants in France. Fantastique!!! I got the above picture from one of my favorite bloggers, David Lebovitz.

I have discovered the coolest new dessert garnish—bubble sugar! Well, actually it is not really sugar, instead it is made from isomalt, which is a natural sugar alternative (and, not to mention, has less calories than sugar).

Isomalt is a common ingredient used by professional pastry chefs who enjoy making sculptures with sugar, but I prefer to use it as a quick way to embellish a dessert! It is incredibly easy to work with, isn’t too terribly expensive, and will totally impress your friends.

Here’s the how-to:

Lay one silpat on a baking sheet. Spread about 1/4 cup of isomalt crystals on the silpat as thinly and evenly as possible. Lay another silpat on top. Set another baking sheet on top of that (for weight). Bake at 350 degrees until the crystals melt, and go from being opaque to clear (about 45 minutes). Then set the tray out at room temp until is it cool. Slowly peel back the top silpat and break off shards of the bubble sugar in your desired size and shape. And, if you really want to be adventurous, you can twist the isomalt into curls while it is still warm (not too hot though, or you’ll burn your fingers).

I adore this. Free Rice is a site where you play a vocabulary game and for each correct answer, 20 grains of rice is donated to the United Nations World Food Program. I will admit I’ve done well and have “donated” a good amount of rice thus far. What a fantastic way to do something great to cap off 2007 and/or begin 2008. On December 27th alone, over 150 million grains of rice was donated. We can kick that up a notch, eh?

As a voracious reader of all things food or culinary related, I was fascinated by the interview of author Diana Abu-Jaber on www.culinate.com. Shamefully I haven’t read Diana’s books, but I have read her work in national magazines; I fully intend to change this situation after I get through the books piling up next to my bed. This is the stack I got for Christmahannakwanzaakah:

The Elements of Cooking by Ruhlman (I’ve almost finished this one)
Food, A History of Taste
Kitchen Mysteries by This
My China, by Kylie Kwong
Trail of Crumbs by Kim Sunee

If this isn’t the strangest thing to appear on the web…it’s certainly the cheesiest. With a global audience of more than 1.5 million in less than a year, folks from around the world have been logging on to CHEDDARVISION, a website in huge numbers to watch a 44lb handmade cheddar cheese slowly mature. Over the last nine month addicted viewers have watched “Wedginald” and now the big wheel has been shipped off to his new owner at Mud House Winery in Marlborough, New Zealand. To get a slice of his progress you must now go to www.whereswedginald.tv. According to the Cheddarvision website, “Cheddarvision will return in the New Year.” I think this has gone whey too far.

In the days before Thanksgiving, the kitchen staff at Emeril’s Delmonico has been knee deep in garlic-mashed potatoes, oyster stuffing, bacon-smothered greens beans… This is because our restaurant has decided to take the work out of Thanksgiving for you (and all throughout the holidays, for that matter). What this means is that you get to sit back and relax along with your dinner guests, once and for all! What this means for us is that we get to turn into a full-force catering company!

Special occasions like this are always lots of fun because it gives myself, and the staff a fun way to change up our daily routine. It also gives us a great excuse to test out new recipes and of course eat lots of great food! My contribution to the festivities are a variety of pies and bread puddings, like sweet potato pie, chocolate pecan pie and bread pudding with whisky caramel sauce. And not to toot my own horn, but they are YUMMY!

So, if you too would like Emeril to help out in your kitchen this holiday season, check out our menus online. You can order a side or two, or do the whole shebang! And, if you’re anything like me, you’ll take all the credit!

Emeril’s Holiday To Go

Wow. This is really cool. The Fondude comes to your home, gets in the kitchen and prepares a luscious cheese fondue for two or three people, serves it in a fondue pot (forks included) that you get to keep, plates-up baguette bread and cornichons (little pickles) to eat with the fondue, and then leaves. Excellent. How clever is this?! Cold weather, warm cheesy fondue, crusty bread, great wine (BYOB) - count me in!!

A friend of mine recently sent me a surprise gift in the mail—a book called, “My Last Supper.” Although the title sounds a bit morbid, it is in fact a really neat book!

Its author, Melanie Dunea, asked 50 great chefs six questions: “What would be your last meal on earth? What would be the setting of the meal? What would you drink with your meal? Would there be music? Who would be your dining companions? Who would prepare the meal?” As you can imagine, the responses are all across the board, from simple to spectacular.

One of my favorites is Eric Ripert’s response to the last question. He simply says he “would like to prepare it [for himself,] for the pleasure of doing so for one last time.” Truly the sentiment of a great chef.

According to the UK’s “Daily Mail,” the world’s most expensive Christmas cocktail is found at hot London nightclub, Movida and it will run you a cool $71,011.50. Dubbed the “Flawless,” the drink contains, “… a large measure of Louis XII cognac, half a bottle of Cristal Rose champagne, some brown sugar, angostura bitters and a few flakes of 24-carat edible gold leaf…But the real extravagance is an 11-carat white diamond ring - which can be found at the bottom of the glass.”

Because the cocktail is so over-the-top, customers who purchase the drink will have two security guards stationed tableside as the drink is prepared and all the way through to the very last sip.

I’ll take two please…yea right. FYI, according to the Guiness Book of World Records, the world’s most expensive cocktail is a $1400 Mai Tai served at the Merchant Hotel in Belfast. The notable ingredient is 17-year-old J. Wray Nephew rum from Jamaica that is called “history in a bottle” because it is only one of about six bottles in existence, available to the public. The Merchant Hotel locks their bottle in the hotel safe at night.

This is too cool and if you act fast, a great gift for the holidays!

Gourmet and Bon Appetit magazine’s website, Epicurious, has teamed up with Tastebook to create a website where you can make your own cookbook!

All you need to do is pick an image for your cover, give your book a title and plug in your favorite recipes from Epicurious—an online archive of Gourmet and Bon Appetit’s recipes which boasts a collection of over 5000 to choose from! Each book can hold up to 100 recipes and can be categorized into 10 different chapters. You can choose to fill the entire book yourself, or you can leave room for more recipes to be added later. Either way sounds good to me!

The book itself has a hardcover, and a binder (which makes for easy recipe access, and easy recipe additions), and is nicely priced at about $35. Not bad for a “handmade” gift!

Go to: http://www.tastebook.com/epi