Every year I get a basket full of chocolates and sour candies - the Easter Bunny knows what I like.  As a fan of dark chocolate, I got happy, happy when I found that beloved Elmer’s (a Louisiana product no less), now offers their creamy, delicious “Gold Brick Eggs” and “Heavenly Hash” in dark chocolate.  The soft, airy marshmallow and crunchy almonds of “Heavenly Hash” are the stuff of dreams.   Oh, and by the way, melted “Gold Brick” is a great addition to brownie recipes. Happy Easter!

Ice milk, sometimes called old fashioned ice cream, is absolutely delicious and incredibly easy to make.  As the weather gets warmer, you should definitely consider giving this refreshing recipe a try!

Vanilla Bean Ice Milk

In a medium saucepot, combine four cups of whole milk, half a cup of sugar, a quarter cup of light corn syrup and one vanilla bean (split and scraped).  Bring the mixture to a simmer and  whisk until the sugar is dissolved.  Strain the warm mixture into a metal bowl and place over an ice bath until cooled to room temperature.  Freeze in an ice cream machine, according to the manufacturer’s directions.  (If you don’t have an ice cream machine, place the cooled liquid in the freezer and scrape with a fork every 30 minutes or so unti it is completely frozen.)  Serve immediately and enjoy!

The first night of Passover is tomorrow at sundown.  This year, a friend sharing my Seder table, has Celiac Disease and cannot eat gluten, so I stopped in to New Orleans’s most well-stocked Kosher store, Kosher Cajun Deli. The owner, Joel Brown solved my problem: told me a great story and turned my on to a gluten-free matzoh.  Apparently a Rabbi came upon a 9 year-old girl weeping because she didn’t think she could eat matzoh for Passover.  After a lot of trial and tribulation, the Rabbi helped develop Shemura oat matzoh (oats are an allowed grain during passover) that quickly gained popularity and is now available world-wide.  The matzohs come wither handmade or machine made.  I nabbed a box of the handmade, and though they can be pricey, it’s well worth the expenditure.  Oat matzohs are excellent, with a richer and deeper taste than expected and the texture is nice and crumbly.  To all who celebrate, Happy Pesach.

While trolling around the Freret Street Festival (a food, arts and live music fest the first Saturday of each month), I was drawn to a smokin’ smoker, where, inside there were fat cobs of in-the-husk corn, golden, hot and enticing.   Roasted corn is genius.  In this case,  no butter was necessary, the smoker gave off intense flavor and the husks kept the corn tender, sweet and moist.  For Sunday dinner, I’m hooking up the family with my twist on Emeril’s Roasted Corn - skip the cilantro, add finely crumbled Cotija cheese sprinkled on the hot corn, just before serving.

Emeril’s New Orleans, the flagship restaurant of the fleet, has just been nominated for the “Outstanding Service” award from the James Beard Foundation!

Congratulations and good luck!!!

This weekend is the Ponchatoula Strawberry Festival.  Ponchatoula is about 45 minutes from New Orleans - a great little town that has been celebrating our magnificent, solid-through-the middle strawberries, for over 30 years.  After some rather intriguing politics and legal wrangling, Ponchatoula was declared “The Strawberry Capital of the World” in 1968.  Click on that link for very interesting reading about how the whole thing went down.  The Strawberry Festival is a dizzyingly delicious event with all sorts of local foods and most important, all things strawberry, including the “bake off” winners in categories for Strawberry Cake; Strawberry Jelly/Jams; Strawberry Pie; Strawberry Muffin, Loaves & Cookies; Strawberry Misc.; and other Strawberry Dessert.  Inspired by the bright red berries stunning bright, floral flavor, I’m heading to Ponchatoula to taste all the spectacular foods and pick up a flat of strawberries so I can whip up Emeril’s Strawberry Shortcake with Fresh Strawberry Bread.  Heavenly.

Let’s hope that my garden grows abundantly this year!!!  It’s the first time I’ve started a rooftop garden, so I’m sure I’ll have lots to learn and some killer pesto by the end of the summer!

So far, I’ve made a stop at my local hardware store for some basic tools, soil and planters, and I’ve visited the farmer’s market and stocked up on a variety of herbs–basil, rosemary, thyme, mint, lavender, parsley and oregano.  The weather hasn’t been quite warm enough for me to plants my seedlings, but in a week or so, I should have them in pots.  I can’t wait!!!

And if any of you are green-thumbed readers, please feel free to share your tips on herb and vegetable container gardening!

 

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Picture 1 from 2: ...is WAY better when it's dressed with a handful of fresh arugula leaves!

I love making pizza at home, but sometimes I don’t always come up with the best topping combinations.  For instance, take this pizza which is topped with mushrooms and fresh mozzarella.  On its own it’s good, but with the addition of a few leaves of arugula, it goes from good to great!  The fresh greens give it a bright and bitter flavor that pairs well with the earthy mushrooms and creamy cheese.  (And it makes me feel like I’m eating something healthy…)

 

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Picture 1 from 4: I think I found my new favorite neighborhood coffee shop!

Down the street from my apartment is a coffee shop called the Roasting Plant. It’s shtick is freshly ground coffee beans that are brewed to order for each cup of coffee or shot of espresso. And to top that, they even roast all the beans in their storefront, brew their coffee at the perfect water temperature and serve their drinks in heat-insulating glass mugs. Wow. Pretty thorough, huh?

Last Monday I had tea at Takashimaya, a fancy Japanese department store on NYC’s 5th Avenue.   The tea was fabulous.  A friend and I shared two pots–one was a sweet tea flavored with peach, rosehips and citrus that was garnished with a stick of rock candy to sweeten the cup, the other was a savory tea made of toasted buckwheat soba.  However, the best part of out midday snack were the pressed rice sandwiches.

The sandwiches were made of triangular shaped patties of pressed sushi rice that had the slightest flavor of rice wine vinegar and wasabi, and were topped with paper thin slices of fresh cucumber and smoked salmon, and laid on a bed of seaweed salad.  The perfect accompaniment to the teas were ordered and a great Asian alternative to the English pairing of cucumber-watercress sandwiches and tea!