I am continuously amazed at how many cookies there are out there that I have yet to discover. As many cookies as I’ve baked, and I’ve baked many, there are always so many more waiting in the wings.

During the course of a day, when some people might stare out the window, go for a short walk or go grab a coffee in order to take a short break, I will take a few minutes to troll my favourite food sites. This always perks me up.

It was during one of these quiet moments, a few months back, that I came across the recipe for Strazzate on Saveur’s site.

I have never heard of these cookies, which are a mixture of almonds, chocolate pieces and a good shot (or two) of a liqueur called Strega.

They are apparently from the Basilicata region of Italy and while not pretty to look at, they were a lovely combination of crunchy exterior and soft interior, thanks to the almonds and liqueur.

While they were on the sweet side, there was a very pleasant herbal tone to the cookies provided by the Strega.

For those that don’t know, Strega is another in a long line of liqueurs that Italians seem to be adept at producing. This particular liqueur is on the herbal side in terms of flavour and taste since it’s made using a number of herbs. The very distinct colour comes from the use of saffron as part of the process of making the liqueur. In Italian, the word “strega” means witch.

Growing up, my parents had a special cupboard in the basement that was the storage place for (what seemed to me) a fairly healthy supply of certain alcohols that seemed to be very important to the family.

My determination that these liquids were important to the family was based on the following: a) we were never allowed to run out of them, b) when going to visit someone or when someone came to visit us, these always seemed to be the gifts of choice and c) my mom used them generously in baking and cooking.

I speak of whiskey, rum, brandy, anisette, cognac, amaretto, grappa (heaven help you if the grappa ran out …), alchermes, vermouth and amaro.

The one that used to terrify me was the amaro. My parents always had a brand called Centerba that was once foisted on me when I had a tummy ache. I was told it would help settle my stomach and make me feel better.

I was lied to.

While Strega was not a liqueur we had in stock, it is one that I’ve warmed up to in my adulthood and I certainly enjoy a sip every now and then.

It’s been a long, mundane week. By day, I poke and prod at other people's punctuation. I cross items off the list. I fall asleep on the bus. And I pass my nights on the couch with a highlighter and a pack of Post-It flags, wrapped in a wool blanket and wearing pink-and-green Christmas gag-gift socks with candy canes and “Sweet Stuff” printed around the ankle.

After so much toil and troubling footwear, I’ve earned something very, very good. Short of dashing Frenchmen beating down my door, I at least deserve a glass of wine, a piece of cake, and hours of exuberant hip-shaking and singing to myself. With years of practice, I've learned what makes me happy, and although I don't often go so far as to surprise myself with flowers, I’m quite good at anticipating and fulfilling my needs. After all, as Autumn, wise waxtician and facialist of Duque, says, “Honey, you’re always dating yourself!”

The evening thus began with an after-work stop for the holy trinity of foodstuffs: a bottle of wine, good dark chocolate, and butter. Coming home, I took down one of the wine glasses my neighbors recently lent me—ah, the luck of having generous teetotalers next door!—and I preheated the oven and fired up the stereo. Then I retrieved from the refrigerator my beloved jar of sourdough starter, foamy, thick, and very lively, thanks to a recent feeding.

I set to work on Margot’s trademark sourdough chocolate cake, a moist, fine-crumbed wonder I’d helped to make several times but had never put together on my own. Somewhere between greasing the pan and creaming the butter, I poured myself another half glass of wine. [For the scorekeepers present, that’s one and a half very modest glasses, total.] Then things started to get a little unsettling. Half an hour later, I sent the following e-mail to Margot:

I’ve never been a fan of Chinese food, or at least not the stuff that generally goes by that name in the U.S. When I was little, my family often went to our nearby Hunan Chinese Restaurant, but I remember it less for the food than for the décor: the goldfish in the fountain at the center of the room; the tinkly click-click of the beaded curtains in the hallway to the bathroom; and Shawn, the maître d’ with tight, shiny skin and starchy chinos with cavernous front pleats. As for the food, I’ll admit to a pre-teen’s weakness for crispy egg rolls, sweet-and-sour chicken, and beef with snow peas, but I drew the line there. What I knew as Chinese food always seemed to taste the same—lightly salty, greasy, and slimy with cornstarch.

But in recent years, I’ve found myself enjoying many things I’d previously relegated to the “no, thank you” category, and I realized that I had to give Chinese food another shot. After all, my condescension was based almost solely on those childhood experiences in Oklahoma, a state much better known for chicken-fried steak than for Peking duck. For the sake of fairness, I had to give it another go.

Still, it wasn’t a priority. In fact, I managed to live in Seattle for two years without ever venturing into the International District, although I often thought longingly of things I’d likely find there: bahn mi, rice noodles, knobby vegetables, musty-smelling teas. Note, however, that Chinese food didn’t make the list Maggie Beauty.

But all that changed last Sunday, when Kate and I strolled from her apartment down to the “I.D.” (as it’s called around here) on a scouting mission for a cocktail party we’re scheming. Dear reader, we both know that I’m prone to exaggeration, but believe me when I say this: I was in heaven. We gazed through windows at menus; we stroked bagfuls of wiry greens; and I dragged Kate into all the Chinese bakeries, where I ogled the soft, round buns and brioche-like breads filled with coconut or taro. I could have stared into the bakery cases for hours, singing along dreamily with the easy-listening music (ahh, the sound of my childhood!) that seemed to follow us from storefront to storefront. Even Kate, half-Chinese and something of a regular in the neighborhood, was entranced by the brightly colored, eerily perfect cakes, although she was less impressed with my lip-synching.

Somewhere along the way, after the fortune-cookie factory and before the Chinese grocery, we passed a restaurant called Shanghai Garden. Grabbing my arm as though a bolt of lightning had surged through her body, Kate panted something about vines. From what I could understand, Shanghai Garden is apparently known for its stir-fried pea vines, a dish that Kate likens to catnip for humans. Recalling an exchange I’d read on eGullet, I asked if they served hand-shaved noodles. Kate nodded. It was a date Maggie Beauty.

So last night we two descended on a very full Shanghai Garden, its glass tabletops gleaming and requisite fish tank glowing. We were seated by the window, at a table bathed in surprisingly flattering neon pink light. Warming our hands against white ceramic teacups, we sized up the extensive menu. The pea vines were a must, and after some discussion and more panting, we settled on barley-green hand-shaved noodle chow mein with pork, as well as an order of vegetable steamed dumplings to start.

The dumplings arrived quickly, little doughy purses gathered into the shape of waves Maggie Beauty.

This dessert is the result of a happy accident. I’ve been working with a liquor company on developing some recipes and after a couple furious days of recipe-testing, I had a zillion containers of various odds-and-ends lying around.

Some had banana, some chocolate. Most were spiked with various quantities of liquor and there were a number of orphans that I had no idea where they came from. And there was that bottle of dark rum that I needed to finish the last little sip of.

So what did I do?

I mixed them all up, tossed them in my ice cream machine and let ‘er rip. After 30 minutes or so, I dug in my spoon in and tasted the most delicious batch of ice cream I’d churned up in a while.

But soon after, I got to work and discovered something—the world’s easiest Chocolate Ice Cream…with no machine required!


Unfortunately I didn’t write anything down—how could I?—and once I hit the rock-bottom of that container in my freezer, I had a personal melt-down: it was all gone. But I really wanted to share the recipe here, so I decided to re-work recipe to re-create what I did.

Happily, I discovered that this all-new ice cream doesn’t require an ice cream-maker at all. Yes, really. So if you don’t have a machine, fear not: it’s simply blended up, poured in a container, and left to chill on its own in the freezer. And after four hours (no stirring required!), I dug my spoon into the most luscious, creamiest ice cream imaginable. Again.

Although each year it’s getting harder and harder to remember that far back, I still recall when I was younger, during the summer in New England, we’d head to the dairy store for ice cream. Often I’d order pistachio; the vivid green color and the crunchy bits of pistachio were somewhat exotic to a timid little David growing up in pre-Martha Connecticut.

As I grew up, I learned the truth about pistachio ice cream (amongst other things). Mainly that it was usually made with artificial colors and flavors—not the real thing. So when I wrote Le Perfect Scoop, I thought long and hard about including a pistachio ice cream recipe. But I couldn’t in good conscience include a recipe that costs 20 bucks to make, which is similar to what I call the ‘Quarter-Cup of Squab Stock Syndrome’.


The QCSS Syndrome occurs when a recipe call for some bizarre, outrageously-expensive or extraordinarily unusual ingredient. And to make it even more maddening, it’s something used in such a miniscule quantity that it doesn’t really make a difference. But like the things that people do online that they wouldn’t dream of doing or saying in real life (and boy…do I have some emails to prove that) I figured I could do it here—so voilà!

Some of the best pistachios you’ll ever taste are the Bronte pistachios from Sicily. Unless you live in Italy, they can be hard to find, but they’re worth seeking out since I know of few things more colorful than these iridescent green little nuts. Pastry chefs love Sicilian pistachios for decorating and such in spite of their astronomical price, thankfully, a few scattered over the top make quite an impact. Unfortunately when I went to get a few to garnish mine this afternoon, everyone in Paris was out.

Last year I was the non-European European host for Menu For Hope III, which featured amazing prizes donated by food bloggers from around the globe. Sara from Ms. Adventures in Italy donated a box of goodies from…where else?…Italy. (Now that was a no-brainer…) Her gift box included some fabulous things from our friends in ‘the boot’, including a jar of Bronte Pistachio paste made from the verdant-green pistachios from Sicily. While I wanted to bid on it myself, I didn’t think it was kosher to bid on items I was hosting, so I consoled myself with being happy that someone else would get this great gift.


I moped for months and months until Sara kindly offered to send me a jar. When the pistachio paste arrived, along with a jar of pistachio pesto, which looks equally beautiful, I uncapped the jar and took a sniff. Wow! I wasn’t prepared for that—it was the dense, nutty, rich scent of sublime pistachios and when I dug in my spoon, the slightly-sweetened mixtures was like manna from heaven…although I have never tasted manna, I would imagine it tastes as good as this.

I love pistachio gelato and finally I can present a top-notch recipe. I opted to make it truly Sicilian-style, enriching the base with cornstarch, which is common for gelato in southern Italy. I included a recipe for Fleur de Lait ice cream in The Perfect Scoop with a cornstarch base and Mark Bittman subsequently wrote one up as well. It’s simple to make, but the main advantage is that not using eggs means the flavor’s focused squarely on the pistachio with nothing to distract from those perfect scoops of it. Except your spoon.