Vosges’ Red Fire Ice Cream with ancho and
chipotle chiles (plus cinnamon) lets you add
some fire to your chocolate ice cream. Then,
pair it with brownies or chocolate cake!
Photo courtesy Vosges Chocolat.

Match traditional desserts like apple pie, brownies, chocolate cake and pound cake with very modern flavors of ice cream. Vosges Chocolat’s Naga (sweet Indian curry and coconut ice cream) and Red Fire (chocolate with chilies and cinnamon) ice creams are heavenly with classic cakes and pies. Vosges will overnight-deliver them (and their two other exotic flavors) to you in dry ice, but your local creameries may offer similar delights.

Another of our favorites, Reed’s Ginger Ice Cream (in Chocolate, Ginger and Original), is available at specialty stores nationwide. Ginger is a delicious pairing with pound cake, chocolate, fruit desserts—just about anything!

Our favorite ice cube trays from ISI Orka keep ice cleaner and fresher and color-code our “specialty” ice cubes.

You can make festive ice cubes for holiday drinks without investing in special pumpkin- or holly leaf-shape ice cube trays. And you can do it more elegantly, too!

Just freeze one of the following in each section of a regular ice cube tray:

We create different trays of “designer ice cubes” to match to different sweet or savory beverages. It’s easy to keep the garnishes straight in our favorite color-coordinated ice cube trays from iSi Orka.

A simple-to-make, impressive first course is a smoked salmon roll filled with salmon caviar and crème fraîche. Ask the counter person to slice the salmon in wide pieces instead of narrow strips—explain that you’re going to fill the slices and roll them up like a cigar.

1. Spread the inside of each slice with crème fraîche and a teaspoon of your favorite caviar or roe, but leave the last inch on each end clear of filling so it doesn’t spill out when you roll up. Then roll!
2. Put a few beads of caviar on top of the “cigar” for decor (consider some contrasting caviar, e.g. flavored whitefish roe or tobiko).
3. Garnish the plate with a sprinkle of snipped chives and dill and some finely diced red onion. This cigar is smokin’!

Can’t afford sturgeon caviar in a recession
(or any time)? Affordable salmon caviar is
delicious in this recipe. Photo courtesy of Red-Caviar.com, certified kosher.

Enjoy this yummy hot chocolate recipe, courtesy of top chocolatier Larry Burdick. Per serving:

1. Mix 1.5 cups milk, 2 heaping teaspoons of top quality cocoa powder, 1/4 cup of ground dark chocolate with 60% or higher cacao content (chop and grind a good dark chocolate bar in a spice mill or a food processor) and ground nutmeg and/or cinnamon (fresh-grind using a microplane grater for great flavor).
2. Heat the milk to just below boiling.
3. Whisk in the cocoa powder and ground chocolate.
4. Add nutmeg and cinnamon to taste—we like a lot of each.
5. If you like “Aztec” spice, add some chili powder, too.

Rich and spicy! Photo by Melody Lan | THE NIBBLE.

It’s National Deviled Egg Day, so here are tips to make perfect boiled eggs. (1) Test eggs for freshness: A fresh egg will sink in a bowl of water. Raw eggs that float are over the hill. (2) Fresh eggs peel more easily, but make sure they’re more than 3 days old. (3) To avoid a green ring around the yolk, don’t overcook.

Try this technique for easy-to-peel eggs with beautiful yellow centers: Place eggs in a pot of cold water, add a teaspoon of salt and bring to a boil. Cover the pot and remove from heat; let sit for 13 minutes. Drain and immediately place eggs in an ice water bath until completely cooled. They should be perfect, and you can proceed with your favorite deviled egg recipe.

Deviled eggs topped with a piece of Smokra,
pickled okra from Rick’s Picks. Photo courtesy Rick’s Picks.

Fine chocolate is far too sensitive to be stored in a refrigerator: It absorbs odors and reacts to changes in temperature. Moving from cold to warm and back again can cause chocolate to develop a grayish-white “bloom” on the surface (that’s the cocoa butter separating out from the chocolate). It still tastes fine, but it mars the appearance. Find a cool place to store chocolate (the ideal place for both temperature and humidity is a wine storage unit). The best advice is not to buy more filled chocolates or truffles than you’ll eat in a week; and if you’re given a large box, don’t hoard it, share it. The finest chocolates are made without preservatives and should be consumed within two weeks. They’ll still be edible in a month, but the fillings will have started to break down and won’t be as flavorful. Beyond that, the flavor does begin to decline. Plain chocolate bars with no filling or nuts can stay fresh for a year or more, wrapped well in foil and kept in the right “wine refrigerator” environment.

Scatter miniature pumpkins and gourds to dress up the dining table from October through Thanksgiving weekend. They also can be used to hold place cards: Either cut a slit on the top with a sharp knife to insert the card, or use strong double-stick tape to affix it.

The easiest way to scoop out a pumpkin is with an ice cream scoop. Whether you’re removing only the pulp and seeds or all the fruit, a large scoop makes the job go faster. If you’ll be turning the pumpkin into a Jack o’lantern, you can make the vegetal scent fragrant by sprinkling cinnamon, nutmeg or allspice inside. The lit candle will diffuse the scent, and you can refresh the spices each day when you light the wick. Try cinnamon today, nutmeg tomorrow, then cloves, then allspice.

If you’re thinking of baking a sweet [trick or] treat, here’s a trick to add that special Halloween touch: Make a cake or cupcakes with a spooky black frosting. It used to be that you had to create black frosting with blue food color, adding it to chocolate frosting drop by drop until the frosting turned black. But now, McCormick makes pure black food color to make life easier (and a boon for those who can’t have chocolate). Decorate the top of your baked treat with candy corn, or check candy shops for marzipan spiders, candy pumpkins and other holiday specialties.

We hope that you had a tasty National Pasta Day yesterday. If you were a little overzealous in your pasta preparation, any leftover, unsauced pasta can be turned into a pasta salad. Or, serve it as a side with a totally different sauce. Cold tortellini make a tasty hors d’oeuvre—provide toothpicks and a dip (we especially love pumpkin tortellini this way). Add “short cuts”—shaped pasta—to a green salad. If the pasta is already sauced, adding cubes of grilled chicken, pork, ham, seafood or vegetables turns it into a brand-new dish.