Barista Laila Ghambari, a member of the executive council of Barista Guild of America, has created a signature fall recipe for De’Longhi. Among other fine appliances, De’Longhi makes coffeemakers, from drip and steam coffee to espresso and the Nespresso and Nescafe Dolce systems.

Laila’s recipe can be easily made by at-home baristas. Combining the flavors of cinnamon and brown sugar into a delicious cup of coffee, you can enjoy it with dessert, or instead of dessert.

You can also try this fun technique with any other favorite pastries or even cereal.

RECIPE: COFFEE CAKE INFUSED LATTE

Ingredients

Coffee cake is in your latte. Photo courtesy De’Longhi.

1. SOAK coffee cake in milk overnight in the refrigerator.

2. STRAIN the coffee cake-infused milk into a container or your machine’s milk container, being careful to remove any large cake pieces

3. USE the milk to make any espresso-based beverage. Garnish with an optional shake of cinnamon and by all means, enjoy a standard portion of coffee cake with your drink.
  

Some might say that if this is our biggest problem, we should consider ourselves lucky. But the frustration of trying again and again to fish out a tiny piece of egg shell is it for us.

Maybe our local eggs have thinner shells that splinter more easily. But the result is too much time spent each day at this thankless task.

We have tried our best to fish out those fragments, using a:

 
The road to success is invariably long annoying.

And, stop buying extra large eggs (explanation below).

ARE EGG SHELLS GETTING THINNER?

Egg shells get thinner when calcium, phosphorus and vitamin D3 are insufficient in the hens’ diet. Mass commercial producers tend to cut costs wherever they can, so the hens may be a bit nutrient-deficient. Instead, try eggs from a local farmer. Small farmers and hobbyists often use ground oyster shells to provide additional calcium.

Summer eggs can have thinner shells, because in hot weather the calcium is retained less efficiently by the hen. The calcium doesn’t go directly from the digestive tract to the shell, by the way. First it’s absorbed into the bones, and then reabsorbed into the body to help create the shell.

Other factors that can contribute to thinner shells include age, stress and general health of the hen. The extra large eggs we’ve been using come from older hens, and those shells are naturally thinner. As the hens age, their bodies can’t keep up with the loss of calcium through shell manufacture. Eureka!

Solution: Try large or medium eggs.

If you have tips or suggestions, please share them!

A Chicago-style dog is a beef frank fully loaded with yellow mustard, onions, pickle relish, a dill pickle spear, tomato wedges and a dash of celery salt on a poppy seed bun.

If the sound of it makes your heart flutter, you don’t have to head to Chicago. You can buy Katie’s Mustard Slaw—the longer name is Katie’s Home Style, Old-Fashioned, Pool-Room Mustard Slaw.

It’s not exactly the same. It’s from Alabama. And it’s addictively delicious.

We taste a lot of products, and this blend of mustard with bell peppers, cabbage, carrots, onions and vinegar, spices, jalapeños and a bit of salt and sugar is a winner.

It’s a complex layering of flavors with a beautiful texture and a spicy kick, a riff on chow-chow*, a Nova Scotian and American pickle relish made from a combination of vegetables; and a relative of British piccalilli (which has a cauliflower base).

In Alabama and Tennessee, it is called chow-chow, mustard slaw or pool room slaw, and has been made and sold by southern Tennessee Amish for some 100 years. [Source: Serious Eats.]

Get yours here. You’ll be very happy!
 
 
HOW TO ENJOY KATIE’S MUSTARD SLAW

It’s a wonderfully versatile condiment, zingy and satisfying. Use it:

[1] Katie’s Original Mustard Slaw.

[2] Jalapeño Mustard Slaw (both photos © Katie’s).

 
…and with countless other foods. We admit to dipping a spoon into the jar for a mini snack.
 
A DELIGHT FOR WEIGHT WATCHERS

A tablespoon is just 10 calories, with zero calories from fat, 40mg sodium and 1 mg sugar. It’s a caloric bargain, waiting to add great flavor to your meals. All of the vegetables that Katie uses are bought fresh from a local farmers market.

Now the challenge: How to get it. Distribution is limited.

To order, email: katiesfoods@aol.com.

If you have to order a case, don’t worry: You’ll go through it quickly, and be happy to have jars for house gifts and stocking stuffers.

Katie is Katie Kilburn of Florence, Alabama. She began to make slaw and relish products for her family and the local high school football concession stand, using her mother-in-law’s recipe.

With the help of the Shoals Commercial Culinary Center, fortuitously located in her home town, she was able to tap into resources to make more slaw and relish for commercial sale.

What they don’t provide is marketing support. If you know anyone who wants to volunteer to help this wonderful product take off—including e-commerce and an effective Facebook page, contact Katie.

Equally as important, hand this review to your favorite retailer and ask that they bring in a few cases—and watch them fly off the shelves.

________________
*According to Wikipedia, chow-chow is “regionally associated” with the Southern United States, Pennsylvania, New Mexico, the Appalachian Mountains and soul food. The recipes vary greatly; some are sweeter, others more savory. The name is said to derive from the French word for cabbage, chou. It was popular with the Acadians of Nova Scotia, descendants of the 17th-century French colonists, who emigrated to Louisiana.

Our friend Ron and his daughter Stephanie like to order their Martinis with extra olives. The restaurant generally delivers the side of olives in a shot glass.

Joining them in this tradition inspired today’s two-part tip:

 
When a pitted, pimento-stuffed olive was first used to garnish a Martini, the olive selection was far less than it is today.

Today, artisan producers offer more than a dozen stuffed olive options:

 
Check out the stuffed olives from Mezzetta, and browse Amazon.com for other stuffed olive options.

Then, start mixing. The classic Martini proportion is is 1 part London dry gin to .25 part dry vermouth. Shake with ice and strain into a Martini glass. Don’t have Martini glasses? Try a small wine goblet.\
Below:

The history of the Martini.

Elsewhere on The Nibble:

> The history of gin.

> The different types (expressions) of gin.

The year’s 14 gin holidays.
 
THE HISTORY OF THE MARTINI

While the drink may date back to Gold Rush-era San Francisco, in 1850, a claim is made by the city of Martinez, California, northwest of San Francisco. (Article continues below.)

[1] Martini with a side of olives (photo © Ruth’s Chris Steak House).

[2] The classic Martini olive is stuffed with pimento (photo by Kyle May | Wikimedia).

The claim is that the Martinez—the predecessor of the Martini—was created there, by a bartender named Julio Richelieu. The recipe called for gin and sweet vermouth instead of dry vermouth, plus bitters and an olive. A recipe for the Martinez was first published in 1867, in “The Bartenders Guide.”

A 1907 cocktail recipe book, “The World’s Drinks and How to Mix Them,” is the first printed reference we have for a Dry Martini Cocktail. Made with gin and dry French vermouth, served with lemon peel and an olive. It credits a bartender 375 miles south of Martinez, in Los Angeles.

The history of the Martini continues here, including James Bond’s Vesper Martini and other predecessors.

________________
 
*We’ve had some pretty disappointing cheese-stuffed olives: The cubes of cheese have been rubbery and almost tasteless. If you have that experience, look for Divina and Mezzetta brands.
 
 

CHECK OUT WHAT’S HAPPENING ON OUR HOME PAGE, THENIBBLE.COM.

But you can use this fresh Italian cheese:

A dessert of fresh ricotta, honeycomb and crostini. Photo courtesy Davanti Enoteca.

Today’s tip, though, is to serve ricotta for dessert. It was inspired by Davanti Enoteca in Chicago’s Little Italy.

The restaurant offers a dessert of ricotta and a piece honeycomb with toasts. You can drizzle liquid honey over the ricotta instead of serving a piece of honeycomb.

Serving the ricotta in a mini mason jar adds to the charm (see photo above), but consider rocks glasses, goblets and whatever you own. (Here’s another use for those sherbet Champagne glasses, which should never be used for Champagne).

Honeycomb. Photo by Elvira Kalviste | THE
NIBBLE.

Recipe Variations

 
It’s a simple cheese course that also provides sweetness. We like it for dessert, as well as for breakfast, brunch or snacking.

TIP: Use the best ricotta you can find. While average brands are fine to mix into recipes, here the ricotta is the main event. If you live in the northeast, look for Calabro ricotta: It’s terrific.
 

We love cannoli: the crunch of the fried shell against the rich, sweet ricotta filling.

One of our diet treat recipes is to take lowfat ricotta, sweeten to taste with a noncaloric sweetener, and blend until smooth.

Add a few mini chocolate chips, and you’ve got cannoli without the shell.
 
WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT RICOTTA CHEESE.