A stunning presentation for mixed hors
d’oeuvre or mini desserts. Photo courtesy
Chapter 40 restaurant | Kerry, Ireland.

Sometimes, the eating receptacle is not part of a conventional place setting. In this photo, Chapter 40 restaurant repurposes a slate cheese board for an assorted hors d’oeuvre plate and miniature desserts. (And of course, they can be used to present cheese and other foods.)

Slate is a fine-grained rock composed of layers ash, clay and other sediment, which were fused together millions of years ago. When quarried and cut by experts, they form smooth, flat sheets of stone that have long been used to create handsome roofs and floors.

Natural slate resists fading, abrasion and chemicals and is highly durable (but it’s highly porous, so floors and roofs require regular sealing).

In recent years, slate has been made into cheese boards. Its subtle, natural beauty is a complement to food.

 
While these plates are not inexpensive (around $30 each), you can pick up one at a time and ask for them as birthday and holiday gifts. Use the first one as a cheese board; the second one becomes “dinner for two,” and so on.

You can also try to buy slate floor tiles as a more affordable solution. Flooring suppliers want to sell the whole floor and don’t embrace the sale of individual tiles. But if you have connections, or can get the store manager to order a dozen or two tiles (you can give the extras as gifts), you may be able to buy them for as little as $3 apiece.

We went to a store that sells kitchen and bath tiles to contractors, in boxes of four for $20. While they didn’t have slate, we picked up a dozen beautiful granite tile squares in dark grey; then put felt stickers on the bottom to avoid scratching the table. We have our eyes on handsome dark red granite tiles as well.

As with kitchen counters made from granite or marble walls and floors in a bathroom, they’re very easy to wash by hand.

They’re heavier than conventional dinner plates, but gorgeous.
  

You’ll find more than a few must-try recipes. In fact, you might be inspired to host a grilled cheese party.

To make the best grilled cheese sandwiches, here are 10 tips from the experts at EatWisconsinCheese.com, creators of the Grilled Cheese Acadmey.

CHEESE TIPS

1. To Slice Or Not To Slice. Often it’s best to grate or shred the cheese. This promotes faster melting, as well as a smooth and more even melt.

2. Slicing And Melting. It’s easier to slice and grate cheese when it’s cold. Furthermore, cheese melts best at room temperature.

BREAD & BUTTER TIPS

4. Use The Real Deal. For great flavor, use real butter to pan-toast your grilled cheese sandwich. Margarine and other butter wannabes win you no points.

5. Soft Is Good. Butter at room temperature is the way to go. Not only does it spread easily, but it also browns the bread more evenly.

6. Use Your Imagination. White bread is not the only answer; in fact, it’s often not the best answer. Pick specialty unique breads to create equally more exciting and flavorful grilled cheese sandwiches.
COOKING TIPS

7. Size Matters. Always use the right size skillet or suffer the consequences. If you opt for a skillet that’s too small, your sandwich will cook too slowly and not evenly.

9. Flip. Press. Repeat. You want the cheese to spread evenly as it melts. So always press the sandwich with a spatula after you flip it. (Open-faced grilled cheese sandwiches do not require flipping.)

10. Low And Steady. Don’t grill over high heat. Not only will the bread brown too fast, but the cheese will not melt completely. Be patient and always grill over low heat.

[1] Affogato: an Italian sundae (photo © Tony Liao | Unsplash).

[2] A coupe glass (photo #1) is nice, but most people use a rocks glass (photo © Williams Sonoma).

[3] After the first ball of ice cream melted, a fresh scoop was plopped on top.

We’re perplexed as to why this quickie Italian sundae—a scoop of gelato topped with a shot of espresso—is rarely found on Italian restaurant menus in the U.S.

Most of them serve both gelato and espresso. Did someone lose the affogato recipe?

The next time you’re at an Italian restaurant, order an affogato for dessert. If they won’t make it for you, unleash your inner Robert Eroica Dupea—the character played by Jack Nicholson in “Five Easy Pieces”: 

Order an espresso and a dish of gelato and combine them yourself.

Affogato means “drowned” in Italian. You can further drown the gelato with a flavored syrup or a shot of liqueur.

Consider amaretto, chocolate, coffee, hazelnut or vanilla syrups or liqueurs—or go fusion with some Irish cream liqueur.
 
 
MAKE AFFOGATO AT HOME

It’s easy to make affogato at home—as a treat for yourself or a surprise for family and friends. While vanilla is the traditional gelato flavor, chocolate, coffee and hazelnut gelato are even more delicious. (While it goes without saying, we’ll say it: You can substitute ice cream for gelato.)

In this cooking video, Giada Di Laurentiis tops vanilla gelato with syrup and then adds a shot of hazelnut liqueur before topping the “sundae” with hot espresso.

You can re-concept affogato from a sundae to a beverage by adding a scoop of gelato to a glass of iced espresso.
 
> Check out all the different types of espresso

> The difference between gelato and ice cream.

 
THE HISTORY OF AFFOGATO

The origin of affogato al caffè, the Italian term for gelato drowned in a cup of coffee, is unknown. (Affogare means “to drown.”)

What is known is that the fashion of drinking wine with snow or ice emerged in Italy in the 16th century [source].

The Florentine polymath Bernardo Buontalenti (1531-1608) invented gelato for a special banquet given by Grand Duke Cosimo I de’Medici (1519-1574).

(The history of gelato.)

We don’t know the precise date of that banquet, but given that Cosimo reigned as Grand Duke from 1569 to 1574, we can guess that it was during this five-year period.

While gelato could have been spooned into a regular cup of coffee, the affogato uses espresso. Modern espresso emerged in the latter half of the 19th century. The first espresso machine was presented at the Universal Exposition in Paris in 1855.

But we’ll have to wait until someone discovers an old menu in a dusty archive, that lists “affogato”; or an old newspaper or magazine article that reports on the delicious new recipe.

Otherwise, what we do know is that affogato emerged in Italy during the 1980s or early 1990s. While it would seem as if there is more information on something so recent, exact documentation is scarce.

It’s often enjoyed as dessert, instead of a separate coffee enjoyed with something sweet.
 
 

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Today’s tip is from Chef Johnny Gnall. If you have questions or suggestions for tips, email Chef Johnny.

Home cooks can get intimidated by the thought of trying new ingredients. There’s a time-and-money issue of experimenting with something that might not turn out well.

But cooking is exploration. Sometimes explorers find that the trip yields nothing exciting, other times they happen upon a game-changer. With all the information and recipes on the Internet, you‘ve got all you need to add vivid new flavors to your cooking.

Ever heard of galangal (pronounced guh-LAHNG-ull, with a broad “a,” also called galanga and blue ginger)? Native to Indonesia, it is best known in America as an herb that flavors Thai soups.

Galangal. It looks like ginger but is used in a very different way. Don’t be intimidated by it! Photo by Piano Non Troppo | Wikimedia.

A member of the ginger family, Zingiberaceae, galangal is similar in appearance to ginger; but instead of ginger’s spice heat, it delivers an earthy, complex favor profile with notes of citrus, pine and cedar (and it’s usually removed prior to serving, not consumed in the same way as ginger). It’s also delicious in stews and stir-fries.

Once you know what something tastes like—kaffir lime or shrimp paste, for example—you can add it to your favorite recipes to give them new life.

DON’T BE INGREDIEN-TIMIDATED

Unleash your inner explorer and plan to try a new ingredient every month. Your supermarket may have enough to start you off—from enoki mushrooms in the produce department, quinoa with the grains, and the spice rack (check out black cardamom, cubeb pepper, fenugreek, grains of paradise, mastic, za’atar and many others).

Next, look up international markets and produce stores in your area and go browsing. If there are no local markets, search on the internet. Peruse African, Asian, Latin American and Middle Eastern grocery sites.

Then, make yourself a list of 12 ingredients you want to try over the next year. Here are some ideas to start you off:

Could he have known that a substantial number of Americans—junk food lovers—would come to see the term as a positive? No doubt, if someone were to establish a chain called The Junk Food Food Court, the lines would be out the door. (Note that if you take this concept and run with it, you owe THE NIBBLE a royalty, which we will put to the service of healthier-eating awareness.)

In his series of Eat This, Not That books, David Zinczenko has done a great boon to America by pointing out the horrors in our diet: the salty, sugary and fat-laden foods we consume. While we know they are not good for us, we never realized how bad they were until he garnered so much media attention.

UNJUNK YOUR JUNK FOOD

The first book is Unjunk Your Junk Food: Healthy Alternatives to Conventional Snacks, by Andrea Donsky and Randy Boyer with Lisa Tsakos.

The premise is that you don’t have to give up junk food to eat healthy; just make smarter choices.

As such, the book features some 175 favorite brands of junk food, from candy and chocolate, to cookies and ice cream novelties, to chips and dips, to sodas and other beverages. It showcases the “bad food” on the left hand page, with the better alternative on the facing page.

Equally as important, the book explains why, giving a detailed comparison that is both enlightening and interesting. In addition to the specific food comparisons, there are helpful overviews and glossaries: basic nutrition, bad ingredients to watch out for and things even a ten-year-old can understand and appreciate.

In fact, we really like this book for both kids and adults. Instead of demanding change, it confers upon the reader a great understanding of the differences between good and bad ingredients, while providing a more-than-satisfactory alternative for each bad food.
 
Even though we don’t eat much junk food, we were enlightened by:

VEGAN JUNK FOOD

While Unjunk Your Junk Food truly is about junk food, Vegan Junk Food, by Lane Gold, is misnamed. We’d call it Vegan Comfort Food. Perhaps because there were already a few titles that focus on vegan comfort food, the publisher wanted a point of differentiation. Instead, it’s a point of confusion. This is a vegan cookbook focusing on popular comfort foods.

While we’re at it, we also don’t like the subtitle, “225 Sinful Snacks That Are Good For The Soul.” Again, there are some snacks (caramel popcorn, cookies) but the majority of the recipes are meal items, not snacks.

We also don’t find it inviting to call food “sinful” or that other misused word, “decadent.” And we wager that no cleric would agree that sinful undertakings are “good for the soul.”

 
It’s an inexpensive book ($11.17 on Amazon.com), so we can forgive the limited number of photos. Everyone knows what cheesecake, dip, fried rice and muffins look like.

We recommend this book for every person/family who enjoys these foods, because eating vegan as often as you can is your contribution to saving the planet.* Not to mention all the cholesterol saved.
 
*Animal manure is the number-one component of greenhouse gas (which produces climate change, a.k.a. global warming); raising animals depletes and pollutes water tables and a whole bunch more reasons we’ll cover on Earth Day.