[1] Aldi’s Eggnog Goat Cheese Log (photos #1 and #2 © Aldi).

[2] The gingerbread log. All three log flavors are four ounces.

[3] Serve with crackers that aren’t noticeably salted; plus honey, raisins and other dried fruits, and nuts (photo © Belle Chevre).

You never know what surprise items you’ll find at an Aldi store. In the cheese aisle, goat cheese lovers can currently find goat logs in three fun holiday flavors that are new this season:

 
That makes for sweet goat cheese on a cheese plate or a charcuterie board, with nuts and fruits. You can serve them with graham crackers for dessert. Or, how about these recipe ideas:
 
 
WAYS TO SERVE SWEET GOAT CHEESE

 
> Head to Aldi.com for the location nearest to you.
 
 
MORE GOAT CHEESE LOG RECIPES

 
 
> THE DIFFERENT TYPES OF CHEESE
 
 
> THE DIFFERENT TYPES OF GOAT CHEESE
 
 
> THE HISTORY OF CHEESE
 
 
> GOAT CHEESE PAIRINGS WITH [OTHER] FOOD & WINE

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*Notes from Aldi: Available while quantities last. Items are limited and may not be available in all stores. We reserve the right to limit quantities sold. Prices and labels may vary by location.

Omnom, the delightful Icelandic chocolate line that was our recent Top Pick Of The Week, has a special holiday collection of three bars—dark, milk and white chocolate—that are a treat for the chocolate lover.

The Winter Collection draws inspiration from Icelandic festive traditions. Packaged in Omnom’s stunning artwork, as are all the bars, (we think the outer packaging is too nice to throw away), it’s a feast to look at as well as to eat.
 
 
CHOCOLATE BARS FOR THE HOLIDAYS & WINTER

The Winter Collection 2021

The Winter Collection includes three chocolate bars (photo #1):

 
Individual Bars

Of course, you can buy individual bars for stocking stuffers. It’s hard to choose, so here are our must-have favorites:

 
There are also three-bar collections of single origin chocolate:

 
 
GET YOUR OMNOM BARS & GIFTS

Head to OmnomChocolate.com.

Don’t worry: It’s already here in the U.S. headquarters. You don’t have to worry about shipping from Iceland.

Lay in a supply to warm you on cold winter nights.
 
 
MORE ABOUT CHOCOLATE
 
> CHOCOLATE TYPES & TERMS
 
> CHOCOLATE HISTORY

[2] Dark chocolate with cacao nibs and dried raspberry bits is a heavenly combination of flavors.

[3] The winter white chocolate bar has bits of crunchy caramel.

[1] Sfoglini artisan pasta makes beautiful shapes like these reginetti, ribbon-shape pasta, shown here with black truffles. It’s a gourmet’s fantasy realized (all photos © Sfoglini Pasta except as noted).

[2] The Pasta-Of-The-Month Club delivers two boxes of artisan pasta each month.

[3] The famous dish Cacio e Pepe, madw with trumpet pasta. Here’s the recipe.

[4] Flower shaped rye trumpets are made from stone ground organic whole rye flour, grown in New York’s Hudson Valley.

[5] These cuttlefish spaccatelli are made with black cuttlefish ink. Cuttlefish and squid are cousins. Here’s the difference. Spaccatelli, sometimes called strozzapreti (“priest’s collars”), resemble a rolled-up scroll.

[6] One of our favorite shapes, zucca, Italian for pumpkins, have eye appeal and are a shape to sink one’s teath into.

[7] Malloreddus, sometimes called gnocchetti sardi (small Sardinian gnocchi), are popular Sardinian pasta in the shape of thin ribbed shells. Malloreddus is derived from the Latin for “small morsel.”

For a pasta lover with a good palate, there’s no better gift than artisan pasta made with old-school Italian techniques: the best wheat, traditional bronze dies and plates, slow-drying at a low temperature to preserve both flavor and nutrients. (The original pasta noodles were hung over rods and lines to air dry.)

The result: great flavor and an appropriately rough texture that makes the sauce stick.

Sfoglini (sfo-LEE-nee) pastas are made with organic grains grown on North American farms and milled in the U.S.

It’s our Top Pick of The Week.

The dough is extruded through bronze dies, slow-dried, and packaged in New York’s Hudson Valley, an artisan food mecca.

The wheat and other grains are the best in North American. The grains are organic, and include conventional semolina plus einkorn, emmer, rye, spelt, and whole-grain flours.

In Italian, a sfoglina is someone who makes sfoglia, a family of Italian pastas.

A sfoglina (sfo-LEE-na) is historically seen as a middle-aged woman who kneads and spreads out the dough with a rolling pin on a pastry board.

At Sfoglini, there are two men who carry on the tradition: chef Steve Gonzalez and creative director Scott Ketchum.

Every sfoglina from the old country would be proud of their work.
 
 
ARTISAN PASTA VARIETIES

Oh, what a choice of shapes, flavors, and grains! Where to begin? We had to use the “eeny, meeny, miney, mo” technique.

While it may be relatively easy to eyeball this list, when you see all the boxes on the website, the going gets tough.

Semolina Shapes

 
Semolina Ribbon Pasta

 
Other Grains/Blends

 
 
GIFT SETS & PASTA-OF-THE-MONTH CLUB

There are a number of gift sets, including a Kids Pasta Craft Kit, Lobster Dinner Kit and Ultimate Mac & Cheese Kit.

There’s also a pasta-of-the-month club, for 3- or 6-month subscriptions.

Each month’s contents are a surprise, including one box of Sfoglini organic semolina pasta, one box of Sfoglini specialty pasta (think grains, flavors, and limited editions).

Recipe cards are included with each box, with inspiration for scrumptious dishes. You can add ingredients and choose sauces to customize each recipe.

In order to keep the boxes vegan, the Cuttlefish Spaccatelli, made with cuttlefish ink, won’t be included.

Thus, vegans, vegetarians, and those with seafood allergies can enjoy each box of pasta without worry.

(There are no gluten-free options.)

There are also quite a few recipes on the website.
 
 
BUY THEM AT SFOGLINI.COM & FINE RETAILERS NATIONWIDE.
 
 
> THE DIFFERENT TYPES OF PASTA
 
 
> THE HISTORY OF PASTA
 
 
 
 
CHECK OUT WHAT’S HAPPENING ON OUR HOME PAGE, THENIBBLE.COM.

With its fresh, lively flavor and light-to-medium body, rosé has historically been a warm-weather wine. But many Americans have taken to drinking it year-round, and Hampton Water, marketed by Jesse Bongiovi, Jon Bon Jovi’s son, and partner Ali Thomas, has become a popular brand.

 
Hampton Water is a French wine, grown and produced in the region of Languedoc, on the southeast coast of France.

But given an American name and cachet, sales have been great!
 
 
THE STORY

The story is that Jon Bon Jovi was in the Hamptons with his son and Mr. Thomas one evening, and offered them some rosé.

“You’re drinking ‘Hampton Water,’” Mr. Bongiovi told his father, referencing an ongoing joke that rosé is the water of the Hamptons.

Bon Jovi latched on to the name “Hampton Water,” and…fast forward…

Bongiovi and Thomas found a vintner and importer, designed the label, and put together the brand.

And why not? The volume of still rosé wines in the U.S. has increased by 118% from 2015 to 2020, while wine volume overall has grown only 1.5% during the same time period.

It’s a great time to make rosé!

In the south of France, dry rosé wine is the all-occasion wine—no surprise, since Provence, Languedoc’s neighbor, is the world base of dry rosé production. There, vin rosé is paired with all the foods, all year round.

In fact, dry French rosé outsells white wine in France!

Hampton Water is from a classic French blend of Grenache, Cinsault, Mourvèdre, and Syrah grapes.

We found the style to be medium-bodied, with aromas of cherry and strawberry and touches of citrus and minerality.

Consider it as a gift for a rosé lover, a Hamptons lover, and of course, a Jon Bon Jovi lover. We’re certain that more than a few people hit the trifecta here.

Here’s a store locator.

Plan a celebration: National Rosé Day is the second Saturday in June.
 
 
> WHAT IS ROSÉ WINE & ROSÉ WINE TERMS

> ROSÉ FOOD PAIRINGS
 
 
ROSÉ RECIPES

 
 
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*In the second phase of voting, the 50 most voted wines in each category are judged in person by professionals.

[1] Rosé is now a year-round wine in the U.S. (both photos © Hampton Water | Facebook).

[2] Rosé on a cold day? Why not!

[3] Dive into a glass, anytime.

[4] Enjoy a casual sip at sunset…

[5] …Or fancy, with oysters.

December 4th is National Cookie Day, and it’s also the time when happy bakers are whipping up dozens of Christmas cookies. Here’s a roundup of some of our favorite recipes, below. But first…
 
 
THE HISTORY OF CHRISTMAS COOKIES

Modern Christmas cookies can trace their history to recipes from medieval northern European biscuits (cookies), when many “modern” ingredients became available for the first time: almonds, black pepper, cinnamon, clove, ginger, mace, molasses, and nutmeg, along with dried fruits from southern climates, such as apricots, citron, and dates.

These ingredients were still costly, and only for Christmas would many families be able to afford to bake with them. This led to special Christmas cookies. Unlike pies or cakes, cookies had a long shelf life and could be easily given as gifts to friends and neighbors.

This led to the creation of spiced butter cookies as well as gingerbread, krumkake, lebkuchen, pepparkakor, pfeffernüsse, and springerle.

Decorating the cookies with icing began in the 1600s, when bakers used a mixture of sugar and egg whites to top the cookies. The cooled frosting looked like ice.

While gingerbread cookies existed, the first gingerbread men were created in the royal kitchens of Queen Elizabeth I of England (1533-1603), who had the cookie molded into the shapes of her favorite courtiers.

Christmas Cookies In The U.S.

The earliest examples of Christmas cookies in the U.S. were brought by German settlers in Pennsylvania (the “Pennsylvania Dutch” in the 1700s. But it wasn’t until the period between 1871 and 1906 that import laws made cookie cutters from Germany widely available, including those with holiday images that were designed to hang on Christmas trees [source].

While holiday cookies are often cut into the shape of angels, candy canes, Christmas trees, holly leaves, reindeer, stars, and other seasonal themes, some are conventional round cookies or bars in holiday flavors (eggnog, cardamom-spice, gingerbread, peppermint, etc.).
 
 
> THE HISTORY OF COOKIES

> THE 8 DIFFERRENT TYPES OF COOKIES
 
> A GLOSSARY OF COOKIES
 
 
CHRISTMAS COOKIE RECIPES

Not all of these are shaped like stars or spiced like gingerbread, but they represent holiday traditions in the U.S. Check out:

 
 
Happy Baking!

[1] Christmas tree brownies. Here’s the recipe (photo © Orange Glad | Facebook).

[2] Stacked snowman cookie. Here’s the recipe (photo © Lila Loa).

[ ] Chocolate mint Christmas cookies. Here’s the recipe (photo © Wisconsin Dairy)

[ ] Peanut butter cup Christmas tree. Here’s the recipe (photo © Delish).

[ ] Iced peppermint butter cookies. Here’s the recipe (photo © Wisconsin Dairy).