One might ask why the holiday-scheduling powers that be allowed January 2nd to become National Cream Puff Day. Haven’t we just finished six weeks of heavy eating? Don’t we have resolutions to diet in the New Year? Aren’t we running out of gyms?

But, since it is National Cream Puff Day, a few words of puffery:

Cream puffs are made from pâte à choux (pot-ah-shoo), also called choux paste, cream puff paste or puff pastry.

This very versatile dough is used for both sweet and savory pastries.

 
Pâte à choux is made by combining flour, butter, and boiling water, then beating eggs into the mixture until it becomes very sticky and pastelike. During baking, the eggs create irregular domes in the pastry.
 
> Learn how to make pâte à choux.

> Here’s a cream puff recipe from chocolatier Michael Recchiuti.
 
 
CREAM PUFF HISTORY

Of those two pastries that people consider siblings, the cream puff and the éclair, the cream puff is the elder, dating back to the late 16th century. The elongated éclair did not appear until 200 years later, in the late 18th century.

Originally, the cream puff was filled with whipped cream and served plain (or late, dusted with powdered sugar). Now, the round pastry, which is piped from a bag and baked, is often halved horizontally, as in the photo at right. Profiteroles, cream puffs stuffed with ice cream and topped with chocolate sauce, are a 20th-century dish.

Today, both can be prepared in any way that the pastry chef can conceive, from pistachio whipped cream and glaze to saffron custard with caramel glaze to blueberry jam with cassis whipped cream and cassis glaze. Some cream puffs have chocolate-glazed tops, similar to the éclair.

[2] There are also savory cream puffs, like this one of mozzarella and porcini mushrooms in choux paste (photo © Balsamic Vinegar of Modena The Original).

Start the new year with a new Bloody
Mary recipe. Photo © S. Mario | Fotolia.

The world is full of them:

• Bloody Mary variations without tomato juice: Bloody Bull, Bloody Eight Ball, Bloody Mariner and even the Bloody LeRoy, which replaces the tomato juice with barbecue juice (in case you have some barbecue in the fridge to go with it).
• Latin-inspired Bloody Marys: Bloody Maria and Chipotle Maria
• International Bloody Marys that replace vodka with the local favorite: Danish Mary, Highland Mary, Russian Mary and more.

As cocktails go, the Bloody Mary, with vodka, tomato juice, citrus juice, seasonings, and a celery stick, is as healthy as it gets. If your New Year’s Resolutions include dieting, switch that sugar-laden Appletini, Cosmo, Mojito or Margarita for the Mary of your choice (well, maybe not the Bloody LeRoy).

• Get all of the Bloody Mary recipes above.

You become a butcher! “Julie And Julia: My Year Of Cooking Dangerously” author Julie Powell has released her next book, “Cleaving: A Story of Marriage, Meat, and Obsession”, her “Julie and Julia” marriage gone awry “set against a backdrop of butchery.”

Most of “Cleaving” was written while Powell was an apprentice at Fleisher’s, a grass-fed and organic meat butcher shop in Kingston, New York. We haven’t read the book, but a colleague who did passes on her wishes for “more food and less sex—does anybody care about Julie Powell’s sex life?” (Yes: People who buy books to make into films will probably like it just the way it is.)

Fleisher’s has launched a formal butchery apprentice program that has already graduated three successful butchers. If your New Year’s plans include training in the culinary arts, learn more about Fleisher’s butcher classes.

As the Fleisher’s folks say, Carne diem!

• Learn your cuts of beef and cuts of lamb in our two popular meat glossaries.

This could be you, learning the craft (and
trade) of fine butchering. Photo courtesy Fleisher’s.

This is the second part of our “The Best Of 2009”: the Top Pick Of The Week specialty and gourmet food products that have become a permanent part of our lives. This week, our picks are the sweet stuff.

Since we’ve chosen “everyday foods,” our list doesn’t include the fabulous boxes of gourmet chocolate that are special-occasion buys. But don’t worry: All of our picks are indulgences.

You can click to the original reviews via the bulleted links below, or read our “Best of 2009” full review to learn why these have been added to our favorite treats list.

Spend more time with friends and family in the New Year by entertaining more often and more easily.

Don’t focus on a formal event that takes time to plan and costs a lot of money. Think casual, and simply set aside 2 hours a month to catch up with people you don’t see often enough, or with those you’ve met but haven’t had the chance to see again.

Make it a regular event and set aside the second Friday evening or third Sunday afternoon of the month, for example. Invite 4 to 8 people over for a mini-tasting:

Try different teas, mineral waters, Spanish cheeses, single-origin chocolate bars—whatever you’d like to learn more about.

The group will enjoy mixing and discovering new specialty foods; small groups are easier and less expensive to manage and guests mix more easily.

Spend an evening with sparkling wines and
triple-crême cheeses (here, Brie and
Champagne). Photo courtesy Wisconsin Milk Marketing Board.

• Buying cheese for tonight? Double-crême and triple-crême cheeses like Brillat-Savarin, Brie, Camembert, Explorateur and Saint-André are the way to go with sparkling wines. Learn more in our Cheese Glossary.