Today, yogurt has moved beyond a
simple dairy staple to a glamorous
topping and ingredient, as shown in this
breakfast parfait. Learn about the
different types of yogurt in our Yogurt Glossary.
Like yogurt? Enter this week’s Gourmet Giveaway: The lucky winner of our yogurt prize will get to enjoy a selection of water buffalo milk yogurt. The winner will receive A case of 12 6-ounce containers of water buffalo yogurt from Bufala di Vermont, in three flavors: maple-raspberry, blueberry and plain. Retail value $24.99. It’s our new favorite yogurt: Read the review. Enter the Gourmet Giveaway by answering a few fun trivia questions about yogurt; you don’t have to answer correctly to win. Find articles, recipes and reviews of more yogurt in the Gourmet Yogurt Section of THE NIBBLE online magazine.
Peaches originated in China. They were the first fruits to be domesticated, 4,000 years ago. Asians prefer the low-acid, sweeter, white-fleshed peaches while Europeans and North Americans have historically grown the yellow-fleshed varieties. Whichever you prefer, celebrate National Peach Month with some of these past NIBBLE selections:
The people at Khaya Cookie Company aren’t just about cute cookies; they have a social mission, too. The word “khaya” means “home” in Xhosa, the language spoken in a region of South Africa where the Khaya Cookie Company’s cookies are baked. True to “home,” they are made with ingredients from the region, like rooibos extract, grapeseed powder, and local dates and apricots. The cookie production creates jobs and trains local residents with job skills, so that they’re not just baking—they can also learn to work in the customer service or packaging departments.
Khaya’s employees come mainly from a township called Khayelitsha, where one of every four children suffers from chronic malnutrition and almost one million people live below the poverty level. Alicia Danielle Polak, the company’s founder and CEO, an investment banker in her former life, now uses her skills to help the impoverished. Every 150,000 boxes of cookies sold creates 100 jobs in South Africa.
Whether you’re entertaining guests or simply like to eat in style at home, Khaya’s tiny shortbread cookies are shaped at approximately the size of a thumbnail and are available in Orange Rooibos and Cranberry Rooibos flavors. Khaya also produces a chewy Granola Fruit Krunchi made with dates and apricots. The products are all-natural and preservative-free. At $5.75 per flavor, the attractive boxes make nice holiday stocking stuffers and teacher gifts, for a good cause. Order the cookies online at www.khayacookies.com.
You can make almost anything with beer—from bread to ice cream to some of these more obvious beer recipes, compliments of Gordon Biersch. These recipes are made Gordon Biersch Marzenwith Märzen or Märzenbier, an amber-red (auburn), smooth, mildly sweet, Vienna-style lager with a malty aroma. It originated in Bavaria where it was originally brewed in March (Mär zen) and laid down in caves before the summer heat made brewing impossible. At the end of September, any remaining kegs were consumed during the two-week Oktoberfest. While some brewers make a Märzen that is seasonal to the Oktoberfest, others, like Gordon Biersch, brew it year-round.
Märzen is Gordon Biersch’s sweetest brew. Company co-founder Dan Gordon describes it as the “universal donor,” meaning that it goes well with just about anything. Some strongly-flavored beers can turn bitter if you cook with them, particularly if you use them to boil or braise. Weizens (wheat beers) are too light to cook with, and hoppy beers like pilsners don’t reduce too successfully.
If you can’t find Märzen, you can substitute any slightly sweet and malty lager, a darker lager or, in season, festbiers and Oktoberfest brews.
Martine’s sugar-free almond bark
doesn’t skimp on good ingredients;
sweetened with maltitol, the only thing
it’s missing is regular sugar.
It takes a true master of chocolate to make delicious sugar-free versions of his or her art, and who better to take on the challenge than Manhattan’s own Martine Leventer, creator of Martine’s Chocolates? We’ve already raved about her top-notch gourmet chocolate in a past review, but we are delighted to report that she makes excellent sugar-free chocolates, too, from the fine Belgian chocolate of Callebaut. They are perfect for people who have been searching for a high-quality gourmet chocolate that’s so good, it’s easy to forget that it’s sugar-free. (Please note that this is not a low-calorie product, and should be consumed by people who need to restrict their intake of sucrose. Those on restricted diets should consult with their healthcare advisors before consuming any sugar substitutes.)
Martine Leventer experiments with every one of her chocolates until she is satisfied, so we aren’t surprised that her sugar-free line meets high standards. After careful investigation, she found that maltitol was the only artificial sweetener that did not leave an aftertaste. That may be why her sugar-free chocolates leave plenty of folks fooled (including us!), in a good way. Martine’s sugar-free chocolates have the same charm as their sugared counterparts; both are made with fine Belgian Callebaut chocolate and hand-crafted with elegant molds.
