[1] Chicken liver, pancetta and shallot jam pizza at Barbuto in New York City (photo © Barbuto).

[2] Steak tartare pizza with chopped onions and other tartare fixings, at Due Forni in Las Vegas (photo © Due Forni).

[3] Crab pizza with Old Bay seasoning at Oath Pizza (locations nationwide – photo © Oath Pizza)

[4] Greek inspired: lamb sausage, tomato pesto, feta, hummus, olive and mint from Oath Pizz (locations nationwide – photo © Oath Pizza).

October is National Pizza Month. Few of us need an excuse to eat more pizza, but some celebration is in order.

Perhaps designing your own pizza, either at home or at a restaurant that has some specialty topping options?

First, the tried and true:

According to one survey, the ten most popular pizza toppings in the U.S. are:

 
Eight percent ordered cheese only.
 
But shouldn’t National Pizza Month be an occasion to try something new?

Earlier “innovations” included antipasto toppings, barbecue chicken, breakfast pizza (bacon and eggs), caramelized onions and goat cheese, duck or lamb sausage, fajita chicken, mixed seafood, and seasonal ingredients like fresh corn and summer tomatoes.

We personally enjoy smoked salmon pizza with salmon caviar and fingerling potatoes, and a truffle pizza with truffle cheese and truffle shavings.

We did pass on Due Forni’s Taco Pizza—taco ingredients topped with a cover of tortilla chips—in favor of the Tartufo (truffle).

Our regular favorite—more likely to be found—is mushroom pizza topped with fresh arugula.
 
 
CREATIVE TOPPING COMBINATIONS

Creative chefs nationwide are now layering flavors in ways that are forging new pizza paths.

Here are some of their pizza combinations:

 
Ready to create? We’re putting together a Cobb Salad Pizza tonight.
 
 
THE HISTORY OF PIZZA

While we’re having protracted summer weather this year, soon the temperatures will be cooling, the leaves will be swirling, and it will be time to enjoy the flavors of Fall.

At Woodhouse Chocolate, a family enterprise and a Napa Valley destination, that means beautiful bonbons in seasonal flavors:

 
The 12-piece Fall Collection in a beautiful “keeper” box (photo #1) is $30.00. Get yours here.

Your Thanksgiving host will love them, as will any chocolate lover with a palate for fine flavors and an eye for beauty.
 
 
HALLOWEEN CHOCOLATES

While the bonbons are sure to thrill sophisticated palates during the season, Woodhouse makes plenty of Halloween-specific chocolates for kids and the kids in all of us: bats, ghosts, jack-o-lanterns, skeletons, spiders and witches.

We’re partial to the chocolate eyeballs and the Dia De Los Muertos chocolate skulls (photo #2).

Woodhouse Chocolate has long been a favorite at The Nibble. Read our review.

[1] Woodhouse Fall bonbon collection, each piece beautifully painted with edible paint. Get it here.

[2] One of three different hand-painted Dia De Los Muertos skulls. Get them here (both photos © Woodhouse Chocolate).

[1] Cranberry, pumpkin seeds, spices and a chocolate drizzle (recipe and photo © The Popcorn Board).

[2] Dried cranberries (photo © King Arthur Flour).

[3] Toasted pumpkin seeds (photo © Simply Recipes).

[4] Chocolate chips melt over the popcorn. You can also use chocolate chunks or a drizzle of fudge sauce (photo © Coco Dolce).

October is National Popcorn Poppin’ Month, and The Popcorn Board has created a new recipe to mark the occasion.

Loaded with chocolate, cranberries, pumpkin seeds and fall spices, this is a recipe you can enjoy now through the holidays.

It’s also a food gift for anyone, from Halloween and Thanksgiving through Christmas.

The recipe follows. Also below:

> More seasonal popcorn recipes.

> Pairing wine with popcorn.

> The year’s 4 popcorn holidays.

Elsewhere on The Nibble:

> The history of popcorn.

> The year’s 12+ popcorn holidays.

> The history of cherries.

> The year’s 15+ cherry holidays.

> The history of cranberries.
 
 
RECIPE: CRANBERRY OR CHERRY & CHOCOLATE SPICED POPCORN

Ingredients For 8 Cups

 
Preparation

1. TOSS together the popcorn, cranberries/cherries, pumpkin seeds, coconut oil, cinnamon and nutmeg in a large bowl.

2. LAY the mixture flat on a parchment paper–lined tray. Drizzle with the melted chocolate and sprinkle with sea salt.

3. LET stand at room temperature for about 20 minutes or until chocolate sets. Break apart into chunks.
 
 
MORE SEASONAL POPCORN RECIPES

 

[5] Beyond popcorn, toss dried cherries everywhere, including cereal, grains, green salads, ice cream, protein* salads (chicken, egg, tuna, etc), yogurt, and wherever you feel like a drop of sweetness (Abacus Photo).

Here are wines that complement this fall popcorn recipe…and a cozy evening in front of the fire or T.V.

Banyuls Or Ruby Port

Fortified fruity wines like Banyuls and Ruby Port have cocoa or chocolate in the nose, as well as cherry, raspberry or other berry fruit on the palate. They are classic companions to chocolate.

Banyuls is made from the Grenache grape, Port is a blend of several grapes.

Tawny Port Or Zinfandel

Tawny Ports, which have nutty and tobacco/leather notes, also make good pairings.

We don’t recommend Vintage Port: Its high sugar and alcohol content can overwhelm anything that doesn’t have a sharp counterpoint (which is why blue cheese and walnuts are such good pairings).

Spicy Zinfandel brings out the spices in the recipe, and also pair well with chocolate.

Beaujolais Or Orange Muscat

Beaujolais and Orange Muscat bring out fruity notes of the cranberries. Orange Muscat, a dessert wine, also complements dark chocolate.

Beaujolais is a more unusual choice, but if you like the wine, try it.

Cabernet Sauvignon (including Bordeaux)

Whether from Bordeaux or elsewhere, Cabernet Sauvignon brings out the fruity-peppery-grapey notes in the chocolate and pairs well with the spices.
 
 
THE YEAR’S 4 CRANBERRY HOLIDAYS

 
________________
 
*“Protein salad” is not a recognized culinary term. We thought we invented the term to describe any protein-focused salad—chicken, crab, egg, ham, lobster, tuna, shrimp, whitefish, etc.—that’s been chopped and mixed with mayonnaise or a similar creamy sauce. We wanted a name to differentiate protein-based salads with green salads, grain salads, and other types. We searched online and found a two other references to “protein salad” on a menu or two, but no major reference source. So we chalk this one up to “simultaneous invention.”

In the culinary world, these “protein salads” are known as “bound salads”: ingredients bound with a thick sauce such as mayonnaise. A bound salad holds its shape when placed on a plate with a scoop. But coleslaw, pasta salad, potato salad, Waldorf salad, and others are also bound salads. Thus, we’re sticking with “protein salad, and hope you will use it, too.”
 
 

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

Everyone has heard of linguine with clam sauce, and pasta with mixed shellfish: clams, mussels, scallops, shrimp.

But how about fish?

This appealing dish of spaghetti with red snapper (photo #1) was created by Rickie Perez, Executive Chef/Founder of Logan Oyster Socials, a traveling oyster bar in Chicago.
 
 
RECIPE: SPAGHETTI WITH RED SNAPPER

The spaghetti is tossed with a fresh sauce of citrus and olive oil, and served with crisply-seared red snapper (skin side down).

Grilling is an alternative way to get the hearty flavor that marries the fish to the pasta.

Chef Perez uses a finishing splash of a spicy pineapple vinegar, a Puerto Rican condiment called pique.

It’s a simple blend of chilies, garlic, and spices, with a bit of pineapple added for sweetness. Here’s a recipe. You can make it and use it immediately, and can substitute pineapple juice for the pineapple rind in the recipe.

Don’t want to make vinegar? Use a splash of whatever flavored vinegar you have.

Chef Perez serves the dish with tostones, fried plantains (here’s a recipe). You can sauté bananas, or simply use a garnish or choice.

Here’s a different approach to red snapper and pasta, by Debi Mazar and Gabriele Corcos (photo #2).

Here, the seared snapper is de-skinned, then broken up and added to a tomato sauce.

October is National Pasta Month. Plan some pasta-and-fish combinations; perhaps you’ll discover a new favorite.
 
 
RESTAURANTS & INSTAGRAM: THE PHONE EATS FIRST

According to Datassential, the food industry’s leading market research firm, Instagram appeal has become a major concern for restaurant chefs and operators.

With more than 250 million posts, #Food is among the top 25 most popular hashtags on the social media platform.

Evidence of how this is shifting menu development is everywhere, says Flavor & The Menu, a leading trend magazine and website for chefs.

Instagram’s influence has forced restaurants to create more impressive presentations, over-the-top desserts and eye-popping cocktails.

“We used to eat with our eyes,” says Yury Krasilovsky, executive chef of pasta giant Barilla America.”

“Now, the phone eats first. [Restaurants] of all types to pay more attention to presentation.”

As a chef responsible for recipe development that Barilla offers to chefs, he keeps a keen eye on Instagram, looking at how chefs and home cooks have stylized pasta dishes in a striking manner.

“The most popular posts tend to be colorful, and either highly composed and stylized….,” he says.

“At the end of the day, it’s about appetite appeal: Food photos should make the viewer want to dive in for a forkful.”

But the photos only capture what’s put on the table. The creativity comes from you.

[1] Spaghetti With Red Snapper. It’s garnished with tostones and a squash blossom (photo © Barilla America).

[2] In this dish, the red snapper is crumbled and mixed into the sauce (photo © Debi Mazar and Gabriele Corcos | Cooking Channel).

[3] Rotini with peas and cubed swordfish. Here’s the recipe from Barilla.

[4] Casarecce with swordfish and eggplant. Here’s the recipe from Barilla.

Honeybees gathering nectar. Their bodies pick up pollen, which they rubs off on the next flower they visit (photos © The Honeybee Conservancy).

Last week, The Honeybee Conservancy launched a new initiative: Bee The Solution.

It’s a nationwide call-to-action and educational tour to raise awareness around bee conservation and the important role bees play in our society and local communities.

Bees are essential to grow hundreds of basic crops helping with food production and sustainability.

These little pollinators travel from plant to plant collecting nectar to make honey.

In the process, the plant’s pollen adheres to their bodies, and in a vital interaction, they inadvertently transfer the pollen from flower to flower, which pollinates the plants.

This process:

 
For the launch event, The Honeybee Conservancy created a six-foot-tall beehive with some 70,000 bees in the heart of midtown Manhattan. Oh yes: It was in the shape of the Empire State Building.

As part of the program, the Conservancy wants you to sponsor a beehive.

Sponsor-A-Hive is an annual program targeting two major issues in the U.S.: declining bee populations and limited access to food in low-income communities.

Each year, Sponsor-A-Hive selects partner organizations to which they deliver native bees or honey bees along with their hives, beekeeping equipment, and continuous training and support.

Sponsor-a-Hive recipients also participate in the Conservancy’s Bee Ambassadors program, with discussions that advance science and environmental education.

Equipped with materials such as lesson plans and presentations,Bee Ambassadors deliver hands-on, motivating programs about bees.

In their new homes, the bees thrive, pollinate, and help boost the crop yield of community gardens.

Your organization—school, community garden, etc.—can help to create a more sustainable America by caring for a beehive that pollinates and educates.

Help to build a movement dedicated to reclaiming habitat and protecting the bees that are so necessary to our local ecosystems and food systems.

Over the last ten years, the national Sponsor-A-Hive program has deployed 10 million bees into underserved communities in 44 states, producing half a million pounds of food and helping many thousands of people gain access to organic, sustainable food.

DISCOVER MORE HERE.