While doing some research online about tropical fruit seasons, I came across this website. It’s an online market that specializes in tropical fruits seeds. Since I live in NYC, I don’t have a whole lot of use for a dragon fruit tree. But, I certainly spent a good deal of time reading information on their database about a ton of cool fruits!

Last night I had pizza topped with fig jam, gorgonzola and prosciutto.  While it was an interesting combination, and tasted quite delicious, it has piqued my interest in figs.  Now I’m finding myself craving more foods with figs….

I could easily walk to my corner store and pick up a bag of Fig Newtons, but that just doesn’t seem to be good enough.  Maybe I should make figgy pudding—a traditional English dessert served at Christmastime.

Of course I realize Christmas is now days past, but it might make a nice winter dessert for a post-holiday dinner party.  Anyone have any good recipes for figgy pudding?!

While living in Madrid, the most exciting celebration I experienced was “Nochevieja,”  Spain’s New Year’s Eve.

Just before midnight, millions of people gather at Puerta del Sol square in the city’s center and watch the final countdown from the huge clock on top of the post office.  Tradition requires that with each stroke of the clock at midnight, you eat a grape.  The saying goes that with each of the twelve grapes you eat, you are ensuring luck for the twelve months of the New Year ahead.  Following the mass grape gobbling are several toasts of cava (Spanish bubbly), and hours of singing and dancing in the streets!

It is an absolutely great time and the party goes until the wee hours of the morning, usually ending with chocolate and churros (hot chocolate and fried dough) at San Gines, the city’s best chocolateria.

This year, I’m going a few steps further than the usual on New Year’s Eve.  Instead of spending lots of money on a decent variety of champagne to serve by the flute, I’m going to save a few bucks and go the Italian route—prosecco.  Although prosecco alone is quite lovely, dressed up with a little fruit juice and fancy garnish, this drink will be sure to please my party guests.

Here’s the how-to:

Pomegranate-Ginger Prosecco Cocktail

1 cup Pomegranate juice - chilled
1 tbl. Sugar
1” Slice of fresh ginger – peeled
1/4 cup Freshly-squeezed orange juice
1 tsp. Cointreau
1 tsp. Pama liquour
1 750ml Bottle Prosecco – chilled

Bring the first three ingredients to a boil in a small saucepan.  Lower the heat to a simmer and reduce liquid to a syrup, about a 1/3 of a cup in volume.  Set aside and cool at room temperature.

Once the syrup is at room temperature, whisk in the orange juice, Cointreau and Pama.  Then, divide the mixture amongst four champagne flutes and top with prosecco.

Garnish with a few fresh pomegranate seeds and a finely julienned piece of fresh ginger (optional) and serve immediately.  Happy New Year!

While it’s winter in North America, summer is in full swing in South America, which means great tropical fruits like pineapples, mangoes and coconuts are at the peak of their season and easily found on the shelves of our local grocery stores.

So, in honor of the season, I’m posting my favorite Coconut Macaroon recipe.  When I first came across it in Martha Stewart’s Desserts cookbook, I followed it “to a T,” but over the year’s I’ve changed it a little by substituting half of the vanilla extract for almond extract and adding chopped almonds and chocolate chips to the base before baking.   My variation makes it more like a home-baked Almond Joy candy bar.  Either way, the macaroons are easy to make and just delicious!

This year I got a really cool restaurant guide.  It features TONS of dirt-cheap eats in New York City and lists at least one restaurant for every ethnicity imaginable!  It’s written in Japanese, but who cares?!  The name of each restaurant and their contact information is written in English, which it just enough to get me there.

I can’t wait to start eating my way through the guide (not literally).  And when I do, I’ll make sure to post my finds!

There is nothing better than holiday baking, so when I thought up a new seasonal take on  one of my favorite southern sweets–red velvet cake–I decided they were going to be on my list of desserts to make for Christmas!

Instead of making a basic red velvet layer cake with cream cheese frosting, I am going to bake little cupcakes and spice up the frosting with ground cinnamon.  I may even stack them to look like a Christmas tree!

Here’s a really simple recipe for red velvet cake to try.  And if you’d like to make cupcakes instead, simply line a muffin pan with paper baking cups, fill them about two-thirds full with the batter, and bake them for about 15-20 minutes.  For the cinnamon-flavored frosting, follow the recipe given and add ground cinnamon to taste (about a 1/2 tsp. at a time) after you’ve added the vanilla.

Last night I went out for a burger at a restaurant that prides itself in being something of a modern soda shop. They offer shakes, floats and sodas in a wide-array of flavors and combinations, most of which are pretty uncommon.

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When I saw pickled eggs on an appetizer menu this week, I had to order them. I’d never had them before and am always up for a new food experience. And am I glad that I did because they were delicious!

The eggs were hardboiled and then soaked in pickling liquid until they absorbed a good deal of vinegary flavor and a strangely pink exterior. Because of their pink color, I figured they were pickled in red wine vinegar. But, upon doing some research, I found that pickled eggs that have a pinkish hue are made by following a traditional Pennsylvania Dutch recipe using whole beets to tint the eggs.

I have a good friend who lives in NYC’s Chinatown neighborhood, so inevitably I find myself buying all sorts of different foodstuffs when I go to visit her.  It’s impossible for me to pass block after block of Chinese fruit stands and fish markets without finding something new to pique my interest.  This evening’s surprise, after a dinner of dim sum, happened to be a wooden stick of what looked to be candied apples.

The little skewer pierced through four little crab apples, dipped in a bright red hard candy coating, was way too tempting to pass up.  And once we arrived back at her apartment, we decided to cut into one to see just what lie underneath that shell.

Crab apples they were indeed!  However, they had been pickled!!!  A very startling discovery (that I may not want to have again…), considering the candy apples I grew up eating have always been sweet and juicy, not chewy and tart!