Nothing says autumn like the crunch of a fresh apple, flavorful juices flooding your mouth, triggering thoughts of autumn and hardwoods blazing with color.  While I hate to let go of summer stone fruits, by September I’m ready for apple season to officially begin. Apple Crisp or a blended fruit crisp are a pleasurable way to celebrate. I found and adapted the following recipe years ago; the consensus of at least 100 people is that it’s the best Apple Crisp, bar none, that they’ve ever had. Obviously, I concur.

 Actually, it’s difficult to have too many tomatoes. Zucchini, yes; tomatoes, not so much. However, too many overripe tomatoes at a time is an invitation to make gazpacho, the perfect soup for hot, humid afternoons and evening.

Susie Norris’s has recently self-published A Baker’s Passport, a compendium of recipes she collected over the years for her award-winning culinary travel blog, Food Market Gypsy. As those of you who have read my newsletters or followed us online for a long time know, I really enjoy supporting my friends and colleagues in their endeavors. I haven’t dedicated a full-blown blog to a cookbook for a while, so first reading, then writing about A Baker’s Passport, has been a lot of fun, especially as the book is filled with recipes from around the world, which Susie has collected over the years in her food-focused travels.

This recipe comes from, A Baker’s Passport, written by Susie Norris. Susie says, “Before the ‘British Bake-Off’ television show, a competition smoldered in Bakewell, Derbyshire in the United Kingdom. Much like Sacher Torte in Vienna, rivalries about the origins of the Bakewell Tart (also known as Bakewell Pudding or Bakewell Pudding Tart, depending on which shop in town you visit) are part of its allure.

We have been contacted by customers asking  about the strong smell of alcohol in our pure vanilla extracts. So we thought we’d address this question.

There are good reasons and a simple fix for this.

The Reasons

1.  The FDA requires alcohol in vanilla

The FDA Standard of Identity for pure vanilla extracts requires that there must be a minimum of 35% alcohol in pure vanilla extract. The alcohol may be made with grain alcohol or sugarcane alcohol. In the case of our vanilla extracts, we use sugarcane alcohol because it is both gluten- and gmo-free.

So many choices. So many prices.
Are they all the same? What is the best vanilla?

Have you ever stared at the vanilla extracts on the store shelves and wondered which  is the best vanilla extract to buy? In some respects, choosing a vanilla extract is like selecting a fine wine. How do you know which one to buy?

Read on for an insider’s view of vanilla extract, how to choose what’s best for you and why high-quality vanilla makes a world of difference in flavor.

The best quality vanilla extracts come with a price

The simple answer for what is the best vanilla extract often boils down to price. Good vanilla is not cheap. And because it is so pricey (it’s the world’s most labor-intensive crop), customers are often put off by sticker-shock. 

Most supermarket vanilla extracts are mediocre

So stores try their best to buy the cheapest extracts they can find. That means most supermarket vanilla extracts — both brand name and store brands — while they may be pure vanilla, are usually of mediocre quality in comparison to the really fine quality extracts that are available elsewhere. This is also true in the big-box stores where bulk vanilla is fairly inexpensive.

We’re doing it again! David Jackman and I are hosting another festival at Chocolate Restaurant in Santa Cruz, CA on Thursday, September 26th, this time, featuring a menu that showcases both Chocolate and Vanilla!!

While pasta won’t cure all the world’s woes, it’s reliable comfort food on a rainy, bluesie, day or when you’ve been so busy all you can think of is something easy to make.  This recipe’s not all about carbs thanks to the zoodles (zucchini noodles for the uninitiated). But what about the bacon, you might ask? It’s turkey bacon — lean but full of flavor.  If you don’t do bacon, no problem. Feel free to use real bacon if you prefer. This dish more than holds its own thanks to the saffron cream sauce!

This delicate, delicious, absolutely-must-make cake recipe comes from Maria Reiz Springer. Now living in Maryland, Maria is from Austria and has an infinite number of amazing European dessert recipes, and usually a wonderful story that goes with the recipe. Maria has a home cooking school and is truly a master baker. The plum cake can be made with other stone fruits as well, but if you are lucky enough to have French plums, they are both the traditional plum used as well as divine in this cake.

Although the first figs may come in sometime in June, late July heralds the second round of the US fig season. In Europe, most especially Italy, everyone who can, has a fig tree. Italian immigrants who came to the US in the late 19th and early 20th century, planted them in barrels in apartment courtyards and in cottage gardens, holding onto the memory of warm figs harvested from trees in sun-baked gardens and hillsides.

Homemade frozen yogurt has become one of my passions this summer. I’ve especially enjoyed using freestone peaches and strawberries. You can use berries, nectarines, mangoes, and even poached apples or pears with most of the juices drained. Simply follow the basic recipe and adjust sweetener (use sugar if you prefer) to taste. I add a little sugar to the fruits to get the juices running; you can skip that step if the fruit is already juicy.

Is it even possible to have too many salad recipes? Possibly if you hate fruits and vegetables, but then you wouldn’t be reading this recipe, right? The options are limitless, especially if you’re willing to experiment. So when I read a recipe featuring only sugar snap peas, I paid attention. They grow well on the California Coast, so we eat them with dips, cut into chunks in salads, and of course a stir fry, but it never occurred to me to use them as a single ingredient salad.

 Smoothies are a perfect breakfast food, and they’re also a fabulous addendum to a book and a hammock or any other slow-food activity. Use whole or 1% milk if you prefer, soy milk or fruit juice, and choose your favorite fruits. The second best thing to being a healthy fast food is that they’re very adaptable. Here’s one version. Make up your own – just be sure to perk it up with vanilla!

Shakerato

Courtesy of David Lebovitz:  The Sweet Life in Paris

I should mention before the recipe that David was so taken by the name “Shakerato” posted on the café board for this iced coffee drink, that he ordered it.  Turns out he also liked it.

 When I lived in the countryside, I made this exquisite Double Vanilla Poundcake with Rum-Vanilla Glaze, partly to demonstrate the quality of the vanilla I carried and also, to promote The Vanilla Cookbook, which came out in 1986. The irony of the situation was that people wanted to buy the cakes, not the cookbooks!

I love fresh pineapple! The best part about my infatuation is that pineapple is really nutritious and also reduces inflammation and pain.*

This article deals with a crisis that hit the vanilla industry in 2015 and drove up prices. But even without a crisis, vanilla is expensive. To find out why, read here. To learn about the current crisis and why vanilla is almost unaffordable for some, read on.

In May of 2019, a new market report was released by a European company that has been in the vanilla business for more than 100 years and is known for their honest and reliable industry assessments. The report confirmed that the price for vanilla beans has softened, but has a way to go before it will be in the “affordable” category. At this time, most beans are selling for about $400 a kilo at source. For a sense of how this impacts Europe and the US, by the time the vanilla beans are shipped and airport fees, port fees, agent’s fees, custom fees and storage fees are paid, it can be as much as $100 more a kilo by the time everything is paid by the importer.

Jam Cakes are a quick, cheerful, dessert with ingredients that you’re bound to have, unless you  haven’t been to the store in weeks. The recipe makes six or more cupcake size “cakelets,” depending on the size of your tins.  Perfect when you can’t stop thinking of something sweet but you don’t want an entire cake. That said, the recipe is a snap to double. 

In the mid-1970s, Julee Rosso and Sheila Lukins launched The Silver Palate, a tiny take-out shop in Manhattan, featuring really good food to be enjoyed at home, on a picnic, or a special occasion or office party. The shop was an instant success and the food was uniquely special as the 1970s was a gateway to a new way of cooking, a combining of – or inspired by- recipes from many cultures but with a distinctly modern twist. Chicken Marbella is one of the recipes these two very smart women prepared.