In anticipation of the various gatherings that occur this time of year, we’ve pulled together five of our favorite cookbooks from recent months. Each day this week, CH will feature a different cookbook and a recipe, the sum of which will make up a complete holiday meal. First up:…
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Sweet, salty and Kickstarted snacks
Vincent Kitirattragarn’s mother knows Bangkok-style street food. So when Kitirattragarn decided to abandon a corporate San Francisco gig to pursue cooking, he knew who to call first. It was while munching on toasted coconut—a key ingredient in her recipe for Thai lettuce wraps—that he hatched the concept for Dang…
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Eco-friendly snacks made with parsnips and Manuka honey
In 2009, Cara Leighton approached a couple of her restaurant-savvy friends to help create parsnip crisps with Manuka honey—a bold, flavorful syrup produced from New Zealand’s Manuka trees. While Leighton started out doing prep-work and cooking in her own home, the crew have since moved the company, Leighton Brown,…
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Gluten-free energy bars from Vermont
Born from founder Leslie Kielson’s energy snack recipe experiments, Vermont’s Battenkill Brittle makes bars and crumble full of healthful seeds. A departure from the dense concoctions found in oatmeal bars, Battenkill’s version is light, crunchy and lightly sweetened. The gluten-free energy bars serve as the perfect treat or snack,…
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Snack-attack stationery from Peco Mart
As smartphones and tablets become more ubiquitous, actual notebooks and memo pads are beginning to seem less and less necessary. Outdone in the realm of convenience, Peco Mart has taken a more entertaining and eccentric approach. Upon first glance, their Snack Memos look like ordinary bags of potato chips or Christmas cookies. However, the bags actually contain 88 small memo sheets. Adding to the illusion—and delightful weirdness—is an aroma packet included with each bag, ensuring that your notepaper not only looks like a potato chip, but also smells like it.
Snack Memos are available from Peco Mart and the MoMA Store.
Tastier than you might think
With archeological evidence tracing their roots back as far as 13,000 years ago in India and Pakistan, lentils have been a protein-packed part of mankind’s diet since the Neolithic times. Like various other healthy chips we keep on tap, Simply 7’s Lentil Chips make the legume accessible to those less familiar with its many nutritional benefits. The crispy, gluten-free snack gets its flavor from just the right amount of garlic and spices, but with 40% less fat than potato chips makes a significantly healthier option.
We tried all three flavors—sea salt, bruschetta and creamy dill—at CH HQ, and found each of them well seasoned and satisfyingly crunchy. As a bonus, the trans fat-free chips are a good source of protein and iron. Head to Simply 7 online for recipes and more information, including where to buy.
Unexpected herbs spice up a range of shortbread from the Napa Valley
After numerous compliments and requests for her lavender shortbread, Sondra Wells decided to take her craft to the next level with Botanical Bakery. Soon, she’ll even add Thai chili and gluten-free varieties to the roster of flavors of unusual, buttery Garden Shortbread cookies filled with aromatic herbs, spices, fruits and cacao nibs.
Each cookie starts with three organic ingredients: hard red wheat flour (unbleached), fresh-churned, 85-percent-sweet-cream butter and pure cane sugar. From there, the Napa Valley, California-based baker adds exotic flavors we’ve certainly never seen in a simple shortbread.
We tried the fennel pollen, which stands out for its delicate flavor. Filled with the tiny, hand-picked blossoms of the wild pollen, the golden shortbread tastes like honey and licorice. On every Botanical Bakery package, you’ll find suggested pairings with tea, coffee and wine—for fennel pollen, we went with a warm cup of Intelligentsia Le Perla de Oaxaca. The combination of the coffee’s milk chocolate and blackberry notes and the mild sweetness of the fennel pollen was spot-on.
Currently, Botanical Bakery makes Garden Shortbread in seven unexpected, sweet-meets-savory varieties. (Cinnamon Basil also disappeared quickly from the CH office.) Pick up a box online for $7.
Cherry spoons and bone-shaped treats—pas pour les chiens!
On a recent visit to beloved Parisian boulangerie and patisserie Poilâne, we scooped up the two newest flavors in their line of savory and sweet biscuits—cherry cookies in the shape of spoons (nicely complimenting their curry forks and shortbread spoons) and dog bones aptly called Pas Pour Les Chiens (not for dogs).
The bone-shaped cookies by celebrity cartoon dogs Caperino and Peperone (little caper and big pepperoni—”guess why”), most famous for their work with Paris boutique Colette, certainly look like something made for K9s, but non. According to a charming comic strip enclosed in each box of eight, the cookies simply got their shape during the dogs’ hijinks with their hats in the Poilâne kitchen.
Olivier Kuntzel and Florence Deygas, the artists behind Caperino and Peperone, also helped to design the packaging on the Pas Pour Les Chiens biscuits—just the latest extension of their cartoon characters, whose repertoire of collaborations includes Swarovski, Nike, Fendi, Kidrobot and several others.
As for their flavor, Chef Lior Lev Sercarz of La Boîte created a spicy blend of nutmeg and ground peppercorns called “Fourmis Rouge” (Red Ant), bridging savory and sweet tastes. The cherry spoons are all sweet, with just a hint of the fruit, for a snack at any time throughout the day.
The biscuits are baked in Paris and shipped to NYC, selling for $15 for a box of eight at La Bôite. Or, pick them up from the Poilâne online shop or their stores in Paris and London.
A slice of spice from Vermont with bold South-of-the-Border flavor
A small Vermont-based operation with outsized creativity, Deano’s Jalapeño Chips are flavorful little slices of actual peppers—perfect for spicing up burgers, eggs, snack mixes, popcorn or even as a stand-alone snack. Founder Doehne “Deano” Duckworth, inspired by Jalapeño-flavored potato chips, decided to skip the potato altogether.
Sliced paper thin, the peppers fry to a crisp before a dusting with either cheddar or ranch flavoring. Though it might sound as heart attack-inducing as their starchy cousins, Deano’s are free of trans fats, cholesterol, gluten and even hydrogenated as well as partially-hydrogenated oils.
You’ll find store listings and a few recipes for those of us with less-inspired culinary talents on their site.
Deliciously crumbly, all-natural treats
Buttery and crumbly, Alice’s Stick Cookies are a rich treat that will have you licking your fingers. (We won’t say which CH editor poured milk into a bowl of leftover crumbs and ate them like cereal.) The delightful texture and flavor makes the treat great for decadently crumbling over ice cream, but they’re perfect served simply, say alongside an afternoon coffee, too.
Despite sharing a shape with another common coffee companion, these cookies are taste quite different than biscotti. The secret to their flavor lies in the brand’s founder Alice, who (in business since age 70) uses top quality ingredients including cane sugar syrup imported from the U.K. and malted barley flour to get the toffee-like appeal.
The treats, available in vanilla, lemon, orange-chocolate chip and cinnamon-ginger varieties, are free of eggs, nuts, artificial flavors and preservatives, making them safe for those with allergies. Packaged in simple black and white boxes, they sell at Amazon, for around $9 a box.
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