Dessert Blog

It can be the greatest accidental pleasure. After dinner you have a half glass of great cabernet sauvignon left, so ripe and rich you can't give it up. Out comes a chocolate-chocolate cake or deep dark truffle. Wow. What a perfect pair, and when you stop to think about it, why not? Connoisseurs fuss over the depth, the fragrance, fruitiness, nuttiness, even the grand cru origins of fine chocolate just as wine lovers do. How can these two luxuries not go together? Simple, try the same wine with a piece of white chocolate. Ouch, that cab is instantly bitter.

That will show you that all talk of wine and food pairing isn’t hooey. Maybe no one believes in firm wine and food rules but there are still bad combinations that sour any palate and they often include sweets, especially chocolate.

Matching wines and chocolates is easy in some ways because the overriding principle is sweetness. In other wine-food matches, chefs and drinkers worry over acidity, fruitiness or oak. With chocolate and wine, sweetness rules. And only one element can win; if food is the sweeter, the wine loses. You can spoil the flavor of the wine. If the dessert is sweeter, the wine is sour.

Over the years a few wines, usually fortified, sweet and sparkling, have proven successful. Ports, muscats, rosi Champagnes and the sweet Banyuls of Provence manage to trump most chocolates. But not all. The secret is in knowing that chocolates have different levels of sweetness. Chocolate and wine can be a grand gourmet indulgence or fool’s gold for gourmands who want too much of two good things and spoil both. Consider it from the chocolate’s point of view and look for a wine that’s sweeter.

White chocolate: The less real chocolate, cocoa powder, butter and liquor, in a candy, the more sugar, so white chocolate is barely a chocolate at all and calls for the sweetest wines. Look for late harvest white wines, tawny port, Sauternes, muscats and moscatos, the richest sherries and other wines with high residual sugar.

Milk chocolate: America’s favorite chocolate is creamy and heavier on sugar than cocoa. Rieslings, muscats, lighter merlots and pinot noirs.

Dark and bittersweet chocolate (over 50 percent cocoa): These chocolates have minimal sugar, very earthy roasted tones and a concentrated fruit. Marsala, port and dark muscats work, but you can experiment with dry reds, especially cabernet sauvignon and zinfandel. This is one place where you should welcome the trend to overripe reds, picked with higher sugar that makes higher alcohol wines (more than 14 percent). Ultimately, they should work, because there’s always been a hint of chocolate and cocoa in some of the best reds, a richness that develops from the earthiness of the grapes, and aging in barrels and bottles.

Most often we want chocolate and wine. Matching them up is a delightful exercise that makes a great excuse for a party. Set out three or four wines and three or four grades of chocolate and let your guests experiment. If they don’t succeed, follow up with a sure winner: espresso.

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Rhubarb, a wide-leaf plant with red stocks, came to American from Europe between1790 and 1800. A Maine farmer introduced rhubarb to Massachusetts around 1822. The plant originated in China more than 2000 years ago and was highly sought after for its medical benefits. Not until the 18th century was rhubarb cultivated for culinary purposes in Europe and America. Rhubarb is a vegetable rich in vitamin C and dietary fiber. It is commonly used in pie fillings and fruit compote served over ice cream or cake.

The rhubarb plant is a perennial and may be cut in the spring through the fall. To ensure continued growth of the red stocks (vegetable), the flower and seed stalks should be cut soon after they have bloomed. Curiously enough, the upper part of the stock is considered poisonous until the flowering starts. The leaves themselves are always poisonous. To be on the safe side, wait until the plant has flowered before cutting it to use in desserts, and use the reddest part of the stock.

Thousands of years ago rhubarb was used for medical treatments. Medicine men of China prescribed rhubarb root to Empires for numerous ailments. It was considered a potent drug to be taken in great moderation. One ruler of China attempted to commit suicide by consuming large quantities of rhubarb.

Today it may be used as a laxative, in the treatment of jaundice, gastro and menstrual disorders, conjunctivitis, traumatic injuries, superficial superlative sores, and ulcers. It can also be applied externally to thermal burns. In addition, it aids in digestive activity from the first bite. Its strong tangy bitter attribute stimulates the taste buds and gives the oral cavity a sense of cleansing, preparing it to taste the anticipated food. The bottom line is that research indications that rhubarb has numerous health benefits.

Believe it or not, rhubarb has uses other than culinary and medical. It can be used to clean pots and pans, to create hair color for light or golden brown, as an insecticide, paint and paper. You may investigate these uses on your own, but most prefer to use rhubarb for desserts.

The tangy flavor of rhubarb allows it to be mixed with several other fruits. The traditional combination is strawberry and rhubarb. Other recipes combine mango with rhubarb. Just about any fruit would do well. The combinations are endless and worth a try.

Rhubarb Plant

Rhubarb Pie

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We're going ice cream crazy this summer. As the heat rises, Americans will be discovering some wild flavors of ice cream. Butter pecan and maple walnut, get out of the way. We're talking cilantro-lime, green tea-cardamom and icy plum infused with star anise.

Frozen ice creams and sorbets infused with herbs and spices are hot in restaurants from coast to coast. For at least a decade, top chefs have been piquing palates with frozen flavor combinations such as grapefruit-tarragon and cucumber-dill, and using them as both desserts and as elements of non-sweet courses, such as seared tuna drizzled with sesame oil and served with a tiny scoop of wasabi sorbet.

Even if you despise the idea of tuna and sorbet on the same plate, you can tap into the trend with an unusual flavor intended solely for dessert. The reason you should even bother is that some of these flavors are spectacular. Imagine the puckery sweetness of lime sorbet made from fresh-squeezed limes, spiked with a surprising note of grassy cilantro. The cilantro-lime sorbet is addictive. So is the plum sorbet with its warm undertone of spicy star anise, a Chinese spice that is sold whole -- they resemble little wooden stars -- in Asian food stores.

Green tea ice cream, a staple in Chinese and Japanese restaurants, is easy to make at home, too. You'll need to visit an Asian store for Japanese green tea powder. It's a strong instant version of green tea used by the Japanese to make both hot and iced tea.

Plum and Star Anise Sorbet

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Chris Buchanan, a 14 year old from Oklahoma was eliminated from competition in the Scripps National Spelling Bee after failing to correctly spell "torrone," a sugary confection coated in crushed almonds. Katherine Close, an eighth-grader at the H.W. Mountz School in Spring Lake, N.J., rattled off "ursprache" to claim the title of America's best speller on prime-time television Thursday night. Katherine is the first girl since 1999 to win the title. The winner goes home with more than $42,000 in cash and prizes.

Chris, an eighth-grader from Broken Arrow's Centennial Middle School, sailed through the competition's first four rounds Wednesday but faltered in Round Five, which started shortly after noon Thursday and was aired on ESPN.
When he heard his first word of the day, Chris looked perplexed. He asked for a definition, which left him shaking his head. Then he asked for the language of origin. Finally, he asked whether the word could be pronounced any other ways.

When the pronouncer said no, Chris rolled his eyes, paused and gave it his best shot: T-I-R-O-N-I. The bell rang, signaling his mistake. Chris leaves Washington with a handful of attractive prizes. He came in 30th, along with 14 other spellers, and will walk away from the bee with $250. In addition, he'll receive a commemorative watch, a Webster's Third New International Dictionary on CD-ROM, plus a few other items, such as a T-shirt, a baseball cap and a duffel bag from Franklin Electronic Publishers.

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