Rococo Variations

I have a few swoon-inducing bars of Rococo chocolate in my possession right now. I’m afraid this may make you horribly jealous of me, for if you’ve ever had the good fortune to experience this exquisite chocolate from London, you definitely would be green with envy and might actually come banging on my door, shamelessly begging me to share my chocolate with you. This is some of the finest chocolate I have ever known, and I give Rococo major credit for deepening my understanding of how magical chocolate can be.

I had my first personal encounter with Rococo Chocolate in the fall of 2006, although I had heard about these organic artisan chocolate bars long before that. Apparently Rococo used to sell their beautiful chocolate at Saks Fifth Avenue here in New York, which is how several of my friends had been able to meet their chocolate needs in the past. But for some inexplicable reason, Rococo terminated their account with Saks by the time I was lusting after their chocolates flavored with such exotic ingredients as sea salt, pink peppercorns and geranium. Nowadays it isn’t so unusual to encounter chocolate infused with herbs and spices or other floral flavors, but this was nearly ten years ago before the esoteric chocolate explosion had hit the States. The London shop wouldn’t export their wares, so short of flying across the pond and descending upon the shop myself, there were years when I had no way to get my hands on this legendary chocolate.

But it is a great thing to make friends with Londoners who frequently make the journey to and from New York, and when my friend Rob was visiting his parents in London three summers ago, I gave him a hundred bucks and asked him to buy as much Rococo chocolate as he could with it. He came through for me big-time, returning with a substantial supply of these elegantly packaged bars, each wrapped in what resembled a tobacco pouch. The first bar I opened was the Caramelized Almond, and what an experience it was!

Sensational Smoky Guacamole

Everyone should have a few recipes in their repertoire that they can knock out quickly without much effort. It’s the culinary equivalent of the Little Black Dress that every woman should own: ready to go on a moment’s notice and effortlessly fabulous, no matter what the occasion. My Smoky Guacamole falls into that category. This is a staple in my repertoire of great summer party foods, and I have been making a lot of it recently.

I must be making up for hating avocados as a child. I could just kick myself now, for in growing up in sunny Southern California, our family had many friends with avocado trees in their yards. My parents often reaped the generosity of these friends when their trees were in full bloom, the branches heavily laden with the luxurious dark pear-shaped fruit. Alas, this avocado bounty was unfortunately wasted on me, for my 6-year-old palate was woefully unappreciative.

I was not an especially picky eater as a kid—my dislikes being primarily limited to fish, raw tomatoes, and peanut butter&jelly sandwiches—but I couldn’t negotiate the avocado’s slick buttery texture and its very particular taste. I’ll spare you the gory details of a particularly unfortunate avocado experience I had early on, but suffice it to say, my parents didn’t force the issue after that bad reaction. So I lived my California life completely avocado-free, a fact that now strikes me as criminal. I didn’t think I was missing a thing. But a bacon-and-avocado sandwich changed all of that when I was 18.

A Wise Peach

Today is my brother’s birthday, and I would like to dedicate this post to him. It is only fitting that I share a recipe that is a riff on one of Peter’s most exquisite cocktails, a creation that I call The Wise Peach.

I was nearly four when Peter was born, and it was pretty much love at first sight from the moment I saw my baby brother in the hospital nursery. We were constant playmates, being the only two kids in the family, and I always marveled at my little brother’s visual talents, even from the earliest age. Peter’s daily ritual as a three-year-old was to cover the entire kitchen floor with jigsaw puzzles, fitting pieces together with lightning speed and leaving me behind in the dust whenever I joined him. At Christmas the next year, he was given a coloring book with tracing paper in it, a book so compelling that he completely ignored the rest of the gift opening as he worked his way through the book. Shortly after that, he began to tear through reams of tracing paper, copying everything he could get his little hands on. I always thought that must have provided excellent training, for when he finally began to draw free hand, we were all amazed at the prodigious skill he already possessed at such a young age.

Fast-forwarding a number of years, my sunny little brother has grown up into someone of great wisdom and depth, not to mention being a thought-provoking artist. It does my heart no end of good to see him happily creating and being recognized for his talent and his hard work. With several upcoming shows in the works, he is busy painting and drawing this summer, creating his multi-layered architectural landscapes that I love so much.

Sailing Along With Key Lime Cupcakes

I have always loved having a summer birthday. Though my childhood pool parties have now been replaced by cocktail soirees and birthday dinners on my roof deck, it always has felt particularly festive to celebrate in an outdoor venue on a balmy summer night. I have several weeks to plan my next birthday celebration, but my friend Laura just raised the bar on fabulous birthday party locations, for twenty-five of us boarded the Pioneer Schooner at South Street Seaport last night in honor of her birthday. What could be more festive than sailing around lower Manhattan at sunset while surrounded by friends and family? If you add some killer Key Lime Cupcakes to the equation, you can consider yourself officially celebrated in grand style.

Laura is one of the most beautiful and big-hearted women I know, and I have always appreciated her quick laugh and generous spirit. She kept me sane throughout our six-year Broadway run in the orchestra of “The Producers”, not only in the pit but also while commuting together through the Times Square mayhem surrounding our theater, and there were countless Sunday nights when I joined Laura and her husband Tom to watch the latest episode of “The Sopranos” or “Six Feet Under” while quaffing gin&tonics. (They had HBO; I brought the gin.) She is my closest neighbor from whom I can borrow the proverbial neighborly cup of sugar, although our kitchen requests of each other tend to be a bit more specific, such as “Can I use your Kitchenaid?” or “May I borrow your silicone baking mats to make those incredible New York Times chocolate chip cookies that we love so much?” And she is definitely one of the most genuinely enthusiastic taste-testers for whom I have ever had the pleasure of cooking.

Laura and Tom love sailing on the Pioneer, the 100-foot schooner which does daily harbor tours from South Street Seaport. When she decided weeks ago that she wanted to celebrate her birthday by taking an evening sail with friends, we all literally hopped on board. I volunteered to make the birthday cake, and after batting many ideas back and forth, we decided that cupcakes would be the easiest thing to manage. Two of the flavors that kept coming up in our discussion were key lime and coconut, so I decided to create a special birthday cupcake for her.

Floating On Limoncello Memories

It has been raining intermittently all week here in New York, but I am ready for some consistent sunshine. Even though this has been the coolest June in recent memory, I am ready to delve into my treasure trove of fun summer recipes and share them with you. Certain days conjure up specific culinary memories for me, especially those of the revelatory sort, and today happens to be such a day for it was on June 27th three years ago in which I was introduced to one of my all-time favorite summer desserts. And it would be my great pleasure to introduce you in turn to the Limoncello Float.

I was doing a recording session with Kelli O’Hara and Harry Connick Jr. on this very day in 2006. I’d always thought Kelli had such a magical quality each time I’d seen her on the Broadway stage, and I was thrilled that she was recording her debut album, “Wonder In The World”. I was excited to work with Harry Connick for the first time, and my enjoyment on the gig was definitely enhanced by the presence of Cenovia and Lorra who were also in the violin section. As they have been two of my major partners in culinary capers over the years, it is no surprise that our conversations frequently turn to new restaurant discoveries or recipes we’re longing to try. This particular morning was no exception, for before the recording session even began, Lorra was waxing eloquently about a marvelous meal she’d enjoyed at a new restaurant in Chelsea called Cookshop. Her enthusiasm ratcheted up yet another notch as she described the limoncello float that was the exquisite clincher of the meal. It sounded like the perfect treat on a blisteringly hot summer day, and I spent the morning daydreaming about how that would taste. When the producers called an unexpectedly long lunch break in between our recording sessions, the three of us immediately hopped in a cab and made our way downtown for those limoncello floats.

I felt very happy and calm the moment I walked into Cookshop, appreciating the minimalist space that was filled with lots of light and countless glass vases of joyful sunflowers. Lunch was delicious, but the limoncello float was out of this world! Served in an elegantly tall glass, the alternating scoops of lemon and strawberry sorbet bobbed up and down in soda water, creating a kind of liquid sunset. And when I stuck my straw into the bottom of this frothy lemony loveliness, the first thing that hit my taste buds was the limoncello liqueur that had settled in the bottom of the glass. It was unexpected and totally beguiling.

Key Lime Cosmos To Assuage Your Travel Woes

It is my great pleasure to introduce you to my Key Lime Cosmopolitan, which made a rather exuberant debut in Oklahoma this week, of all places. I’ve gone from AK to OK in the space of a week this June, with a brief NYC stint in between, having culinary adventures all the while. I began this month on a boat with my extended family, sailing down the breathtaking Inside Passage of Alaska while being treated to a sumptuous feast for the eyes and soul as well as the taste buds. But I have now traded fresh Alaskan salmon and snow-capped mountains for the land of great barbecue and enormous skies, for I am now in Bartlesville, Oklahoma with the Amici New York orchestra where we are performing at the OK Mozart Festival.

This wonderful group is made up of some of my favorite musicians in New York. Even though we often have great musical experiences together during the year, there is something very refreshing about playing with these colleagues outside of our normal environment. There is an incredible spirit in this group of musicians, of whom many have performed at this festival nearly every year since its inception 25 years ago. Great friendships have formed, not only between members of the orchestra with one another but also with many of the faithful audience members, and it is a very special thing to be part of this OK Mozart Festival which is so beloved by the local community.

However, we were definitely an orchestra collectively in need of a cocktail the other night. Can I tell you why we all desperately needed a cosmopolitan, a key lime one or otherwise?

Baked Alaska Amidst Mountains

My family’s Great Alaska Adventure continues, and we are all drinking in the outrageous natural beauty with real joy. My camera’s lens is completely inadequate to capture the enormity of these sights, for the mountain ranges are too majestic to be confined in a small frame. Neither can the true glory of a late-night ocean sunset by captured with my little digital camera, but that hasn't stopped me from photographing my way through this trip with abandon.

I am still floating on the memory of our train ride up the White Mountain Pass yesterday. After docking in Skagway, we ascended the old Yukon mining trail in a wooden railway car and were treated to one jaw-dropping view after another. Our enormous ship became a white speck on the horizon as the train carried us higher and higher still. We saw an enormous black bear lurking amidst magnificent trees as we made our way to the summit, and there we encountered the most pure white snow I've ever had the pleasure of seeing . Once again, my photos don’t do justice but I know that I will certainly daydream about these visuals when I am back home in the concrete jungle of Manhattan.

The fourteen of us occupy three tables at dinner each night, and I am very proud of my 7-year-old nephew, Mac, who has been a delightful addition to the dinner table. He has also been very adventurous in the culinary department this week, which is an excellent quality to have when your nickname is Little Chef. Mac is cultivating his seafood appreciation on this trip and I’ve watched him devour a different salmon preparation nightly. On the day that we docked in Sitka, my parents took him to a place that served reindeer hot dogs, a local delicacy that Mac decided was the most delicious hot dog he’d ever tasted. Because of this positive experience, he didn’t hesitate to order the Vegetable Soup With Reindeer Sausage at dinner that night, and he drained the bowl to the last drop. I was very impressed.