FROM VENICE WITH LOVE

Espresso Martinis for a crowd + Chocolate Innovations

Well, it’s officially November, so it’s time to delve full force into COZY TIMEZ®. This is your sign to start thinking about Thanksgiving plans, ordering your turkey, and dusting off your holiday homewares. Mariah’s thawing, y’all...

AU: Also a good reminder that Elizabeth’s Pumpkin Pie Bars recipe from last week’s newsletter includes a recipe for your own homemade Pumpkin Pie Spice blend that I am adding to my ground coffee before brewing all month!

EK: And, I have to say that you turned my “ugly delicious” pumpkin pie bars into a thing of beauty! That photo and those bars are gorgeous! Thank you for showing people that they can look as good as they taste!

AU: They’re SO good, and perfect for this time of year! Speaking of, we will have LOTS of Turkey Day tips and tricks coming up, but in the meantime, maybe tell your friends about What’s 4 Dinner? and how much joy and useful info this newsletter brings you each week?

COCKTAILS FOR A CROWD? CHECK YOUR FREEZER

AU: J.M. Hirsch is a cookbook author and the Editorial Director of Milk Street. We met when I produced one of his first national television appearances on Good Morning America for his cookbook High Flavor, Low Labor.

EK: J.M. and I met at Art Smith’s wedding in 2010. I say that like everyone knows what that means. Art produced his wedding like a big media event and I was one of 14 chefs that he asked to cook for his wedding in Washington, D.C. At that time, J.M. was the food editor of Associated Press and soon after we met, he asked me to write a column for him. We had fun working together and even more fun exploring the bourbon bars in NYC when he came to visit.

In the past five or six years he has taken his love of drink to a new level. He didn’t set out to become an author of cocktail books, but he told me, “it started, of course—as all things do—with the Old Fashioned. I graduated to a Manhattan and then it went on from there until I amassed 20-30 cocktails that I loved.”

AU: I own his first cocktail book, Shake Strain Done: Craft Cocktails at Home. I love how he creates cocktails from a cook’s perspective... like how adding just a few grains of kosher salt to a cocktail, changes the taste and balances out the flavors the same way that salt balances the flavors in a cooked dish.

EK: I love that he rarely calls for a specific brand and doesn’t create drinks that have a lot of “crafty” esoteric ingredients unless they truly make a difference. His philosophy is to use “common accessible ingredients to create great craft cocktails at home.”

AU: Well, he’s done it again! In his latest book, Pour Me Another,  250 Ways To Find Your Favorite Drink, Hirsch has created “flavor maps” to guide people and help them find other cocktails that they will (most likely) like. 

“It is a choose-your own adventure guide to the world of cocktails,” says Hirsch.
He explains, “each chapter focuses on a single liquor and begins with its most recognizable cocktail. A tequila Margarita. A Gin and Tonic. A rum Daiquiri. A Vodka Martini. A bourbon Old Fashioned. From each of those iconic drinks, every chapter explores 50 iterations… discovering the many and varied ways each liquor can express itself.”

EK: J.M. and I share a love of Old Fashioned. And if you look in the Bourbon chapter, there are many examples of drinks that are related to that old faithful, but new. I’ve never heard of a Mexican Old Fashioned, but now I can’t wait to make it. It’s simple—my favorite kind of cocktail—made  with Reposado tequila, crème de cacao and orange bitters. Or the Bijou that he describes as a “lighter brighter Old fashioned” despite it being made with Gin, Green Chartreuse, Angostura bitter, a few grains of kosher salt and orange bitters. 

My favorite element in the book is the sidebar on each recipe. The sidebar spotlights the different cocktails in the book that are related to the recipe. The sidebar on the page with the Old Fashioned recipe is what led me to discover the Mexican Old Fashioned and the Bijou. It also listed six other cocktails, most of which I had never heard of before, which tells me that I need to get out of my cocktail rut!

AU: We all have our favorites! But one of my favorite things he’s done lately is his Freezer Door Cocktail series on Instagram.

EK: I couldn’t agree more!

AU: The concept is wickedly simple, yet genius. A real why-didn’t-I-think-of-that moment! Take a bottle of liquor, and pour out some of its contents (I’m sure you can find a “use” for some extra booze). In place of what you poured out, add the ingredients to make a batch of cocktails IN the bottle! Store the whole thing in the freezer, and you’ve got cocktails on demand—no mixing or shaking required! Below are J.M.’s instructions for a Freezer Door Espresso Martini which uses the same instant espresso powder as my 10-Year Chocolate Chip Cookies.

FREEZER DOOR ESPRESSO MARTINI

By J.M. Hirsch

Makes one 750 ml bottle of cocktails

1 (750 ml) bottle of vodka
3.5 tablespoons Instant Espresso Powder
9 oz. Kahlúa coffee liqueur
1 oz. Water

Open a 750ml bottle of vodka and pour 10 ounces from the bottle. Find another use for those. To the vodka bottle, add 3 1/2 tablespoons of instant espresso powder (do not use brewed espresso, as it will freeze). Then add 9 ounces of Kahlúa, and 1 ounce of water (the water accounts for the dilution you would normally get when you shake a cocktail with ice in a shaker). Secure the cap of the bottle and give it a good shake to combine ingredients and dissolve the instant espresso powder. Store the bottle in the freezer and pour over ice or serve it “up” whenever you’d like a boozy coffee drink.

WILL TRAVEL FOR CHOCOLATE…

The pure 2nd Generation of Chocolate was sampled in wafer form for the launch. Photograph by Jennifer V. Cole

EK: There are many reasons to travel, and chocolate is definitely one of them! I was honored to be invited to hear the BIG news about Chocolate from industry leader, Barry Callebaut, in Venice. They have 64 factories all over the world and almost 13,000 employees. They have nearly 40 global chocolate academies where pastry chefs and artisans go for special demos, classes and to create and learn new chocolate techniques. Their USA headquarters is in Chicago where one of the chocolate academies is located.

If you haven’t heard of Barry Callebaut, you have surely heard of their customers, including Nestle, Mondelez, and Harrod’s. They also sell their chocolate to artisanal chocolatiers and pastry chefs around the world in 5kg blocks or “callets” which are small round coins or wafers. I am partial to the wafers and love using them whole in recipes (like Anthony’s perfect 10-Year Chocolate Chip Cookies).

I loved these chocolates that were made with no added sugar, and filled with almond marzipan, tart apricot jelly and orange blossom water. Photograph by Jennifer V. Cole

EK: The BIG NEWS is that the company is launching the “2nd generation of chocolate” with dark and milk chocolate that has only 2-3 ingredients. The chocolate is processed within 8 hours of being picked and the first ingredient is cocoa, the second ingredient is sugar and milk is added to the milk chocolate. This has never been done on an industrial scale and it is a not as easy as it sounds.

This is a big deal because even the purest chocolate has other ingredients including cocoa butter and vanillin. The new chocolate is cleaner, has 50% less sugar than 80% of the chocolate made and consumed in the world, and the texture is smooth as silk. It has none of the chalkiness or bitterness that some—especially dark chocolate—has.

The chocolate melts easily on the tongue and the dark chocolate has a more vibrant fruity and floral flavor. The milk chocolate is less sweet and has a deep caramel note. And, the “milky” milk chocolate favored by some chocolatiers is soft and subtle. It tastes like the best pure milk chocolate without the aftertaste of too much sugar which I find happens with a lot of today’s milk chocolate.

The CEO of Barry Callebaut Group, Peter Boone, said that the second generation of chocolate “addresses the consumers’ desire to indulge more mindfully…by reducing sugar and focusing on the natural flavors of cocoa.”

And, as a chocolate consumer and baker, I can say that it is chocolate that I feel good about, and I can’t wait to play with it because it was the best chocolate that I have tasted in years—maybe ever! You can read more about it here.

AU: I can’t wait to try this myself! I am a dark chocolate person, but miss the silkiness that milk chocolate provides. This sounds like the best of both worlds!

I was crossing a small bridge and lucky enough to capture this moment in time. I love how serene it looks even though 10 feet away there was a bustling crowd.

EK: It really is. You will love it. I also prefer dark chocolate and I couldn’t believe how silky it was. And, as someone who rarely chooses milk chocolate, I will chose this milk chocolate with the lovely caramel note.

It was definitely worth traveling to Venice, Italy, to hear and taste the news! The event was held in Venice because the reinvention of Venice was Barry Callebaut’s inspiration for redesigning the chocolate. The 1600 year-old city is both steeped in history, tradition, and artisanship, and has up to the minute technologies. In the city’s re-invention, they are creating a new version of the classic and that is what I think the “2nd generation of chocolate” aims to be.

AU: I haven’t been to Venice in years—I bet I wouldn’t even recognize it!

Jennifer and Elizabeth happily traveling in a water taxi on the way to the 2nd Generation Chocolate Launch in Venice.

EK: I had an unexpected surprise when I got to the event hotel, my vibrant fun bourbon-loving friend, Jennifer Cole, just happened to be sitting on the waterfront terrace. I hadn’t seen her in years, since she moved to Sicily! And, in the meantime, she has traded in her Southern—Mississippi—accent for a rousing Italian one!

Jennifer is a talented writer, editor and producer and was the Deputy Editor of Southern Living for many years. She still writes for many USA publications and just finished writing a Fodor’s Guide to Sicily. (And, if you are thinking about a trip to Sicily, you can hire her to plan your trip, so you get the inside scoop… which we all know makes all the difference!) Jennifer was nice enough to provide photos of the event, since my phone inconveniently died.

AU: That’s so fun! Always crazy to run into people unexpectedly—especially across the pond! How was the rest of the trip??

EK: Like you, it had been a long time since I had been to Venice, so I added a couple of days to my trip to explore Venezia and Murano by foot and by water-taxi. It was the perfect mix of a little culture, a lot of food and drink and I even spent the afternoon with a glass artisan who introduced me to hands-on lampwork.

Venice is the kind of city where you are compelled to sit and enjoy the view, watch the people, eat all the food and drink, and do a little shopping…

Here are a few my favorite things from the week:

These pistachio cake/cookies were rustically delicious like almond cakes made with pistachio and studded with tiny bits of dried cherries—if anyone has a recipe, please let me know.

Negronis and Spritzes were the drinks of the week! Served with Cicchetti, a.k.a. Italian nibbles, they were the perfect afternoon snack!

I ordered this risotto because the waiter told me that it was a zucchini flower risotto. It turned out to be a salted-cod risotto with bits of zucchini flowers and ground olives—and it was the best and creamiest risotto that I have ever eaten!

Persimmons were in season and they were perfectly ripe. I loved how they were served for breakfast in this silver coupe!

When Jennifer told me she was on the hunt for the local soft-shell crabs, because they were the best in the world, I knew I had to try them. They are a real luxury this year as most of them perished in the Summer heat, but the few that we were able to taste in this seafood fritti were exceptional, and lived up to Jennifer’s billing! Photograph from Jennifer V. Cole

I love glass blowing and visited several hot glass studios as well as an exhibit at GlassStress gallery. A gallery dedicated to collaborations with global artists to make their vision out of glass. This is “A Toppled Adirondack Chair After A Snowfall” by the artist Ryan Gander

This is the floor of the showroom at the Simone Giovanni Cenedese factory. The floor is made of glass and they cleverly used the glass refuse to fill the floor. That’s the coolest way to re-use “garbage” that I’ve ever seen!

On my last day, I took a lampwork workshop with Annette Otterdahl of Collelli-Otterdahl.com and got to work with glass rods to make beads, and small sculptural items—it’s harder than it looks but was a great experience! [You have to wear sunglasses to protect your eyes from the flame]

After all that hard work, I treated myself with the best gelato I have ever had. The flavor was called “Canora” after the artisan who created it and was a combination of vanilla creme, hazelnut and a thick layer of salted pistachio butter—like peanut butter but made with pistachios. Pistachios were definitely a theme of the week for me!