I've been spending entirely too much time watching episodes of The French Chef with Julia Child that my friend Craig gave me.

I find Mrs. Child oddly hypnotic. There is something about her uniquely-accented voice and the not-entirely graceful movement of her formerly 6' 2" body that compels me to watch her.

And watch her I do. Over and over again.

This week, I've been enjoying an early, black and white episode wherein she gives a champagne and coffee party in honor of:

"...the Queen of Sheba, which turns out to be this dark beauty, made of chocolate, and almonds, and rum, and butter!"

She then invites us into her kitchen where she promises we'll make:

"the best chocolate cake you ever put in your mouth."

That's one heavy promise, but I love her enthusiasm.

I decided to put my money where Mrs. Child's mouth is and examine this cake and the woman behind it, however superficially.

And one or two other things, of course.

First, there is the name:
The Queen of Sheba

The legend of the Queen of Sheba can be found in both the Old Testament and the Qur'an. As a polytheist monarch of tremendous wealth and wisdom, she was intrigued by King Solomon of Israel, who was famous for his own wealth and wisdom, plus the odd little fact that he and his people worshipped only one god (1 Kings 10:1-13). She set off to visit him, laden with spices, gold, jewels, and a series of riddles to test his alleged wisdom. She was more or less awed by him, and he rather impressed with her. She returned to her southern Kingdom with "all that her heart desired", including a new, solitary god.

Despite what the vampy costume of Betty Blythe might suggest in her 1921 epic The Queen of Sheba, most accounts suggest that the relationship between Solomon and herself were of a respectful, intellectual nature.

Most.

Unless you choose to believe the Ethiopians. They claim her as their own. In fact, the legitimacy of their nearly 3,000-year, dynasty was founded on the belief that Solomon gave her slightly more than gold and jewelry as a parting gift.

Whatever you choose to believe, it is clear why the "best chocolate cake you ever put in your mouth" was named after her-- she was dark, rich, and sophisticated. A queen fit for the queen of cakes.

Of course, I couldn't end it there. Not with Oscar season around the corner. Nor an obvious tangent staring me in the face.

Come Back, Little Sheba

One of the few vintage, Oscar-winning performances I have yet to see is that of Miss Shirley Booth's turn as Lola Delaney in Comeback, Little Sheba from 1952. The dowdy, shuffling, and unambitious Lola and her husband "Doc" (played by Burt Lancaster) are 20 years into a loveless, shotgun marriage. The baby was lost and both find comfort in their own particular ways; he with alcohol, she with a little dog named "Sheba" on whom she lavishes all of her attention until it runs away from her, most likely from fear of emotional smothering.

And that's before the film even begins. I won't give the rest of the plot away, most likely since I have no idea what happens next. I'm hoping it's some kind of sex comedy, but my hopes aren't aimed too high, since films about deep regret and personal failings aren't generally funny. Or sexy.

In stretching the limits of credibility, I have begun to think of this cake as somewhat appropriately linked to this film. Both are reportedly richly-layered, slightly crestfallen, alcoholic, and a bit nutty.

Almonds, you know.

Which leads to a warning to keep one's logical stream-of-consciousness in check. Miss Booth may have won the Academy Award for her performance in Come Back, Little Sheba, but her biggest success came later as the star of the popular 1960's situation comedy Hazel, in which she played the title role of a dictatorial-yet-endearing live-in housemaid.

Though critics have complained that the show was contrived and only "mildly amusing," Hazel does have her die-hard fans, who are referred to as "hazelnuts." Irritating, certainly.

The evident danger here is heaping too much honor upon Miss Booth by substituting the above-mentioned nuts for the traditional almonds, but that would be another cake entirely.

Little Shebas

I still intend to honor Miss Booth. Or at least the dog who had sense enough to run away from her emotionally-starved owner by making this major player in the classic repretoire of chocolate desserts into a minor figure size-wise, while still keeping the integrity of the classic recipe.

I have omitted the chocolate glaze used by many recipes, including Julia Child's. I simply think it's gilding an already-perfect lily. Oh, and I'm lazy. It is a rich cake, with a slightly gooey, warm center. More chocolate only makes it heavier. Still, I think it is a cake that would make its ancient namesake proud.

I doubt very much that Lola Delaney would have either the emotional wherewith all or even the equipment to make one herself, but Hazel would certainly find it easy to whip up for Mr. B when she wasn't busy whipping the rest of his family into shape. And , chocolate glaze or no, I think Mrs. Child would still enjoy putting one in her mouth.

Sadly, this is not as popular a cake as it used to be. Chocolate trends of the past several years have lead to denser, darker, more chocolaty, chocolate cakes. The virtue of this cake is it's balance of chocolate and nuttiness, with just a hint of rum underneath. As befitting a queen, it demands respect by virtue of its subtle complexity rather than by beating the palate with her sceptre. And that's all too bad because I think this little Sheba is definitely ready for a comeback.

The following will make one large Reine de Saba in an 8-inch cake pan, or make six petite versions in a large (3 1/2-inch diameter) muffin tin. Comme tu veux.

Ingredients:

4 oz semi-sweet chocolate (bittersweet may be used, but I'm going the Child route here)
2 tablespoons rum or coffee
1/4 lb butter at room temperature
2/3 cup plus 2 tablespoons sugar
3 egg, separated
2/3 cup finely ground almonds
1/4 tsp cream of tartar
1/4 tsp almond extract
1/2 cup cake flour, measured then sifted
one good pinch of salt

Preparation:

Pre-heat oven to 350F and place rack in the middle.

1. Melt the chocolate and rum or coffee (choose your poison) in a pot set over simmering (not boiling, please) water, stirring to combine. Cover, turn off heat, and leave alone. You'll come back to it later and it isn't going anywhere. Cream the butter and 2/3 cup sugar together until pale yellow and fluffy. Beat in the egg yolks until paler and even fluffier than before. Add almond extract.

2. In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites on low-to-medium until foamy, then increase speed as you like, adding 1 tablespoon of sugar and 1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar until soft peaks form.

3. Return to your melted chocolate and give her a little stir. The consistency should be somewhat satiny and fluid. Beat in a bit of butter/yolk mixture at a time, stirring constantly so the yolks do not curdle. Repeat until all is one.

4. Combine almond meal, flour, and salt. Now add this dry mixture to your chocolate goo, incorporating bits at a time. When this has been accomplished, gently fold in egg whites, starting with about 1/2 a cup and working the rest in ever so skillfully.

5. Immediately set to placing about 1/2 cup of your batter into each of the six muffin tins. Give her a good, hard bang or two on your kitchen counter to level and remove any bubbles in the batter. Bake for 12 minutes, then begin to peek into your oven obsessively until finished. A pale, chocolatey crust should form, but the cakes shold jiggle a wee bit, too. Ideally, a toothpick inserted about an inch from the edges should come out dry, but one poked into the center should not. When this has been acheived, remove from oven and let cool for, oh, I don't know, let's say an hour, because you've got other things to do. When ready to remove from pan, run a sharp knife around the edges of the cakes, invert onto a tray, and you're done.

Not exactly. At this point, you may either top them with a chocolate glaze or simply dust them with powdered sugar.

Serve them to friends at your upcoming Oscar party, or just feed them to your pets and watch their little hearts explode from the chocolate.

Peanut butter is the ultimate kid food. From sandwiches made with little jammy hands to apple slices dipped into a creamy mess, peanut butter makes up its own kid food group. Unfortunately, right now we are in the midst of a major peanut butter recall. It's on the news all the time and grocery store shelves have gaping holes where peanut butter items once sat. Even dog treats are being recalled.

But families should take heart. Except for a few brands of peanut butter I have never heard of (such as King Nut and Parnell’s Pride), the recall is mainly for processed foods made with a mass-produced peanut butter paste. According to the FDA's web site, "Major national brands of jarred peanut butter found in grocery stores are not affected by the PCA recall." This is why jars of peanut butter still sit ready for purchase at your local store. From Jif and Peter Pan to organic creamy and crunchy, those jars are still available and deemed safe by the FDA for consumption. If you don't believe me, listen to Dr. Stephen Sundlof of the FDA.

But what do you do if your kids love peanut butter granola bars -- which are definitely on the recall list --like mine do? Each week I break my no-trash lunch rule and buy individually wrapped Trader Joe's Peanut Butter Chewy Coated & Drizzled Granola Bars because my kids just can't get enough of them. They are the preferred treat for snack time after recess, and I like that they give my daughters both protein and carbs, which in turn gives them the energy to continue sitting and learning until lunch arrives. Yes, I hate the wrappers, but what's one little wrapper (each), I ask myself?

Well, those granola bars disappeared from our pantry and my daughters lunches after the recall was announced. I tried to substitute their favorite treat with everything from yogurt and granola, to blueberry breakfast bars (more wrappers!) and extra fruit. After a couple of weeks of having my kids doggedly ask each morning if they could have their favorite peanut butter granola bar -- "Is the recall over Mommy?" -- I gave up and decided to make them myself. I had a large jar of organic peanut butter sitting in my refrigerator. We'd made our way through about a 1/3 of it by the time the recall was announced, so I knew it was safe as we'd all been eating it and no one had gotten sick. Plus it wasn't on the recall list.

As I no longer had a box of the beloved Trader Joe's bars, I had no idea what they contained, so struck out on my own. I opted for using granola -- you can purchase some or make your own -- to get a nice crunch and added an equal amount of puffed rice for added crunch and also a little chewiness. I really wanted a nice nutty flavor, so recommend crunch peanut butter if you have it. And, because I needed the whole thing to stick together, I threw in a healthy dollop of gooey honey. Finally I added some chocolate chips, because who doesn't love chocolate with peanut butter?

The resulting bar was, according to my husband, hands-down better than the store-bought variety. My daughters, on the other hand, thought it tasted almost as good. The proof, however, was in the fact that they each devoured their bar and then asked for more. If you are avoiding peanut products all together, you can still enjoy this recipe with cashew or almond butter.

I then began to wonder how difficult it would be to make baked granola bars. I loosely based my first batch on my Nut and Fruit Oatcakes recipe, but without the leftover steel-cut oats, it was a bit dry. After adding some corn syrup and also honey, the recipe turned out moist with a nice texture. Unlike the first recipe, I think this one tastes better with almond butter, so you don't even need to worry about the peanut butter recall. If you prefer peanut butter, however, that would also work just as well.

No-Bake Peanut, Cashew, or Almond Butter Granola Bars

Makes: 12 Bars

Ingredients:
1 cup granola
1 cup dried puffed rice (such as Rice Krispies)
1/2 cup chunky peanut, cashew, or almond butter
1/3 cup honey
1/2 cup chopped slightly salted peanuts, cashews, or almonds
1/2 cup chocolate chips
Oil spray

Preparation:
1. Mix granola, puffed rice, nuts and chocolate chips in a large mixing bowl.
2. In a separate, microwave-safe bowl, combine the peanut or almond butter and honey and then microwave for 30 seconds. If you don't want to use a microwave, you can heat these in a pot on the stove on low.
3. Thoroughly mix the peanut butter and honey after it is warmed and add to the granola mixture.
4. Stir until all the granola and puffed rice is evenly coated with the peanut butter and honey.
5. Spray a 9 x 9 square pan with oil.
6. Press the granola/peanut butter mixture into the pan, making sure it is even on all sides.
7. Refrigerate for at least an hour, but preferably longer, so the bars set.
8. Cut the bars into four rows and then make one horizontal cut down the middle so you end up with 12 bars.
9. Keep bars refrigerated until ready to eat.

Note: Some whole peanuts are on the recall list, so be sure the ones you purchase are safe to eat.

Dried Fruit and Nut Granola Bars

Makes: 18 - 24 bars

Ingredients:
2 cups oats
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
2 eggs
1/2 cup almond butter
1 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup honey
1/4 cup light corn syrup
1/4 cup canola oil
1/2 cup walnuts, almonds or cashews
1/2 cup dried cranberries or raisins
1/2 cup dried apricots or peaches
1/4 cup sunflower seeds

Preparation:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees
2. Mix oats, wheat flour, baking powder, nuts and dried fruit in a large mixing bowl.
3. Mix the eggs, peanut butter, brown sugar, honey and oil using the paddle whip in an electric mixer.
4. Mix in the dried ingredients.
5. Line a 13 x 9 inch pan with parchment paper sprayed with oil or just spray with oil.
6. Press the oat mixture into the pan, making sure it’s even on all sides.
7. Bake for 15 - 20 minutes, or until the top is golden brown.
8. Cool and then cut into bars to serve.

Socola Chocolatier

One look at Socola Chocolatier's whimsical mascot, a flying white alpaca named Harriet, and you just know that this won't be your typical gourmet chocolate. No, Socola Chocolatier is anything but typical. The promising, Oakland-based enterprise is young, exciting, and full of modern day sass. "Delicately Daring" is quite the perfect motto sister entrepreneurs Wendy and Susan Lieu have chosen for their business.

This Valentine's Day, when the market crowds over with cliché tokens of love, surprise your (guy, girl, self) with something witty, something sexy, something Socola.

Socola Chocolatier's Valentine's Day offering is an assorted box of 12 chocolates ($25) featuring playful flavors like:
• Cupid's Coffee Fix: because all that love stuff can wear a cherub out -- sultry Vietnamese espresso ganache with rich condensed milk, topped with French chicory grounds
• Chambord Shimmie: a pretty little number -- dark chocolate ganache with a hint of raspberry liqueur, blushed ready to shine in her pink glimmer
• Give It To Me Guava: unapologetically bold -- dark chocolate ganache kissed with a tender guava reduction
• Matchmaker Matcha: a sweet match made in heaven -- creamy white chocolate truffles infused with green tea matcha, subtly seductive.

If these inspired love potions aren't reason enough to shed your jaded anti-cupidism, Socola's story will certainly warm your heart.

Wendy (left) and Susan Lieu (right), co-founders of Socola Chocolatier

Chief Chocolatier Wendy Lieu is a graduate of UC Davis with a degree in Managerial Economics. A self-taught chocolatier, she juggled her management consulting job with pastry school to gain additional expertise last year.

Chief Chocolatier Wendy Lieu

Sister Susan is a Harvard alum whose passion for activism and social justice are deeply woven into her business plans for how Socola Chocolatier can play its part in improving social capital and engage the community it brings pleasure to.

Susan and I met up at a local coffee shop in SoMa, and as she told me about how Socola (which means "chocolate" in Vietnamese) was born, the story became much more than just about chocolate. She leaned in and her eyes glowed with conviction. She said, "It is in our blood to start something. Our parents were boat people and fled Vietnam in ’81. They came here and they were entrepreneurs. Our parents opened nail salons, a gardening service, and worked seven days a week for nearly 30 years. Wendy and I started Socola because we too wanted to create."

Apparently sweetness is in their blood too. The girls' grandfather had 11 children, and his family lived in the same house as his brother who had 12 children. He fed his family by making pastries and sweets that his wife sold every day at the market.

The inspiration for many of Socola's flavors come from the wandering travels of the sisters. For example, Give it to Me Guava was inspired from the time Susan spent in Baracoa, Cuba as a humanitarian aid worker. Wendy visited her while she was abroad and every morning the sisters would have guava jelly on toast as the morning sun warmed their faces. Susan also recently returned from a year-long stint in Vietnam developing sustainable cocoa production practices with local farmers in the Mekong Delta where her family used to call home.

Socola Chocolatier's Gold-Dusted Truffles

Socola's chocolates are beautiful, sensual, and they make you feel good. The Socola Sisters are living the dream and pushing forward in their quest to create. Memories, experiences, and a desire to keep seeking are intertwined in the flavors of their labor of love.

Socola Chocolatier is Femininity, Strength, and Spirit. Delicately daring? Yes, I think so.

Note: The Valentine's Day Offering can be pre-ordered online. Online orders must be placed by Friday, February 6th, 2009 to ensure receipt by the 14th .

Chocolates can also be purchased at:
• Alameda Natural Grocery Store 1650 Park St. #L Alameda, Ca
• Daily Delectables 3249 Grand Ave. Oakland, Ca
• (Whole Foods in early March)

Gung Hay Fat Choy, everyone.

Sort of.

Roughly translated from Chinese, Gung Hay Fat Choy means "best wishes and congratulations." In other words, Happy Chinese New Year.

But that seems just a little too chipper for my tastes.

Sure, we've got Hope's Cheerleader in the White House, which may be an excellent start, and we have finally left the dismal Year of the Rat behind us, but what is it that we really have to look forward to?

Well, besides a bleak, blank uncertainty, we're heading into the Year of the Ox.

At first glance, this certainly seems promising enough. Oxen are strong, hard working animals. According to Chinese astrology, the Ox is also patient and tenacious. It can be counted on to get whatever job it has been set to done. It is even suggested that those born under the sign of the Ox share these qualities and would make excellent tennis pros, surgeons, and hair stylists. Walt Disney and George Clooney were born under the sign. But, then again, so were Adolf Hitler, Saddam Hussein, and Tori Spelling.

The Ox is not considered an especially intelligent animal (See: Tori Spelling). Perhaps this lack of smarts is what led him to his fated, castrated state in the first place. With its lack of virility, of full potency, will this Ox plow its way to better times for us? Let's hope so. I'm sure the market watchers were hoping for something a little different. Like a bull.

Things are rough, no question about that. People are losing their jobs, and those who still have them are tightening their belts. That is, if that haven't already sold them on Ebay. A general sense of malaise is beginning to infect the mindsets of even the cheeriest Pollyannas.

And it's irritating me. So I've decided to channel that irritation into baking something. Like fortune cookies. Or, more correctly, misfortune cookies. Though I came up with the idea independently, the thought is not an original one-- they've been done before with varying degrees of success. I have chosen not to examine the others for fear of plagiarizing any dooming, damning fortunes, but I am cheered to know that there are others out there of like mind.

I have always found the idea of the fortune cookie mildly off-putting, since I've never bought into the notion that a baked lump of flour and sugar was somehow empowered with the ability to decide my future, though I admit I have always welcomed them at the end of a big, Chinese (American) meal because, well, it's about all the dessert one is ever going to get at a Chinese restaurant. Dessert must seem like an odd waste of time to a culture whose cuisine strives for balance. Sweetness can be found co-habitating with Mr. Salt, Miss Sour, and Sr. Bitter in a number of dishes.

The misfortune cookie, I think, strikes this balance much more accurately than the ordinary fortune cookie, with its vague, sometimes chirpy prognostications and lucky numbers. Sure, the sugar and salt in the recipe are the same, but a refreshingly sour note of bitterness found tucked inside bring the cookie's yin some much-needed yang.

Serve them to unsuspecting friends and family members and watch their faces as they learn that they are destined to someday chew off their own foot or will eventually be exposed and humiliated for past wrong-doing. Go ahead, it's fun.

If the recipients of misfortune begin to turn against you, you might want to laugh and pretend you made the cookies to provide a valuable moral lesson. You could say that these cookies merely illustrate the fact that it is impossible to divine the future, so what's the point, really? That things aren't nearly so bad as what's written inside those cookies. Things could be much, much worse.

And then you might want to suggest a good pedicurist, just in case.

Misfortune Cookies

Makes about 12 deeply distressing cookies.

The batter for these cookies is remarkably easy to make. The baking and shaping of them is another story. So much for the theory that Chinese food is 90% prep and 10% cooking. Of course, the Fortune Cookie is a Californian invention, so you can blame us, if you like.

The making of them is somewhat labor-intensive on the back end. Purchasing them is certainly easier, but then you would be surrendering the chance to play God by deciding the fates and fortunes of your hungry friends and family. More free time or unmitigated power? It's a toss up.

For those of you not entirely mean-spirited, you may wish to include one Pandora-like message of hope, but that would be mixing mythologies. Fate is in your hands.

Ingredients:

1 egg white

1/8 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/8 teaspoon almond extract

a pinch of salt

1/4 cup all-purpose flour

1/4 cup white sugar

Preparation:

1. Compose as many hideous fortunes as you deem necessary on strips of paper about 4 inches long and 1/2 inch wide.

2. Preheat oven to 400F. Grease two cookie sheets with butter or, if you have a silpat or other such baking pad, use it instead. Cutting a round stencil three inches in diameter from a plastic lid is most helpful in shaping these cookies. I suggest you follow this advice.

3. Beat together egg white and both extracts until quite foamy. Sift in flour, sugar, and salt; blend into egg white mixture.

4. Place stencil onto cookie sheet and add one teaspoon of batter in the center of it. Using and offset spatula, bring the batter around to the edges, making as smooth a shape as possible. Repeat, leaving at least 4 inches of space between cookies. I suggest you start off by baking two at a time to test your misfortune cookie-making skills.

5. Bake cookies for 5 minutes, or until they have turned a golden color around the edges. The center of the cookies should remain pale. You may prepare the second batch as the first are baking, if you like.

6. Remove cookies from oven and very, very quickly remove them from the baking sheet with a large, offset metal spatula. Turn them upside down onto a wooden cutting board. Place fortunes in the center of each, fold them in half so that the edges meet. Pull the pointed edged towards each other and let them cool. Of course, I have never been able to develop the speed necessary to accomplish this feat even with one cookie, let alone two. If you are as slow as I am in these matters, I would suggest the following:

When cookies are finished baking, pull them from the oven, pry them from their baking sheet as previously mentioned. Now turn them upside down on the same baking sheet and pop them back in the oven. Count to ten, open the oven door, and then proceed to shape the cookies while there are still inside the oven. Aside from the potential for burning one's hands, this is a most effective method.

Repeat until finished.

Serve fresh with a warm smile and a cold heart.

All Summer long chocolatiers suffer as warm weather makes working, not to mention shipping their delicate product a challenge. But Winter comes along and everyone I know craves chocolate. Hot chocolate, chocolate confections, chocolate cake, it's all good.

This coming Saturday you can indulge your desire for chocolate and find out what to drink with your favorite bon bon. CocoaBella Chocolates will be hosting a Top Chocolatier Pairing Event, featuring Christopher Elbow of Christopher Elbow Artisanal Chocolates, Fritz Knipschildt of Knipschildt Chocolatier, and Jeff Shepherd of Lillie Belle Farms.

For the first time ever, these three of the world's top artisan chocolatiers will be together presenting their favorite chocolate and spirit pairings at CocoaBella's flagship old-world European style store in San Francisco.

What: Top Chocolatier Pairing Event

Where: CocoaBella Chocolates, 2102 Union St, San Francisco

When: Saturday January 17th from 8:00-9:00 pm

How: Tickets are $20 per person, including drinks and chocolate, and are available at CocoaBella stores or by phone at (415) 931-6213

To this day one of my favorite hot chocolate drinks is this one:

Nutella Hot Chocolate

Makes: 1 serving

Ingredients:
3/4 cup milk, whole or low fat
2 Tablespoons Nutella

Preparation:
Gently heat the milk over medium low heat, in a heavy saucepan. Stir in the Nutella and whisk until smooth. Serve in a mug with or without whipped cream.

On a cold day, a cup of hot chocolate is about as good as it gets -- well, as far as food and beverages go. More often than not, people get their hot chocolate fix from Starbucks or another coffee shop, spending about $3.00 a cup. For a family of four, this can add up -- especially if your kids are prone to dropping their to-go cups inches from the front door of the cafe, as mine are. The other problem with buying cups of hot chocolate is that the paper cups and plastic lids sabotage any attempt to really enjoy the full flavor and aroma of the drink. Worst of all, you either need to drink your tasty beverage on the go, or get it back home in the cold, only to find it’s lukewarm when you finally sit down to drink it. No. I have a primal need to warm up on a cold day with a steaming cup of hot chocolate -- in a real cup, in my favorite chair -- and so I need to make it at home.

When I was in college, I was misinformed and poor, so we used Swiss Miss packets of cocoa. After dumping each pack in a cup of microwave warmed water, we would all settle down for what we hoped would be a delicious treat (which often included Peppermint Schnapps). I didn’t realize at the time that I was a foodie, but I did know one thing: those cups of cocoa were awful. If it weren’t for the Schnapps, I would have passed on the whole affair.

It was only when I was an adult that I started to make real hot chocolate. I learned that there is a difference between hot cocoa and hot chocolate, and experimented with different cocoa powders and bittersweet bars, enjoying the results from both, but preferring hot chocolate. In case you’re curious, hot cocoa is made using cocoa powder, sugar, and milk, while hot chocolate is made with melted chocolate, sugar, and milk. For me, there’s just something about drizzling hot bittersweet chocolate into warmed milk that really satisfies both my hot beverage and chocolate cravings.

For years I topped my hot chocolate with either warm milk foam or whipped cream, which at the time seemed perfect. But, a few weeks ago, my mother created the ultimate topping for our steaming chocolate beverages: homemade marshmallow whip. She initially made a batch of All-Around Frosting from Cooks.com to frost my daughters' gingerbread house, but we soon realized that this lovely confection had a far greater purpose in our lives.

Although the recipe is supposedly for frosting, the ingredients are everything you would need to make marshmallows, minus the gelatin, and the result is the lightest marshmallow whip you could ever hope for. My only recommendation is to half the recipe if you don't want a ton of it.

One of the things I love about using the homemade marshmallow whip is that it has a luscious creamy texture that melts beautifully into your hot chocolate. It is also rich and full enough to add body to your drink if you want to use low-fat or nonfat milk. And, you can always frost a cake or stick a gingerbread house together with it if afterward.

So the next time you crave a cup of hot chocolate, go for a version that doesn’t come in a paper cup and isn't made from a packet. Adding Schnapps, however, is completely up to you.

Hot Chocolate

Makes: 2 servings

Ingredients:
• 2 1/2 cups whole or low-fat milk
• 4 ounces bittersweet chocolate, chopped
• 2 tablespoons sugar
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Preparation:
1. Chop chocolate into small pieces.

2. Heat milk in a sauce pan on medium-low heat, being sure not to let it boil over.

3. There are two ways to melt the chocolate:

A. Place the chocolate pieces in a metal bowl that will fit securely over your sauce pan. Reduce the heat for the milk to a low simmer and then place the bowl on top of the pan. Stir until the chocolate is melted.

B. Place chocolate pieces in a microwavable bowl and microwave for 30 seconds. Stir chocolate to help distribute the heat. If chocolate has not thoroughly melted, heat for another 20 seconds and repeat until chocolate is melted through.

4. Add chocolate to the heated milk along with the sugar and vanilla extract and stir thoroughly to incorporate everything together. I like to use a whisk, which creates some froth.

5. Serve.

We've all heard horror stories about rock-hard fruitcakes. They're supposedly the favored gift to "re-gift," can last for years, and are hockey-puck textured. According to the late Johnny Carson, "The worst gift is a fruitcake. There is only one fruitcake in the entire world, and people keep sending it to each other."

I thought this all more legend than reality, however, as I had never actually tasted one in person until recently. This could be because I'm Italian and my people don't make traditional fruitcakes (we instead eat the divine panetone), or maybe people just don't give each other fruitcakes anymore. Whatever the case, I was out of the loop until I purchased one in Scotland a couple of months ago.

While visiting the gift shop at Holyrood Palace in Edinburgh -- I spied some traditional British fruitcakes and thought it would be fun to bring one home to share with my mom over the holidays. When I asked the cashier if it would last until December, he laughed and said "Definitely." Thinking his droll response had more to do with the reputation fruitcake has than the actual merit of the one I sat on the counter, I spent 5 pounds on it (that's $10 US bucks) and packed it up in my suitcase. When we got home, I stuck it in the fridge, all bundled up in its shrink wrap niceties, until the holiday season arrived. Then, on Christmas Eve, my mom and I made a hot pot of tea while it stormed outside, and sat down to our plate of authentic English fruitcake.

After one bite, our eyes met as we mutually realized the obvious: if this fruitcake was an authentic representation, the stories weren't rumors. With a texture both brittle and brick-like, it was difficult to chew even the smallest bite without choking. I read the list of ingredients on the wrapper and realized that this sad example of a holiday cake didn't have any alcohol in it.

Fruitcakes are traditionally aged in a cloth wrapping of alcohol for at least five weeks. The alcohol preserves the cakes, fruits, and nuts within, and keeps everything moist. I wondered what the chefs at Holyrood Palace Gift Shop were thinking when they stuck this sad use of flour, fruit and nuts in cellophane without a little brandy. Maybe it was an attempt to get more people to purchase one, although I was reminded of the old adage that when you try to please everyone, you end up making absolutely nobody happy. I began to wonder how many of these confections were made -- and aged -- without alcohol or some type of moistening agent. It seemed that in an attempt to gain a wider audience through omitting the alcohol, cooks had turned what had once been a yearly treat into an inedible burden.

My mom and I love a culinary challenge, so we jumped into action. With just a little bit of work, and about a half cup of brandy, the fruitcake became more than edible. Yes, I am here to say that a hard-as-nails, dry-as-the-desert dessert can be revived in, amazingly, less than ten minutes. Not only revived, but made moist and delicious. After "fixing" the cake, mom and I enjoyed our nice hot cup of tea and gobbled up our treat quite happily.

So if you find yourself a recipient of a fruitcake this year, please know that your only recourse is not to pass it on to another unsuspecting dupe. In just a few short minutes you can bring new life to your confection, and spend an afternoon happily nibbling away with a hot cup of tea.

How to Revive a Fruitcake
1. Place a 1/2 cup of alcohol in a sauce pan along with the zest from an orange. I used brandy, but you could also use cognac, rum, Grand Marnier, or whatever else you like.
2. With a skewer, poke numerous holes into your cake, making sure the holes go all the way through.
3. Set your cake into the sauce pan and heat it until the alcohol starts to simmer.
4. Cover and steam for a few minutes and then start spooning the sauce over the cake so it runs through the many holes you created.
5. Cover the cake in the pan for another minute and then spoon the remaining alcohol over the cake. Continue this process until most of the alcohol is absorbed.
6. Turn off the heat, cover the cake and let it sit for another five minutes.
7. Set the cake on a plate to cool and then serve with your favorite pot of tea.

For the second year in a row, Scharffen Berger and TuttiFoodie are hosting the Chocolate Adventure Contest. You have a little over two weeks to put the finishing touches on your best chocolate recipe in one of three categories--beverage, sweet or savory that includes at least one "adventure" ingredient and Scharffen Berger® Chocolate: dark chocolate (mentioning exact cacao content anywhere from 62 to 99 percent), milk chocolate or cocoa.

This year's adventure ingredients are: popping candy (unflavored or flavored), wattleseed, palm sugar, basil, mustard seeds, coriander, black sesame seeds, black or pink peppercorns, chili pepper (fresh or whole dried), coconut milk, kaffir lime leaf, matcha tea, mango, plantain, jicama, tapioca pearls (any size), tamarind (or tamarind paste), cacao nibs. Grand prize winners in each of the top three categories will win $5,000. There are also runner's up prizes. Read all the rules and details before donning your apron.

I checked in with a couple of this year's judges to get their best tips. First local chocolate guru and cookbook author, Alice Medrich:

What are your favorite trends in chocolate recipes?
I like unexpected ingredient pairings that work so well that when you taste them you say "of course!" and "why didn't I think of that." Some of these are as subtle and simple as chocolate paired with extra virgin olive oil, salt and spices, or a hint of aged Parmesan in a chocolate nut wafer.

Where do you see the most potential for innovation in recipe development?
I love that place where sweet and savory meet. I want to see (and create) more recipes that are imaginative without being forced or gimmicky: Deliciously New, but not so weird that you don't want to taste them again and again. This involves being open to flavors affinities between ingredients that we don't normally put together! The adventure contest-with its global and pop (literally!) culture ingredients and flavors is fertile ground for the wildly creative AND the intellectual cook. New flavor paradigms will emerge, and from them, new classic dishes. Because the contest involves home cooks, as well as professionals, we'll see an acceleration of new ideas and new trends. It's exciting.

And from the founder of the Tutti Foodie newsletter, Lisa Schiffman:

What are your favorite trends in chocolate recipes?
I've got a few favorites. First: recipes that take a chance on something new, whether it's a surprising ingredient or a new technique. Second: savory chocolate recipes. Historically, we've seen chocolate recipes that are laden with sugar-so much so, that the sugar often overwhelms the recipe. Creating something savory with chocolate seems to open new flavor vistas.

Where do you see the most potential for innovation in recipe development?
In simple recipes with adventurous twists.

Good luck!

Here is one of the top recipes from last year's contest to get you thinking outside the box:

Wasabi Pears In Deep Chocolate Pools
Creator: Susan Scarborough, Florida
Category: Dessert
Servings: 4
Adventure Ingredient: Wasabi

Ingredients:
4 small pears, such as a good sized Seckel
4 cups Riesling wine
1 cup sugar
1 cup water
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
2 teaspoons wasabi paste
8 ounces Scharffen Berger® 70% Cacao Bittersweet Chocolate
4 mint leaves or stems of lemon grass

Preparation:
Peel pears closely, leaving the stems. Core from the bottom, leaving the pear whole, and slice bottom flat to make a stable base.

Place the wine, sugar, water, lemon juice, and half of the wasabi in a 2½-quart saucepan over medium heat.
Stir until sugar is dissolved and add the pears. Simmer until pears are just tender. Remove from heat and add the remaining wasabi.

Cool, remove from liquid, place pears on a plate and then cover. Chill in refrigerator.

When ready to serve, place chocolate in top of double boiler and melt over simmering water. Pour pools of chocolate on individual dessert plates, top with a pear. Insert stem of mint leaf near stem of pear, cross lemongrass stem on rim of plate for garnish if desired.

Presentation:
If you have rectangular serving plates, use them and place the pear with mint leaves on one, with the stems of lemongrass crossed on the other.

If you'd like to melt the chocolate in this recipe without using a double boiler, try this method: just before you're ready to serve the pears, heat a 1/3 cup of half and half in a small saucepan over low heat. Then add the chocolate, stirring until the chocolate is fully melted. You can then pour this mixture in pools on the individual dessert plates and top with a pear.
-- Chocolate Adventure Contest staff

In addition to being holiday season, this is baking season. While cookies are found at parties and traded with friends, they also are all over the internet. I'm not talking about the type of files that are downloaded to your computer, but honest-to-goodness, hot from the oven cookies. This year in addition to finding cookie recipes online, you can surf for cookies, subscribe to various cookie emails and even enter your cookies in a contest. Here is a guide to some of the tastiest online cookie sites.

Butter Is Best has a daily butter newsletter that includes tips and recipes from pastry chef Gale Gand. The site also offers some savory twists on classic cookies such as Salted Ginger Crisps and Rosemary Blue Cheese Ice Box Cookies.

Cooking Light offers Cookie Basics and a related feature how to send cookies in the mail. Their suggestion for a "made to mail" cookie? Crunchy Sesame Cookies.

Epicurious invites you to check out 25 days of Christmas cookies in a slide show. Pistachio and Cherry Mexican Wedding Cakes and Coconut Orange Snowballs are nice updates to classic cookies.

Eating Well has a healthy cookie collection of cookie contest winners. While no-bake Angel Delights was the winning recipe, chocolatey Lava Rocks and Yummy Molasses Crinkles sound pretty good to me.

Martha Stewart the queen of all things domestic and delicious has a month of cookies on her site. Check in daily for new photos and recipes.

FoodNetwork offers 12 days of cookies, sign up to receive cookie emails, check out the cookie recipes online or watch cookie videos.

An online feature only, Gourmet magazine has organized their favorite cookies by decade, with a favorite cookie each year, starting with the 1940's. Find an oldie but a goodie or simply marvel at how tastes have changed.

Between now and the end of the year submit a photo of your cookies online at AllRecipes in one of four categories--cut-outs, drop cookies, cookie bars and spritz and win a Samsung Electric Range or a DVD camera. The best looking photos from each four category will be notified January 6th and advance to the final round.

Finally for those of you who want hard copy, check out The Field Guide to Cookies by local pastry chef and Dessert First blogger Anita Chu. Her cookies are delicious! Just check out the photo of those peanut butter sandwich cookies...

Let's face it -- Christmas is not about the joy of giving and receiving. It's not about the much-disputed birth of Christ, or miracles, or even the tarting up of pagan trees while singing Songs of Cheeses.

It's about whether you get your chocolate on odds or evens this year. It's about whether your older sister will force you to give her your day's haul of chocolate. That's right my friends, this month is ALL about Advent calendar chocolate.

(Sidebar: remember non-chocolate Advent calendars where the only reward for us kids was first, the sheer pleasure of finding the tiny digits in an almost Where's Waldo of numbers, and second, the excitement of opening the perforated hatch to expose what lay beneath? Sigh. Simpler times. Simpler pleasures.)

Okay, so since we're currently over, um, two weeks? Into Advent, this post is a skosh late, BUT forewarned is forearmed for next year.

It is a truth universally acknowledged that Advent calendar chocolate tastes no better than the cardboard doors they hide behind. To wit: last year, the chocolate in our Andronico's-purchased Advent calendar was so horrific that by Christmas Eve, I had been handing over my "turns" to my husband for at least a week.

Finally, my ire over the paucity of good chocolate sent me scurrying to the Wide, Wide World of Web. If we live in an era of artisanal cheese, specialized olive oil, rare vinegar, and DIY flour, quality Advent calendar chocolate MUST exist, right?

Eh. Sort of.

After scouring the websites of my favorites -- Burdick's, Scharffenberger, Reciutti, and Cocoa Bella -- and coming up dry, I widened the search.

I hit pay dirt when I turned up a link to Godiva's Advent calendar, but of course it was sold out, so I filed the information away in my brain, and the link in my bookmarks, and I found it again this year. (Okay, so it's sold out again, it's not like you were going to buy it now, right?)

At British Delights, I also discovered a Cadbury Dairy Milk Advent calendar. Well, of COURSE the same ingenious Brits who have the foresight to install refrigerated Cadbury chocolate dispensers in the Underground would stuff their Advent calendars with Cadbury chocolate!

While Godiva and Cadbury are clearly a flavor step above the usual Advent calendar chocolate, I still think there's room for improvement.

The Godiva Advent calendar is very sophisticated, very adult, in that there are no Christmas-themed pictures of angels, presents, teddy bears, or Santa Clauses (Clausi?) on or behind the little doors. The calendar is illustrated by a big, stylized tree made up of green ornaments on a red background; white snowflakes and gold strings of beads provide additional decoration.

Basically, it's the chocolate Advent calendar equivalent of those special jacket covers that some adults buy to hide the fact they're reading Harry Potter.

The Godiva chocolate is...fine. You get thick green, red, and blue foil-wrapped coins of milk, dark, or white chocolate with a bas-relief of Lady Godiva molded on them. Not Santa Claus or Jesus or a Wise Man, just a naked lady on a horse. Very adult.

The Cadbury Dairy Milk Advent calendar is clearly aimed at kids or the young at heart. The doors have little pictures on and behind them, and the chocolates themselves are molded into Christmassy shapes that can only be deciphered if you squint at them after several glasses of ruby port. Again, the chocolate here is just middling, but "middling" is a giant step above plastic cardboard, so I'm not really complaining.

In the next few years, I want to see Burdick's, Scharffenberger, Reciutti, Cocoa Bella, or even Dove step it up, Advent calendar-wise.

What, you think they won't sell? Aside from the adults who would kill to find orange pekoe truffles or fleur de sel caramels behind the little doors, are you telling me that the parents with kids who ask, "Is the beef local?" wouldn't brag about those same kids lisping, "Is the chocolate artisanal?"