Recchiuti Salt and Chocolate Tasting

The second I saw the notice about this salt and chocolate event, I signed up. I think those two things work so magically well together, I even dreamed of them when I was pregnant with my son. That's how I came to know about Recchiuti's Fleur de Sel caramel chocolates. I had a dream about having salted chocolate, got out of bed, Googled salt and chocolate and found Recchiuti's site. Two great things that taste great together. This class was a collaboration between Michael Recchiuti and Mark Bitterman. Both love to talk and played hysterically off of each other.

We started the event in the hallway outside of the Recchiuti kitchens with a drink that was a bit of a spin on a Bloody Mary. It is a blend of apricots, celery, and radish with Schramsberg Blanc de Noir. They weren't shy with the champagne!! The combination worked really well, the celery added a savoriness that cut the sweetness of the apricot. It was a bit of a challenge to drink at first with the chocolate swizzle stick-like thing in it but we all managed! The chocolate was sprinkled with Murray River salt from Australia which we discovered and fell in love with when we were in Sydney, brought back a few bags for us and family and then not long ago found it at Stonehouse olive oil. Turns out we weren't the only ones to love it.


Next we filed into the tasting room via a Himalayan salt block that was sitting on a hot plate heating it to 120° topped with a large block of 65% Sur de Lago chocolate. Grab a graham cracker, scoop up some melty chocolate and enjoy! The salt block thing absolutely fascinated me. Like I really needed another reason to love salt, the idea of cooking on salt itself (not encasing something in salt but using the salt as the frying pan!) is amazing. You can heat these blocks to 500° and seer your scallops on them and get this amazing caramelization process happening. You can freeze the ones that have been made into bowls and use them to make ice cream. These salt blocks are around 600,000 years old. Mark explained that when you taste the salt you were really tasting the ocean from the time before plants existed on Earth!

When the Tarte Tatin on the menu was brought to us it was topped by this beautiful nest of spun sugar and suspended in the sugar was a deep-sea harvested Japanese salt. Truly an enjoyable dish. Really you can't go wrong with apples, caramel and salt (well, some can, but these guys can't!)


The "Palette" cleanser (cute little play on words) was something that I would buy given the chance. A disc of single origin "Ocumare" dark chocolate topped with three caramelized and buttery pistachios, minced rosemary and roasted Korean bamboo salt. The salt is roasted in a bamboo canister in a furnace upwards of 1000°. This particular one was roasted three times and wasn't overly funky or sulfuric. Apparently the nine times roasted becomes quite intense in a use-it-in parts-per-million sort of way.

Our frosty beverage was a chocolate milk that I could enjoy anytime. It was malted with a roasted barley malt, not too rich, not too creamy and the glass was rimmed with ground and sifted cocoa nib powder mixed with Iburi Jio Cherry Salt. It was another deep sea harvested and evaporated salt that was then roasted with cherry wood which gave it a very distinct flavor. It works beautifully with the nibs. It didn't step on the subtle chocolate flavors, it just enhanced them.

At this point we all got up to take a tour of the kitchen. Michael's got a lot of cool, fancy toys. The Windows XP-controlled squirter, the long conveyor belt cooler, the walk-in hot room that keeps the chocolate melted at 120°, and a giant copper pot full of boiling water to clean the floor (oh, and the giant pot also used for making caramel!). I'd love to be in there during production.


We returned to our tables that had been set up with a flight of six artisan salt caramels. From left to right it was a square of caramel, a square of chocolate covered caramel, and six squares of chocolate covered caramel each with a different salt sprinkled on top. Number 1, Pangasinan salt which is a fleur de sel very similar to what Michael uses regularly in his caramels. Number 2, Kona salt, similar to #1 but a fresher, lighter mouth feel. Number 3, Cypruss Silver flake salt was more intense because of it's more geometric shapes. Number 4, Amabito No Moshio (aka algae salt) tasted a lot like iodized, table salt but without chemical aspects that table salt has. It does have a very high iodine level. Number 5, oak smoked salt that was not subtle on the oak flavors. It was like licking a salty barrel! And number 6 was my favorite with the caramels, Shinkai Deep Sea Salt.


We finished with an incredibly rich, creamy ice cream with Stonehouse olive oil drizzled on top making it even more rich and creamy. To sprinkle on top of that Mark provided a Haleakala Ruby salt and, as good as the ice cream was, I don't think I could eat it without the salt. It was so rich, but not overly sweet, the salt really sliced right through all that fat and made it a wonderful closer to the tasting.

I've been a fan of Recchiuti for many, many years. I get the gift club subscription for Christmas every year. Every time we're in San Francisco and we can make it to the Ferry Building we stock up and, if we can't, we order from the website for any holiday we can come up with to give each other chocolates. Now I'll have another site to frequent and somewhere else to visit when I'm in Portland: The Meadow. Michael and the entire Recchiuti staff and family were wonderful hosts. This only increased my love and hopefully their fanbase.

Lillian's Italian Kitchen

Lillian's Italian Kitchen
1116 Soquel Ave
Santa Cruz, CA 95062
831-425-2288

You can't throw something in Santa Cruz without hitting an Italian restaurant it seems. Ristorante Avanti, Lucio's, Limoncello, La Posta, all favorites of mine. I was looking for a simple lunch today and remembered that Lillian's was open for lunch so decided to finally check it out.

Lillian's isn't like any of those. It's more casual, more like something maybe from Little Italy. Granted I was there for lunch and I've heard they've got some items on their dinner menu that are must-haves. I got the lunch special which is a cup of soup and a half order of one of their pastas. The soup was Pasta Fagioli, cannellini beans, chard, just a hint of heat. I devoured it and mopped up the bowl with my French bread. Quite tasty!

And since I wanted something just basic and simple, I got the Penne Arrabiatta. It had a good amount of heat but not so much to destroy my taste buds. I would have added a little more salt and fresh basil (there was fresh basil on top but not enough to get some in every bite). But overall it was a good dish, I didn't leave much!

I need to go back for dinner and not by myself so I can try more dishes. But all in all a very good lunch special and I walked out of there paying only $10! You don't find that very often these days.

FoodPorn.com is Turning 10! Recipe Contest!

Contest is closed! I will begin cooking the recipes and announce the winner when I've tried them all. Thanks for playing!!


In honor of FoodPorn.com's 10 year anniversary (June 6th) I'm holding a recipe contest. Not just any recipe, you have to cook something I like. Here are my restrictions:

No bell peppers
No beets
No cheese of any kind
No olives (olive oil is more than okay!!)
As far as meat, only seafood, beef, or chicken

I'm not a baker so if you choose to do a dessert, be aware that I'm not big on liking to measure things! (A word of advice, you're more likely to win with something I don't have to bake)

If it is something sweet:
No licorice (or anise)
No coconut
No amaretto

I will make all the recipes submitted to me, following every detail as much as possible. They will be judged by me and, if I need help, my husband and friends. This is in no way an objective contest, you are vying for the love of my taste buds. I am a super taster, they are picky.

Deadline for recipe submission is Tuesday, June 9.

Winners will receive one item of their choice from the FoodPorn store. I will notify winners as soon as I've made it through all the recipes. The date will depend on how many submissions I get. Include your e-mail address with your recipe (since you will be e-mailing me the recipes, that will be easy).

Send them to chantrelle@foodporn.com.

In my best Padma voice, "Your time starts...NOW!"

How Food Can Be My Religion

There are not many things I believe in as strongly as good food. I believe in, whenever possible, eating locally and organically. I believe in slow food, McDonald's goes against all my beliefs. My son calls it the "M place, pleh!" and knows we only go there to use the bathroom on road trips! I'm lucky to be able to live this way, not only philosophically and economically but geographically.

I can do this living on the central coast of California where we have year-round fresh produce. That's not to say I don't cheat every once in awhile and by imported berries in December or grab lunch at Quiznos or Chili's. I'm only human! I guess this could be a foodie sin, but who do I ask for forgiveness? Michael Pollan?
I do what I can really for very selfish reasons, highest on the list being pure flavor.

These are images from our amazing farmers market in the last couple of weeks. Shallots, green garlic, salad greens with nasturtium flowers, sugar snap peas, carrots, radishes, and the first peaches of the season. All organic. This is the same market where I buy my fish, my pasta, my free range organic eggs whose yolks are bright orange.

I know not everyone has access to produce like this, especially not year-round. But I think things are changing. More small towns are starting farmers markets. It not only supports the local farmers, it makes for a healthier community that is more in tune with their land and surroundings.

It's amazing how much food you can grow yourself in just a couple of small pots. You don't have to pay top dollar to eat at places like Michael Mina, Le Bernadin, Chez Panisse (although of course I love to go!!) but these places pride themselves on making beautiful dishes out of simple fresh ingredients. I try to do the same at home. It's always hard for me to write recipes because I rarely make the same dish twice. The meal is driven by what I found at the farmers market or our local grocery store.

Experiment in your kitchen, experiment in a garden. Celebrate your local small farmers!! Celebrate the fact that it's spring and everything is starting to ripen! Celebrate flavor!