HAPPY VALENTINE’S DAY! Today while shopping at the grocery store I came across some beautiful organic strawberries from Florida. They were plump and bright red, not pink, like those that are shipped across the country to South Carolina from California. I was not planning on buying strawberries, but it being Valentine’s Day, I thought why not bring them home and give them a dip in chocolate!

I melted 73% Bittersweet Chocolate discs in a double boiler. Holding the strawberry by its leafy green stem, I carefully dipped each strawberry to coat all sides and placed each on a parchment lined tray, allowing the coating to harden at room temperature.

And so, for Valentine’s Day, some lovely chocolate covered strawberries to share with the ones I love……….

Citron as part of the Christmas dinner table centerpiece

For the past four Christmases I have been lucky enough to find citron, a.k.a. Buddha’s hand, at my local Whole Foods grocery store. I love the way it looks in fruit arrangements and the added bonus of using it in one of my favorite bread recipes, Pane de Marinaio / Sailor’s Bread, fromThe Italian Baker by Carol Field. Alan Davidson writes in Fruit: A Connoisseur’s Guide and Cookbook that it came to represent wealth and in India the god of wealth, Kuvera is always represented as holding a citron in one hand and a mongoose spewing jewels in the other! (more…)