chez pim

Boozy Bitter Chocolate Truffles, or, I DON'T WANT TO BE YOUR VALENTINE!

Nor do I want you mine.

I think it was that pink Rice Crispy Treats I was subjected to one sad Valentine that ruined it for me for ever.  Or perhaps it saved me.  Depending on your perspective.  In any case, if I saw another heart-shaped cookie or pink cake I might just scream and go sew black buttons over my eyes and then build traps for unsuspecting children or misguided lovers.  I just might.

But there is hope yet.  A distressed signal sent over Twitter to my crowd received in reply dozens of also-dissenting voices, reassuring me that even in my most misanthrope moment, I am, alas, not alone.  In the dark, lonely corners of Twitterverse we plotted to bring down valentines.  "Do the Chicken with 40 cloves of garlic", sang the Tweet-chorus.  "Cook everything that gives you gas", cried a petulant - or perhaps flatulent - voice.  Another pointed to a gnarly - if absolutely delicious - Dim Sum staple, braised chicken feet.  One even suggested a bottle of cheap booze and a hammer, I dared not ask why.  I supposed another that might do is that dish with a poetic name, Pissed-off Prawns, I ate earlier this week at Michael Chiarello's new Bottega up in Napa.

Then an aha moment arrived.  What fun is bitterness without booze?  There you have it.  I'll make chocolate truffles, dark and bitter chocolate truffles, and I'll make it boozy.  Rum perhaps.  No, Armagnac, better yet, Armagnac with some prunes soaked in it. 

And just in case you're wondering.  No, no, the cause of my bitterness is *not* because my otherwise-sweet valentine is at his restaurant cooking a very special meal for everyone else's valentines.  And, no, it hasn't been like that every year for the past four valentines we've had together.  And, really, no, I don't plan on wallowing in my bitterness tomorrow night with a bowlful of these boozy bonbons and all those monster movies marathon on Sci-fi.  I don't plan on doing that at all.

Dark Chocolate Hazelnut Bites

I've got a soft spot in my heart for first cookbooks.  It's not because my own first book  is coming out later this year, ok -not just because of that- but I love the earnest and unabashed enthusiasm that every writer put into their first project.  Cookbooks that come later in their career may perhaps be more polished, or even altogether far better, but they are often missing that je ne sais quoi that first books possess.

If you're a regular reader of Chez Pim, I'm sure you're a fan of my dear friend David Lebovitz's as well - you might even like him better, which is, of course, totally cool with me, just don't tell me!  And if you're a fan of his, you must also know that he's not only an über-blogger, but a prolific cookbook writer, with many successful books under his proverbial belt.  But the one that had my heart, and still does, is his first, Room for Dessert.  A number of recipes in that book have made their ways into my baking repertoire, and the book has coffee, butter, and molasses stains to prove that too.

The cookies I made last week is one of those recipes from this book.  He calls it Black and White Cookies, made with ground almond and bittersweet chocolate, rolled in powdered sugar.  These cookies are cute as buttons, and just about the same size too, absolutely the perfect size for just a bite or two of something bittersweet with your coffee.  I must also admit that I don't quite know how to leave a good recipe well enough alone, so I made mine with hazelnut instead of almond.  The effect was really quite lovely, sort of like Nutella cookies for grown-ups.

Pie Ranch barn dance

25 random things about me

So there's this thing called Facebook, where you join and then make friends, and do all the things your friends are doing like good little lemmings that we are.  Lately there's this 25 Things meme going around.  You write 25 things - be they interesting or mundane, obvious facts or little-known secrets - about yourself, and then you tag 25 of your friends (that is if you're cool enough, or Facebook-cool enough rather, to have more than 25 friends) and make them do the same thing.  But before that you must wait until you are tagged.  Because doing it before somebody asked you to would be totally over-sharing, and, like, totally uncool.

And so I was tagged, and I wrote this list of twenty five things.  And I was doing it totally because all the other cool kids were doing it too.  And on Facebook you don't want to be left out.  Not that you'd want to be left out in real life, but on Facebook you *really* don't want to be left out, because then it'd be like that time when Stefan was picked last to the team on Top Chef - that is to say, like, totally uncool.  And then I thought hey why not put it here too, and it totally save me writing a-whole-nother post for Monday.  And so here they are, 25 things about me you may or may not want to know.  But here they are just the same.