Holidays

Unless you're hiding under a rock, you've noticed that, in the days leading up to Valentine's Day, chocolate varieties flood the market. Make your Valentine's more romantic and indulgent with these gourmet chocolate-and-wine varietal pairings.

Green & Black's Organic Chocolate Peanut Bar ($3.50, 3.5 oz)
This smooth-tasting bar is a mix of milk chocolate (37 percent, to be exact), caramelized organic peanuts and sea salt. An Aussie Shiraz – for its fruit-forward, jammy notes – would stack up well with this bar. Or, if you're a fan of whites, consider Gewürztraminer; its sweet notes will contrast nicely with the sea salt.

Harry & David Bing Cherry Chocolates ($22.95, for a 16-oz box)
Embedded inside each of these double-dipped chocolate balls is a dried (but juicy!) bing cherry. Yet when paired with a festive, sparkling Rosé – such as Cupcake Vineyards Brut Rosé, $16, which has a nose of wild strawberries – the chocolate reveals a softer finish.

Happy National Chocolate Fondue Day!

Chocolate features prominently as cold-weather comfort in these bitter months: casually in a cup of hot chocolate or more indulgently in a bubbling pot of molten chocolate fondue. Reportedly invented by New York restaurant Swiss Chalet in 1966 in an effort to promote Toblerone chocolate, chocolate fondue can make use of any sort of bar. While the Hershey's bars provide a classic base, feel free to use more adventurous sweets too, like chile-, mint-, sea salt- or even bacon-spiked varieties from companies like Lindt or Vosges.

You don't need a fondue pot to create the silky snack. Simply heat some heavy cream in a simmer, then whisk in the chopped chocolate of your choice until the two merge. For the original recipe from Swiss Chalet, which suggests puff pastries, meringues and more for dipping, click here.

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What did it mean to be going steady in 1948? On Valentine's Day, it might have meant snuggling up to your sweetheart in the front seat of a two-tone Pontiac, listening to Dinah Shore on the radio and opening an embroidered cardboard box from Schraft's to reveal a massive pound cake painted with pink-and-white frosting.

Wrapping up one's affections in a heart-shaped box tied with a big red bow has been common Valentine's Day practice since the late 19th century, but chocolate's a relatively recent addition to the love-struck holiday scene. Before the advent of affordable, mass-produced chocolate treats, most celebrants made do with an array of other sugary confections, including marshmallows, candied cashews, jellied fruit, honey glycerin drops, butterscotch chips, coconut strips, caramels, toffee and pound cakes.

"Boxes of sweetness will sell whether they are advertised or not," a New York Times marketing columnist decreed in 1965, summarizing the inseparability of sweet treats and Valentine's Day.

Happy National Stuffed Mushroom Day!

We intrinsically love the visually and texturally stimulating concept of food used as a vessel for more food -- stuffed baked eggplant, stuffed carnivale squash and the like, and stuffed mushrooms are no exception. Moist, yet firm enough to support generous toppings, the nutty or buttery base of a baked mushroom is perfect perch for an infinite variety of ingredients.

Whether you favor simple cheese (mozzarella-stuffed portabellos) or no-fuss Italian (Pecorino and breadcrumb-stuffed white mushrooms), meat (sausage-stuffed mushrooms) or greens (spinach-stuffed mushrooms), take advantage of the variety of fresh mushrooms to make one catering to any palate.

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Happy National Carrot Cake Day!

Thought to have originated in Europe of the Middle Ages when sugars were expensive luxuries, carrot cake was largely popularized in World War II Britain, when the Ministry of Food distributed dessert recipes featuring carrots. The cake also garnered popularity in the late 20th century, when, according to the Oxford Companion to Food, they became increasingly "perceived as 'healthy' cakes, a perception fortified by the use of brown sugar and wholemeal flour and the inclusion of chopped nuts, and only slightly compromised by the cream cheese and sugar icing which appears on some versions."

Of course we wouldn't purport to call photographer Elana's Pantry's pictured carrot cake exactly "healthy" - yes, the silky coconut cream frosting negates the more healthful inclusion of nuts and carrots, but it at least relies on coconut and agave for sweetness rather than cups of pure sugar. And with a moist, layered interior spiced with cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves and allspice, our tastebuds don't mind a waistline indulgence now and then.

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