"gelato" news and stories

• This former Microsoft executive's forthcoming cookbook is six volumes, 2400 pages, 43 pounds, and $625 dollars. Enjoy!
• The new pomegranate variety Angel Red has softer seeds than its conventional counterparts.
• Everything you ever wanted to know about making gelato -- including a recipe for parmesan flavor. Uh...yum?
• This is the little black dress of wines: "It's a great basic, one that drinks well all year round and never goes out of style."

Affogato al caffé. Photo: Erin Meister

Erin Meister trains baristas for North Carolina-based Counter Culture Coffee and sporadically maintains the blog Meet the Press Pot from her home in New York City. This is part of a series of tips for the caffeine-addicted.

Picture this: New York City, August, 2009. It's hot -- I mean really hot. Like, stick to the seats on the subway hot. You're feeling mighty low and mighty steamed, and all you want is a belt of something quick and cool to keep you moving. Something that'll put the spring back into your step.

You know what you need, buddy? A caffeinated dessert. An affogato al caffé.

When you finally get one and it does the trick, turn your re-energized self toward Italy and give 'em a salute: Not only did our friends on the boot give us both the espresso and gelato that make up this icy indulgence, but they did us one better by putting them together. The resulting dessert, often shortened to simply affogato -- literally "drowned" in Italian -- is heavenly in its traditional form (a scoop of vanilla gelato topped with freshly brewed espresso), so even tiny tweaks (chocolate ice cream) or additions (Frangelico) can make it sublime.

Gabrielle Carbone, co-owner of the Bent Spoon Photo: Eating in Translation/Flickr

Since Gabrielle Carbone and Matthew Errico opened the doors of Princeton, N.J.'s The Bent Spoon in 2004, their ice cream shop has become synonymous with high-quality, imaginatively flavored ice cream, winning over countless customers with flavors like cardamom-ginger, dark chocolate habanero and mint julep. Called one of the Top Nine Ice Cream Places in America, it's one of a growing number of ice cream shops that have shaken off the shackles of vanilla, chocolate and strawberry to bring frozen dairy into the brave new world of small-batch, artisanal production and top-shelf organic and seasonal ingredients.

As we're entering the height of ice cream season (though true aficionados would argue that ice cream has no season), and with National Ice Cream Month around the bend, we turned to Carbone for a primer in All Things Ice Cream.

What makes good ice cream?
Oh man. You know, it kind of boils down to good ingredients. You can make good ice cream hands down if your dairy and eggs are good. The organic yolks we use are bright orange and creamy, and our dairy is hormone-free. It's great if the recipes are good, but if you start with good ingredients, you end up with good stuff.

Oyster ice cream, bourbon-vanilla ice cream swirled with sea salt and Dolly Madison, after the jump.

There's no doubt about it: The cheese boom is in full swing.

Over the past several years, specialty shops have blossomed across the country, from southern California to Maine (including Blue Fog Market, Fromagination and The Cave), all with super-dedicated cheese selections. This month renowned Brooklyn, N.Y., restaurant Franny's became the latest eatery to open its very own specialty food shop, Bklyn Larder, just down the street.

Aside from an array of prepared foods cooked by chef Travis Post, Bklyn Larder has its own cheese room, with an appropriate humidity and temperature for aging and storing cheese. "This will enable us to carry larger amounts of cheese," says Francine Stephens, who, along with co-owner and husband Andrew Feinberg, co-founded the restaurant back in 2004.

In September of 2007, Feinberg attended the Slow Flood cheese festival in Bra, Italy to seek out unique and tasty cheeses to eventually carry at the still-in-the-planning-stages Larder. They can all be spied through the glass window of the shop's aging room. (Food voyeurs -- you know who you are -- beware!)

At New York City's Roasting Plant Coffee Company (81 Orchard St. between Broome and Grand streets, and 75 Greenwich Ave. at Seventh Ave., 212-775-7755), they have to-die-for hot chocolate. The recipe is shockingly simple, and you can make it at home!

The secret? Gelato.

Go buy a pint of your favorite chocolate gelato (dark chocolate is recommeneded), put a scoop in a mug, and let it melt. Add steamed milk to taste. Top it with marshmallows or whipped cream and chocolate chips (right). Done! Classy, frothy hot chocolate with a divine, rich flavor.

If you want pre-melted gelato at your beck and call (pour steamed milk on frozen gelato and you get "lukewarm chocolate"), keep some in your fridge in a sealable tupperware container, and use it within two days.

[via Tasting Table]