I've become sort of the appetizer guy in my family when it comes to Thanksgiving and Christmas. While my sister cooks the main meal, others in the family always offer to bring something over: desserts and other pies, soda, wine, etc. I've been doing appetizers and snacks the past few years, and here are a few tips.

I think appetizers and snacks should be low stress and easy to make/set up. One of the best is a cheese and cracker platter. All you have to do is go to your supermarket and go to the cheese section (you know, the stuff beyond Kraft) and choose several good looking, nice cheeses. I usually go with a cheese nut roll (I've been buying a Port Wine cheese roll that everyone seems to like), a good aged cheddar, and maybe some Boursin. For crackers, it's amazing what is available, and I usually grab several different varieties: pepper crackers, rosemary crackers, and also plain ol' Ritz, which you can't go wrong with. Get a nice platter or tray, put the various cheeses in the middle, each with their own knife, and then spread the crackers all around the edge. Looks great.

This brownie recipe from San Francisco chocolatier Michael Recchiuti uses four different kinds of chocolate: milk chocolate, bittersweet chocolate, unsweetened chocolate, and white chocolate. I'm going to make brownies this week and since I usually go with a typical one chocolate recipe, I'm going to definitely try this. Full recipe (from Food and Wine) after the jump.

As if anyone needs a holiday as an excuse to eat chocolate!

Today is National Chocolate Day, and I thought that instead of having one post where I mention the day and list some recipes I'd do a bunch of posts that have to do with chocolate the entire day. So expect recipes, facts about the history of chocolate, maybe even some posts on things that you can make out of chocolate. I'll let you know what I find. Tune in throughout the day for more.

Mmmm...chocolate.

Since most of us love chocolate (some like all kinds of chocolate), it would be good to know why we're so addicted to the stuff. Could it be ... bacteria?

Nestle paid for a study in Switzerland that showed that, while everyone has various microbes in their stomachs and intestines, people who crave chocolate seem to have different types of microbes than other people. The study actually took a while to complete because they couldn't find 11 men who didn't like chocolate!

I'm not sure what's more interesting: the fact that people who love chocolate have different types of bacteria in their body, or the fact that we all have trillions of bacteria in our bodies.

No, this isn't a giant mound of chocolate shaped like a television (though wouldn't that be something?). It's a web TV network devoted to all things chocolate. Brilliant!

As we all know chocolate can cure everything that ails us both physically and mentally, and Chocolate Television covers just about everything: companies that make chocolate, candy expos, chocolate blogs, recipes, and so much more. Viewers can even upload their own chocolate-related videos and other content.

I'd rather see this on my local cable system than the Oxygen network.

Now, here's a day that each and every one of us can get behind.

It's National Milk Chocolate Day, which means you have to eat some sort of milk chocolate today. It can be Hershey's or Cadbury or Nestle (each really does have its own flavor), or maybe even Dove or some fancy gifts from Godiva.

I could list all of the milk chocolate recipes out there, but I don't think Slashfood can hold that much data. But here are some good ones: Milk Chocolate Brownies, Milk Chocolate Pie, Milk Chocolate Biscotti, Milk Chocolate Fudge, Milk Chocolate Fondue, and Milk Chocolate Popcorn.

And don't forget our own chocolate category, of course. You'll find some great stuff there too.

Warning: the following story doesn't give you permission to start downing dark chocolate by the case.

As someone who has high blood pressure, I welcome any new news that eating certain types of food can help bring the numbers down. Of course, if I just exercised more I could lose some weight and that would probably take care of 97% of my problem, but in case that doesn't happen, I like hearing news like this. Researchers in Germany have discovered that small portions of dark chocolate might help people who are in the early stages of high blood pressure. 24 women and 20 men, aged 56 to 73, were given both white and dark chocolate over 18 weeks. The white chocolate didn't have much effect at all.

I'd write more but I have to run out to the store and get some dark chocolate.

Like so many other people, I nearly always have a couple of bananas laying around that are getting overly ripe. Sometimes I just stick them into the freezer for later use, but I often toss them into a loaf of banana bread. Banana bread is fast, easy and works great for both breakfasts and for snacking. The only drawback is that you can get tired of it after making the same loaf recipe several times in a row. It is easy to dress up a loaf by tossing in chocolate chips, nuts or raisins, but it's nice to have some more varied variations available, as well. In this month's Vegetarian Times magazine, I saw a recipe for Peanut Butter Banana Bread with Chocolate Chips that looked quick, easy and tasty. Not surprisingly, it lived up to my expectations. The bread is slightly heavy, but not too dense, and has a good balance of peanut butter and banana flavors. I used milk chocolate chips instead of semisweet and cut back on the amount slightly. The bread is good plain and toasted, for breakfast, with tea or for dessert!

Harry & David

Brands from all different price categories were chosen and evaluated for quality of the chocolate, the "accuracy of flavors," packaging appeal and value by a group of women (since they are somewhat more likely to receive chocolates on Valentine's Day than men).

The specific chocolate selection used in the taste test was Harry & David's 1-lb. Grand Collection, which includes a variety of milk and dark chocolates with nuts, caramels, toffees, fruits and berries. It retails for $29.99.

Let's face it: if you take a glace at the rapidly expanding chocolate section of almost any store, there is bound to be at least one product that needs a second (and much closer) look just to figure out the label. In this case, I'm not referring to products with unusual flavor combinations, but to those marked with a cacao percentage.

Consumers and manufacturers alike have gone crazy over chocolates labeled with their cacao percentage in the last year or so, and even though the numbers themselves are clear, not everyone understands what those numbers mean. Often, the percentages are equated with the quality of the chocolate, leading to the idea that the darker the chocolate, the better it will be in spite of the fact that the darkest chocolate - usually unsweetened, 99% cacao- is actually quite unpalatable.

The cacao percentage indicates how much of a given product, by weight, is made up of cocoa solids from the cocoa bean (cacao), like cocoa butter and cocoa powder. The rest of the bar is made up of sugar, vanilla and/or other ingredients, including milk and the occasional emulsifier. This basically means that a bar of chocolate with a higher cacao percentage will usually have more chocolate in it and a stronger cocoa flavor (i.e. it will be more bitter) than one with a lower percentage, but that doesn't necessarily mean that bars of equally high percentages will taste alike.

Sometimes the best things to eat are the most simple to make. We can find a dessert that has a ton of ingredients and you have to have special equipment or a candy thermometer or a double boiler or a special pan. Or you have to preheat the oven or roll something into a shape or whatever. Sometimes it's great just to find a dessert that's two ingredients, you slap them together, and then you eat them 15 minutes later.

Take this recipe. It's for Chocolate-Stuffed Bananas, and it's pretty damn easy.

Popular ingredients to combine with chocolate include mint flavoring, peanut butter, crisped rice, nuts, dried fruits and cacao nibs. Some chocolates even add chilies and cinnamon for extra flavor. The combination of lemon and pepper, however, is one that would seem to suit fish or chicken better than chocolate. Nevertheless, Swiss chocolate maker Frey used that very combination in their Citron & Poivre Chocolate Bar.

I was gifted a bar of this chocolate for Christmas and was somewhat hesitant to try it. The mild burn of chilies suits cocoa, while pepper can be more aggressive. Would the lemon be too bitter? The promise of high-quality extra dark Swiss chocolate made me set aside my doubts and taste the bar.

Surprisingly, it was delicious. The lemon flavor came through as very zesty and bright, not at all bitter and with a much cleaner flavor than orange, which tends to linger in the mouth long after you have finished a piece of orange chocolate. There was only a hint of pepper, although if you were to eat the whole bar in one sitting it would probably be more noticeable. The chocolate itself was excellent, with a silky smooth texture that melted right into your mouth. I would definitely buy it again (it is sold at some select Target stores) and plan to keep an eye out for the brand's other unusual flavors, like Rhubarb & Aloe Vera (in white chocolate), Coeur de Macadamia (caramelized macadamia nuts in milk chocolate) and Pécan & Caramel (pecans and crunchy caramel pieces in milk chocolate)