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)

So one of my duties this Christmas at my sister's house (I'm also making this) is to make a cheese and cracker platter that folks can munch on before and after the main meal. I've done them before, but they always turn out to be just very basic cheese and cracker snacks: a couple of different blocks of Kraft cheeses and a few different crackers. A very basic, low-cost type of thing, and it's OK.

But this year I want to do something different. I want to get a really good selection of nice cheeses and several different types of crackers to place around them. So I need your help! What kinds of cheeses and crackers would make a good selection for my family? Any tips or tricks you can give me to make it just a bit more than the usual "cheese and Ritz cracker" affair? Anything besides the cheese and crackers you'd put on the platter too? Fruit? Chocolate?

That pic on the right looks like a cool presentation.

"I want cheddar, but I'll settle for anything yellow."
"How can you eat that on your sandwich? Provolone is the best sandwich cheese."
"I prefer swiss."
"Get some Muenster, too!"
"And I want pepper jack."

This conversation, or one very much like it, plays over and over at family gatherings, barbecues and even during some weekend lunches. Cheese on sandwiches is a contentious issue and no one seems to be able to agree on what best complements their turkey, cold cuts or even tops a hamburger, for that matter. Can you narrow it down to just one type of cheese so you don't spend a fortune for a half-dozen cheeses at the market?

The yellow cheeses, American or otherwise, tend to go into kids sandwiches, where the color is just as important as the flavor. Judging from the selection of cheese that is offered at deli counters, many prefer mild cheeses, like muenster and provolone, which don't distract from the main components of the sandwich. The problem with those cheeses is that sometimes you can't taste the cheese at all. It's harder to match a stronger cheese with sandwich fillings and it can have the opposite effect, overwhelming everything else.

The three cheese groups don't often want to compromise, and after having dealt with a lot of cranky relatives, it seems prudent to spend the extra money at the store and get a cheese everyone likes. Unless you don't mind listening to complaints as you happily munch a sandwich topped with your favorite cheese.

I don't work for Zyliss. I have used and own several of their products.

There are plenty of ways to peel garlic. If you are a garlic lover, then you probably add finely minced or pressed garlic to a dish shortly before serving, thus preserving much of the racy flavor we garlic lover's crave. If you're looking to simply peel garlic for chopping, I recommend a roller or your bare hands (cut the butt off, pinch the clove and remove skin). However, try the Asian Rose pressed onto hot pizza, or directly into creamy soups. My uncle brought me some Asian rose earlier this summer, grown in Napa. Hadn't tried it, won't forget it. I haven't had much luck growing my own...but I do use plenty, and this is the tool I turn to. If you have another press that you swear by, let me know and I'll check it out.

As for garlic on our breath, well, anything for love.

Like the Boston Molasses Disaster of 1919, the story of a Swiss freighter that almost exploded with cooked tapioca is safely behind us but still bears mentioning. In August 1972, the cargo of the Cassarate included timber and tapioca. The former caught fire and the hot water and steam created while dousing the blaze caused the 1,500 tons of Thai tapioca below deck to swell in the oven-like conditions. The Cassarate made an emergency stop in Wales, where the fires were finally extinguished. The hundreds of thousands of portions of tapioca, bound for Holland, never did wind up bursting the ship's hull. A recently updated Snopes page has excerpts from local newspapers that covered the incident.

A Swiss lab has created a system of sensors and microphones to help dieters keep track of what they eat. A report from The Wearable Computing Laboratory describes how an in-ear microphone (right) was used, with very high accuracy, to identify various foods based on what they sounded like as they were eaten. Other parts of the system include a collar to detect swallowing and hand sensors to detect "food intake related motions." The lab hopes that all of this automation will make it easier for people to keep track of what they eat, as opposed to having to manually take notes about everything they consume in a day.

[Via pasta and vinegar]

An Emmenthaler from Von Muehlenen Cheese in Dudingen, Switzerland, took the title of world champion in the 2006 Biennial World Championship Cheese Contest, held this week in Madison, Wisconsin. Runners up included two Goudas from The Netherlands. This is the first time in the contest's 49 years that a Swiss cheese has taken first place, according to a recent story in The Capital Times. A U.S. cheese maker hasn't taken top honors in the contest since 1988.

Normally when I write about a gigantic Guinness-worthy food item I have some confirmation. In this case I don't. As a matter of fact, I don't even have a photo of the freakish food in question. So, imagine the sandwich pictured here much, much larger. Good, now picture it even bigger!

I'm pretty confident that the near 300-pound, four-foot-by-five-foot reuben was that was laid out for St. Pat's partiers at a Milwaukee bar last night is one for the books. One hundred pounds of corned beef, 40 pounds of swiss, 80 pounds of sauerkraut and three gallons of thousand island dressing went into the nearly 300-pound creation. What I want to know is what did they cook it on? And just how many pounds Tums were consumed afterwards?