A Peach for Your Thoughts?

Our neighbors were skeptical when my dad planted a peach tree in our front yard in Bangor, ME. They didn't think there was any way he would be successful in growing anything edible... the dirt wasn't that good, and let's face it, the climate up there is pretty different from the normal peach climate. Well, my dad is an amazing gardener. He makes dirt (he's an expert composter!) that plants crave and thrive on, and after a visit home this weekend my brother tells me that we now have a beautiful tree covered with juicy peaches... in central Maine!

Even if you don't have your own peach tree, there are loads of peaches at the local farmer's markets and grocery stores, and they're begging to be eaten. I'm usually a peach purist, and just love the velvety goodness of a juicy peach in my paw, but recently I've found some new ideas for peaches that I'm dying to try. Do fresh peach bellinis and peaches wrapped in bacon sound good to you? They do to me!

Emily's Fresh Peach Bellini

Peach Puree Ingredients:
6-8 large, juicy peaches (buy local peaches from your farmer's market for the best results)
1/2 lemon
1/4 c. sugar

Peel and slice the peaches and put them in the bowl of a food processor. Pulse until you have a fine puree with no lumps. Squeeze half the lemon (remove all of the seeds first!) into the processor and add the sugar. Pulse again and then have a little taste. Depending on the sweetness or tartness of your peaches, you may need a little less sugar or lemon juice. You should end up with a very peachy, sweet and a little bit tart puree that is perfect for mixing into cocktails.

Combine 1 part peach puree with 3 parts champagne, and give the mixture one stir for good measure. I like adding a little St. Germain liqeur for a different twist, and garnishing with a lemon twist or a slice of peach. Delish!

Pancetta-Wrapped Peaches
Food & Wine Magazine, July 2008

This recipe from Stuart Brozia of San Francisco's Rubicon restaurant can be used as a unique addition to a summer salad, or as a delicious hors d'ouevre.

Ingredients

16 thin slices of pancetta
2 medium freestone peaches—halved, pitted and cut into 8 wedges each
Salt and freshly ground pepper
16 basil leaves
1 tablespoon olive oil
Aged balsamic vinegar, for drizzling

Directions

Place the pancetta slices on a work surface. Position a peach wedge at the edge of each piece of pancetta and place a leaf of basil on top of each one. Season with a little salt and pepper and then roll up the pancetta around the peaches. Heat the olive oil in a heavy skillet over medium heat. Add the peach and pancetta bundles and cook until the pancetta is crispy on brown, flipping every minute or so to make sure they cook evenly. Don't overcrowd your pan and do small batches until all of your peaches are cooked. If you like, drizzle with some good balsamic vinegar before serving.

For more details on this recipe and some other great peach recipe ideas, check out the peach slideshow on the Food & Wine website, like arborio rice pudding with peaches and churros... I can't wait to try that one too!

Movie Menu Theme Night: Big Night

Big Night is one of my favorite movies, if not for the amazing food, then maybe for the fact that it's the kind of ensemble cast movie where you find a young, gaunt Marc Anthony playing a dishwasher/busboy with hardly any lines. You quickly end up rooting for the two protagonists, brothers and restauranteurs Primo and Secondo (imagine naming your children First and Second...), as they struggle to keep their restaurant alive in an American town that just doesn't seem to appreciate their authentic Italian recipes.

Without a penny to spare, they decide to put everything they have left into one last big meal. They invite the local press, all of their friends and Louis Prima, and prepare an extravagant meal that their guests would remember for a lifetime. You'll have to watch the movie yourself to find out what happens on their Big Night, but I recommend doing it with some good Italian home-cooking, good friends, and a lot of robust red wine.

To create your own Big Night feast, invite a group of your most passionate friends -- 8-10 people would be perfect. Prepare a playlist for your evening with classics by Louis Prima, Tony Bennett, Dean Martin and Frank Sinatra. Have your guests bring a bottle of Chianti or Sangiovese and you'll have plenty of wine to keep the party going well into the evening. To add extra oomph to your theme night, you could impose a gentle dress code based on the still shot from the movie above --- floral dresses, coiffed hair and red lipstick for the ladies (Minnie Driver and Isabella Rosellini are so glamorous in this movie!) and jackets and slicked hair for the gents.

For your menu, pick some easy Italian dishes that you can prepare ahead of time. One of the brilliant things about the menu that Primo and Secondo served was that their main course was prepped well in advance, so both brothers could enjoy the evening with their guests. Bruschetta and antipasto are easy to prepare as your starter, and even doing something as simple as a lasagna (you can dress it up a little and make it even more special by making a white lasagna) will be a satisfying and easy accompaniment to this movie. If you are very brave, you could timpano. The recipe calls for layers of prosciutto, pasta, meatballs, cheese, bechamel, and the result looks exactly like it sounds: like a large drum of Italian deliciousness. Try it with this timpano recipe from Mario Batali.

Serving simple affogato is a great way to end the evening. Just put a scoop of your favorite gelato in a heat-proof glass (I would recommend chocolate or hazelnut gelato), drown it in coffee, and top with a generous dollop of whipped cream. It's a nice sweet treat to end the evening, very easy, and the caffeine will help keep the fun going for a few hours of dancing to your playlist of Italian crooners late into the night.

I'd love to hear how your Big Night theme party turns out!

Cupcake Craze!

I've never needed much inspiration to bake or eat a whole batch of cupcakes... in fact, I must confess that I've always been a bit cupcake crazy. Now I'm not alone! Celebrities are going wild for sugary designer cupcakes and charming cupcake boutiques are popping up from coast to coast. To celebrate this 2008 cupcake craze, I wanted to recognize a few of the celebrity favorites that started the new cupcake buzz.

Magnolia Bakery, NYC

Since 1996 Magnolia Bakery has been serving up sweet, buttercream-topped confections to Manhattanites and tourists alike. The Magnolia cupcakes are so popular that customers are limited to only a dozen per person.

Magnolia was started by Allysa Torey and Jennifer Appel with a mission to make breads. After a week of struggling to make bread without enough time, hands and space, Allysa opted to start whipping up cakes instead. When they had extra batter from the small 6" cakes, they started making cupcakes instead of letting it go to waste. The pink-frosted vanilla cupcakes soon became one of Allysa's most popular creations, and as word of mouth broadcast the tastiness of Magnolia's treats, the cupcake craze began.

Torey and Appel wrote a best-selling cookbook together called The Magnolia Bakery Cookbook: Old-Fashioned Recipe's from New York's Sweetest Bakery before parting ways in 2000, when Jennifer started her own Buttercup Bake Shop in Midtown Manhattan.

Further fueling Magnolia's popularity, it was featured in an episode of Sex and the City, as well as a widely circulated SNL short called Lazy Sunday with Chris Parnell and Andy Samberg.

Sprinkles, Beverly Hills
I have been hearing about Sprinkles Cupcakes everywhere lately. It's in US Weekly, it's on E!, it is on Oprah, the Martha Stewart Show... it seems that every time I turn on the TV there's a gorgeous Sprinkles cupcake to haunt me!

It's no wonder... the designer cupcakes by Sprinkles are wildly popular with celebrities, and now the cupcake boutique has become more of a chain, with locations from Beverly Hills to Houston, and with more locations planned to open soon reaching all the way to the East coast, and even to Boston (yay!).

If you don't live near a Sprinkles, Sprinkles can come to you. Now you can order their cupcake mix from Williams-Sonoma and bake up your own batch of cupcakes in your very own kitchen. Williams-Sonoma offers Sprinkles' chocolate, vanilla, lemon and devil's food cake mixes so you can make a whole collection of these celeb favorites for your next birthday party. Hey, if they're good enough for Katie to give to Tom, and Bridget to get for Heff and Holly's anniversary, then they're good enough for anyone!

Bento-Style Lunchboxes for Back to School

Whether you're heading back to school or just trying to save money or eat healthy by bringing lunch from home rather than buying the latest sandwich creation from Au Bon Pain, a bento-style lunchbox is a great option for packing an assortment of lunch items in one easy package.

Similar in concept to the traditional Japanese bento box, this clever lunch box (a.k.a. lunch jar) by Zojirushi features 4 stacking dishes that fit inside an insulated canister. The container includes the most efficient innovation in dining utensils to date -- the spork. The whole thing packs neatly into a black travel bag. Thanks to Zojirushi, it's never been easier for an apronista-on-the-go to pack a chic, 4 course bag lunch!

Marc Jacobs Stemware

Waterford Crystal recently added a collection by one of fashion's favorite designers to their portfolio. Bringing his unique design flair to traditional Waterford crystal, Marc Jacobs has created a new collection of show-stopping stemware and dinner plates that even the most sensible gentlewoman would lust after. A graduate of the Parsons School of Design, Marc Jacobs rapidly rose to the top of the fashion world and now holds an esteemed role as the design mastermind behind Louis Vuitton's ready-to-wear line, and has built a new fashion empire under his own labels, Marc Jacobs and Marc by Marc Jacobs.

My favorite addition to the Waterford collection is the Marc Jacobs Robert Stemware, which features a gorgeous argyle-like pattern of facets that throw mirrorball patterns of light across the table.

Even more lovely, though less practical, are the Clare glass flowers. Every apronista in-the-know will soon be swooning for a bouquet of sparkly, eternally blooming crystal irises, Queen Anne's lace and poppies by Marc Jacobs!