I’d been looking for a great new use for cocoa ever since Valrhona sent me some of its products for review late this summer.  The bars of solid chocolate from France are my first choice for baking and I always try to pick up a couple while shopping at Trader Joe’s just to keep my pantry stocked. But I generally think of cocoa powder, no matter the label, as a pale substitute for the real thing, dry and dusty rather than rich and silky.

Then I tasted a fabulous chocolate sorbet from SCREAM Sorbet at the Wednesday farmers market and inspiration struck.  Melted chocolate alone wouldn’t deliver that intense taste.  I needed a dark and dusky cocoa with an intoxicating aroma for an extra layer of flavor.  What better use for that stash of Valrhona?

The recipe for this sorbet began, as most good frozen desserts seem to, with David Lebovitz’s “The Perfect Scoop.” The cookbook author and former Chez Panisse pastry chef, now living in Paris, is a wizard with an ice cream machine.  To make his basic chocolate sorbet recipe my own, I added a sparkling citrus note from grated orange rind and a little kick from a couple of tablespoons of Grand Marnier.  The results were stunning.   Without an ounce of milk or cream, it was as thick and satiny as chocolate mousse, with an intensity unmatched by most commercial products.

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Juicy, sweet, dribble-down-your-chin peaches are one of the real treats of summer.

Because there are dozens of varieties out there, each ripening at a different time, the season seems to stretch on forever.  By mid-July I’m usually ready to do something more with this delightful fruit than merely stand over the sink, eating it out of hand.  Still, I want to keep it simple to preserve the bright, sun-kissed taste.

Peaches and ice cream are a classic combo and this year I’m serving grilled peaches with a spicy, ginger ice cream.  Grilling caramelizes the surface of the fruit and concentrates the flavor.  Ginger serves as a dramatic counterpoint.  Pair the hot fruit with the chilly ice cream and you have an ideal dessert for these midsummer evenings when it’s really too hot to turn on an oven.

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The gray, rainy days of February bring at least one consolation, these beautiful, juicy blood oranges in the market. Citrus is extraordinarily plentiful this season — a friend’s Meyer lemon tree is in overdrive — but it ’s blood oranges that captivate me.

Although their California season extends for several months in the dead of winter, we have to catch them when we can in our local supermarket. Their rind is thick and often marked with a burgundy blush. Slice them open and there’s no question how they got their name. At it’s best, the flesh is a deep red, glistening like a garnet.

On looks alone, these descendants of Sicilian orchards stand out in the market among the crates of navel, Valencia and mandarin citrus so abundant at this time of year. Yet it’s their sweet, tangy flavor, with undertones of young red wine, that brings me back.

Blood oranges are wonderful eaten straight out of hand, slowly peeling off the segments one at a time. They’re gorgeous in salads or garnishing a dessert and I just knew they would make a fabulous sorbet. (more…)

Keitt mango from California

I didn’t grow up eating mangoes. They may be one of the most popular fruits in the world, but the produce available at the military commissaries where my mom usually shopped didn’t get much more exotic than oranges and bananas.

Not until I began eating my way through the myriad Indian restaurants in Silicon Valley did I discover the joys of this luscious tropical fruit. Mango lassi, a cool concoction of pureed mango and yogurt, quickly became my favorite beverage to accompany searing hot curries and spicy samosas. Then I began encountering it everywhere — in salsas, baked goods and a friend’s signature black bean salad.

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