With Cinco de Mayo just over the horizon, I can’t think of a better time to celebrate the pleasures of chile paired with chocolate.

I’ve long been drawn to the mysteriously spicy undercurrents that some chiles bring to rich, dark chocolate.  The mild, fruity taste of ancho chile in particular brings out unexpected layers of flavor in even ordinary unsweetened chocolate. Here, it spices up homey brownies inspired by Mexican ingredients.

The recipe began a few years ago with a box of Mexican chocolate that had been hanging around my cupboard too long.  Even though I always plan to make hot chocolate for myself, I never seem to get around to it. So I was looking another use for this chocolate blended with sugar and cinnamon.

I chopped up the grainy disks of chocolate and stirred together a batch of brownies based on a simple, one-bowl technique.  The first samples were so good that I tinkered some more, throwing in ancho chile powder and a couple of handfuls of buttery toasted pine nuts.

After several adjustments to reduce the sugar, this version emerged.  The texture is nicely moist, hitting the sweet spot between fudgy and cakey, and the flavor is more complex and elusive than most brownie recipes.  I’m hooked.

Think of these as bi-cultural brownies.  The basic concept is quintessentially American, but the personality is definitely Latina.

Whenever I get together with my friend Lisa, we spend much of our time hanging out in the kitchen, cooking, eating and laughing.

Lisa is an adventurous eater and enthusiastic cook.  She’s the one who introduced me to Ethiopian food and soft shell crabs.  We’ve shared summer pudding in East Berlin, lobster straight out of the steamer at a beach house in Delaware, and southwest paella cooked over a backpacking stove in Yosemite.

Ours is a bi-coastal friendship and we don’t see each other as much now that we no longer work in journalism.  But when I flew back to Maryland to visit her last month, we picked up right where we left off, drinking tea in the remodeled kitchen of her Victorian house and planning our meals for the week.

This pork roast came from a dinner party we threw for a few of Lisa’s close friends.  It started with a pair of tenderloins pulled from the freezer and a garlicky herb paste, originally devised for chicken, we adapted from an Italian cookbook.  It was such a hit, I knew right away that I would post it here.

Tenderloin is a juicy—and yes, tender—cut that cooks quickly and pairs well with many flavors.  Because it’s so lean, though, you have to be careful not to overcook it.  The internal temperature will continue to rise while it rests after roasting, so pull it out of the oven when it reaches 140 to 145 degrees.

A thick blanket of minced herbs, garlic and lemon zest, inspired by “Big Night In” by Domenica Marchetti (Chronicle, 2008), keeps this roast moist even if you do cook it a tad too long.  We introduced fennel fronds to the mix for a lingering note of anise, which goes so well with pork.  The proportions aren’t that important.  Just hold back a little on pungent herbs like rosemary.

The recipe is simplicity itself.  Mince up a couple of handfuls of mixed herbs with garlic, spices and olive oil.  Slather the mixture over the tenderloins and let them marinate 4-6 hours, or overnight if possible.   Slide them into the oven and bake for 15-25 minutes.  Let them rest while you set the table and toss the salad.  Then serve.

Party fare doesn’t get any easier than this.

We’ve been on a craft beer kick ever since we took a road and ferry trip to Alaska a few years back.  There aren’t many wineries in the frozen North, so we went beer tasting at intriguing little breweries from Juneau to Homer.

Along the way, I developed a taste for stout.  It’s the antithesis of light beer — one pint is enough to last me all evening — but I love its thick, creamy body and dark, bittersweet  flavors hinting of coffee and chocolate.

I never really thought of stout for dessert, though, until I tasted beer ice cream for the first time last October.  The hoppy kick of a good stout brought a pleasantly bitter edge along the lines of burnt sugar and dark caramel to the ice cream.

Since my efforts at recreating beer ice cream at that time were such a success, I’ve been musing about a cake with chocolate and beer for months.  A little  bite from fresh ginger seemed like a good idea, too.  St. Patrick’s Day was the perfect excuse.

This cake is even better than I imagined.  It’s dark and moist with a nice balance of chocolate and ginger underscored by the earthy notes of chocolate stout from Oregon’s Rogue Ales brewery.  I’m sure it would work with Guinness, too, but this stout is exceptional.

The recipe is a mash-up of several ideas I picked up rummaging through my cookbooks.  The chief inspiration, though, was the gingerbread stout cake Rick Rodgers contributed to “Real Beer and Good Eats,” by Bruce Aidells and Denis Kelly (Knopf, 1994).  I used it as a starting point for my experiments.

My first lesson in playing around with beer as a cake ingredient is that all the carbonation must be exhausted before you stir the beer into the  batter.  I had measured the beer out and let it sit for more than an hour before I made my first cake and that wasn’t enough.

I knew I was in trouble when the batter started fizzing after the beer went in, but I just let it sit another half an hour before I scraped the batter into the pan, shoved it into the oven and crossed my fingers.  What a mess!  During baking, the batter rose so high, it overflowed the pan.  The cake was tall when I removed it from the oven but deflated as it cooled.

The flavor was a little too sharp and the texture was odd,  but it had possibilities.  So, the next day I set the beer out to go flat in the morning and mixed the batter with a different balance of cocoa, sugar, and ginger in the afternoon.  I substituted an organic corn syrup for half the molasses, too.

This cake was just what I was looking for, a substantial, not-too-sweet dessert with pronounced adult flavors.  It slumps a little in the middle because its so moist, but I consider that part of its homespun charm.

Of course, it pairs perfectly with beer although I prefer it with a nice cup of tea.

I’m sure the Irish would approve.

Popcorn was the last thing on my mind when I bought a carbon steel wok last fall. My goal was to get a pan that could withstand high enough temperatures to actually sear meat and vegetables in a stir-fry.

But new woks need seasoning to get that wonderfully slick, virtually non-stick surface I coveted. My efforts in that direction were agonizingly slow until I found Grace Young’s account of seasoning a wok by making popcorn in “Stir-Frying from the Sky’s Edge” (Simon & Schuster, 2010). She points out that popping corn distributes a thin coat of oil all over the pan and the high heat helps it adhere.

What I wasn’t prepared for was how good the popcorn would be. Every kernel popped up big and fluffy with just enough oil to help the salt stick.

I used extra virgin olive oil — despite conventional wisdom that it’s not really suited to high temperatures — for popping and truffle salt for seasoning.  The results were mind-bogglingly good and the air popper my family had used for years is now consigned to the pantry.

One of the chief benefits is that we no longer need to add melted butter to make the popcorn palatable.  The small amount of good quality olive oil used in popping takes care of that.  Seasonings stay on better, too.

The process is simple.  The only equipment required is a wok with a lid.  Of course you could use a large soup pot, too, but I doubt it needs seasoning.  Although Young lines her lid with aluminum foil, I just wipe it clean with a paper towel when I’m done.

Plain sea salt is good for seasoning. but it’s much more fun to experiment.  We love truffle salt straight out of the jar.  When we’re feeling festive, however, we might throw in a cup of finely grated Parmesan with  a couple tablespoons of minced thyme and salt to taste.

Recently, we started playing around with furikake, the Japanese rice seasoning.  Since my jar was a little stale and I didn’t want to go out on a rainy day, I made some from pantry ingredients and it was quite good.  The interplay of sesame seeds, chili flakes and toasted seaweed with popped corn turns a simple snack into an intriguing nibble worthy of a party.

I plan to pop a lot of corn between now and the Oscar ceremonies a week from Sunday.  There are still a bunch of nominees out on DVD that I haven’t seen yet.

Hazelnuts and chocolate were meant for each other.   The rich, browned butter flavor of the nuts fairly cries out for the embrace of dark, dusky chocolate.  Together, they’re unbeatable.

I find the combination as inspiring as it is addictive.   (No jar of Nutella, or the organic alternative, Nocciolata, is safe around me.)

So it’s no surprise that I would be obsessed by the idea of a hazelnut cookie dipped in bittersweet chocolate for Valentine’s Day.  The cookie of my dreams would have a great sandy texture with just enough crunch to contrast with a smooth, dense coat of very good chocolate.   It should be elegant enough to pair with a flute of champagne but substantial enough to satisfy a serious sweet tooth.

The search led me to the classic Linzer, which usually sandwiches jam between spicy, buttery cookies.  I played with proportions, left out the spices to focus attention on the nuts and baked up a cookie worthy of a Valentine.  Dressed up in a velvet cloak of chocolate, it had my number.

Usually, a cookie with so much butter is as hard to handle as it is good to eat.  Right out of the refrigerator, the dough is difficult to roll. But after a few minutes, it’s too soft to cut into shapes.

Dorrie Greenspan, the baking genius, offers a clever solution in “Baking: From My Home to Yours” (Houghton Mifflin, 2006):  Roll the dough out between sheets of waxed paper before you chill it, then cut out the hearts and transfer them to a baking sheet while the dough is very cold.  It’s just short of a miracle.

To temper the chocolate, I used a microwave shortcut rather than the traditional method I used for chocolate bark (with hazelnuts, of course) in an earlier Valentine’s Day post.  I don’t think I would use it for candy, but it worked very well for cookies dipped not long before eating.

The chocolate was Callebaut, which is selling its couverture pieces at my local market now.  E. Guittard chocolate wafers are another good choice and any high-quality chocolate will suffice if you chop it roughly first.

You could bake the cookies ahead and freeze them if you wish. For the best results, though, dip within a day or so of serving.  The cookies soften if they’re stored too long after dipping.

That shouldn’t be a problem. Cookies this good don’t last long.

The “caviar” on my mind these days involves black-eyed peas, not those extravagant little fish eggs.  Marinated with chiles, onions, bell pepper, corn and tomatoes, the humble legumes are transformed into the classic Texas caviar.

This chunky salsa is a staple in the Lone Star State—a little bit Southern, a little bit Mexican, and altogether irresistible.  Countless variations have made the round of backyard barbecues and tailgate parties since the 1950s, but the original was the creation of Texas culinary star Helen Corbitt, a cookbook author who served as food consultant for Neiman-Marcus in Dallas.

I’ve been thinking about this dish ever since I made it for good luck last month.  Southern folklore says you’ll get a dollar in the coming year for every black-eyed pea you eat on New Year’s Day.  Inflation has sort of reduced the fiscal return on that deal, I’m afraid.  I can’t eat enough peas to make a difference in my bank balance, but it still makes me feel good to uphold tradition.

Super Bowl is my excuse for sharing it now.  I don’t care much for football, but I do like the snacks.

This recipe updates the original, with home-cooked peas rather than canned, and adds tomatoes and corn kernels for color, texture, and fresher flavor.  I’ve reduced the oil a little, too.  It would be a guilt-free indulgence if I could just pass on the tortilla chips. But we all know that’s not likely.

Don’t be put off by the idea of cooking the peas from scratch.  There’s nothing to it.  They don’t require soaking in advance and cook more quickly than you would imagine—usually about an hour of untended simmering.  Or you can throw them in a slow cooker (after soaking) for 3-4 hours on high.

The cooking time will depend on how dry the peas are. When they’re tender to the bite, they’re done.  Just remember not to add salt until the end of the cooking time since it is thought to make beans tough.

Alternatively, just open the cans.  I found cans of organic black-eyed peas at Whole Foods that were quite good and not too salty.

Even with canned peas, this salsa would be the star of any casual get-together.  Say, a Super Bowl party?

Pour an extraordinary cocktail, set out some irresistible nibbles, and you’re ready for a celebration.

My search for the perfect New Year’s Eve libation this year led me to the “PDT Cocktail Book,”: by Jim Meehan (Sterling Epicure, 2011).  Illustrated with Chris Gall’s colorful woodcut engravings, the book is an engaging and often esoteric guide to the artisan cocktails created for the speakeasy-style Manhattan bar, Please Don’t Tell.  It’s such a hit that I couldn’t find a hardback version anywhere so I downloaded the e-book version.

Meehan is known as one of the most innovative mixologists in a new generation of gourmet bartenders.  He builds his drinks from an impressive stock of unusual and hard-to-find ingredients. Just hunting down all the components is a challenge, as writer Jeff Gordiner recounted in the New York Times earlier this month.

We couldn’t track down many of the special spirits and mixers Meehan specifies for his cocktails but we substituted the best ingredients available in local stores.  The results, if not absolutely authentic, were always impressive, with a complexity of flavor rarely found in home-mixed drinks.

The cosmopolitan made with Hangar One Buddha’s Hand Vodka, which is distilled nearby in Alameda, was a perfect balance of citrus and tart cranberry flavors with just a touch of sweetness. Meehan gives credit to Cheryl Cooke of Miami, Fla. who is believed to have created the first cosmo in the mid-1980s.

To complement the cosmo, I’ve been playing around with a new cracker recipe combining the Southern classics of pimento cheese spread and cheese straws.  I’ve added minced pimentos to the usual sharp cheddar and ditched the cookie press in favor of a simpler slice-and-bake shaping technique.  The dough can be stored in the freezer and baked off at the last minute.

With this cocktail in your glass and these crackers on your plate, the prospects for 2012 will look very good indeed.

Most Oktoberfest menus are pretty predictable — oceans of beer, mountains of sausage, sauerkraut, and maybe freshly baked pretzels.

Santa Cruz, though, takes pride in leaning off-center.  The music at Santa Cruz Mountain Brewery’s fifth annual Sausagefest last weekend was country.  Frauleins sported elaborate tattoos with their flirty barmaid drindls.  And the popular Penny Ice Creamery served beer ice cream.

There weren’t a lot of takers  for the Devout Stout-flavored ice cream early in the evening, but I couldn’t resist.  A scoop in a pint jar with a little of the same beer was the best thing I had all night.  It was thick, creamy and lightly sweet with flavors of coffee, caramel and a pleasantly bitter hint of burnt sugar.  Even before I left, I knew I was going to have to try to make it at home.

It turns out that beer ice cream isn’t that rare.  Mentions can be found all over the Internet.  Most of the recipes don’t sound very appealing, however.  Some don’t bother to cook the eggs.  Others add molasses or chocolate to round out the beer flavors.

I decided to riff off a basic French-style vanilla ice cream.  First, I reduced some good dark beer with a little brown sugar to make a syrup and cook off most of the alcohol.  Then I substituted the beer syrup for some of the cream in the formula.  It turned out even better than I hoped.

The secret to good beer ice cream, of course, is good beer.  A can of Bud just won’t do. But any well-crafted stout or porter is worth a try.

The artisan Devout Stout is a wonderful, dark and deeply flavored brew.  I would have used it if we could have found any in all the usual places.  When we didn’t, I turned to that reliable supermarket standby, Guiness Extra Stout, for the first batch.

It was very nice although a little rough around the edges.  If I hadn’t tasted the Devout Stout ice cream, I would have declared it a winner.

Still, I knew the ice cream could be better.  So I snagged some Black Butte Porter, my husband’s favorite, for the next try.  Smoother and more nuanced, it was just right.

The only thing better than this ice cream is a float made with the same beer.  Give it a try. You’ll be amazed.

Hummus often is the easiest dish to skip at a party.  It’s that creamy beige dip in a plastic tub that someone picked up at the store on the way to the host’s house.  It’s pleasant enough if the processor hasn’t used too much citric acid as a preservative but hardly worth the calories when there are more exciting choices on the table.

At least that’s what I always thought until I was coaxed into sampling the garlicky hummus offered at a farmers market in Santa Clara.  Who knew that such a silky, seductive dip could come from pureed chickpeas laced with mellow garlic and spices?  I was hooked.

I knew I had to make my own if I were to satisfy my cravings, though.  And canned chickpeas — better known on the West Coast as garbanzos — just wouldn’t do, even if I slipped off the skins for a smoother puree as many cooks advise.  Besides, dried chickpeas are quite cheap in the bulk bins and aren’t that difficult to prepare, given a little advance planning.

I made a couple versions of hummus soon after I acquired a VitaMix blender this summer, but they weren’t quite right.  One was too bland, the other too watery. So when I was invited to a party thrown by food-loving friends last weekend, I decided to try again to come up with a new variation that could hold it’s own against all the tempting cheeses and hors d’oeuvre I knew would crowd the appetizer table.

Photo by Charlie McCollum

Starting with a basic recipe from the Greek cookbook, “The Olive and the Caper,” by Susanna Hoffman (Workman, 2004), I began pumping up the flavor.  Garlic was roasted for nuttier flavor and so was the sesame paste, known as tahini.  I increased the lemon  juice, cumin and coriander seeds and reduced the water.

The result was an exceptionally smooth and almost buttery puree with a hint of lemon and savory undertones of garlic and spice.  It was light, flavorful and almost irresistible.  I kept finding excuses to dip a spoon into the bowl to check the seasonings.

It was a hit at the party, too, though the home baked pita sprinkled with zatar certainly helped.  (Zatar is a wild thyme-based spice mix sold at Middle Eastern markets or online at Penzey’s Spices.  Alternatively, you can make a fair approximation at home from the recipe below.)

The pita looks impressive and tastes far better than any store-bought flat bread, but it’s really not hard to make.  Just divide any basic bread dough — the whole wheat pizza dough from Trader Joe’s works well —  into balls about 2 inches in diameter. Flatten the balls, then roll out to ¼ inch or thinner. (I use a tortilla press to speed things up.)  Brush each circle of dough lightly with water, sprinkle with zatar, and bake on a pizza stone for 5 minutes or so at 475 degrees.

Serve this at your next party and no one will pass over the hummus.

Real barbecue is the antithesis of grilling.  There’s nothing quick and easy about it.  To properly cook a pork shoulder over smoldering coals for hours until its tender, moist and humming with smoky flavor takes patience and attention to detail.

So it’s no wonder we only pull out the smoker now and then.  Every time, we bite into pulled pork straight out of the smoker, though, we regret that we don’t do it more often.

It’s hard to beat the taste of well-marbled pork cooked until the outer layer becomes deep brown and crusty.  Pile it on a bun with tangy, crunchy cole slaw and life doesn’t get much better.

This is a can’t-miss dish for a party.  And just the thing for the waning days of the summer vacation season.

The recipe is an adaption of  The Renowned Mr. Brown from Cheryl and Bill Jamison’s “Smoke & Spice” (Harvard Common Press, 2003).   We use a Weber Smoky Mountain vertical water smoker, known affectionately by its fans as the Bullet. It’s solidly built, and the heavy metal body holds heat well.

However, it’s also possible to smoke the pork on an ordinary charcoal grill using the indirect method. Barbecue guru Steven Raichlen explains the technique here.  The critical elements are low, even temperatures and time — 6-10 hours of time.

And of course, there’s the all-important question of sauce and cole slaw.  I prefer the South Carolina mustard sauce I found in ”Steven Raichlen’s BBQ USA” (Workman, 2003) and the creamy, vinegar-laced slaw from ”Thrill of the Grill” by Chris Schlesinger & John Willoughby (Morrow, 1990)  Put them all together and you have a sandwich you’ll never forget.

Sure, real barbecue takes time and effort. But it’s worth it.