Kimberly Behr
December 2018
Gifts for the New Year
From Lithuanian Mushrooms to Japanese Pottery
By Edward Behr
Chocolate Bars Among the many good options for special chocolate bars, short of the fanatically precise, nearly unobtainable Rogue, a fine choice is Goodnow Farms in Sudbury, Massachusetts. Bars of 70 to 77 percent chocolate currently come from seven regions and in some cases are made from particular varieties of cacao or from wild beans, each distinct and fun to taste side by side. There are Almendra Blanca from Mexico, Asochivite from Guatemala, Coto Brutus from Costa Rica, El Carmen and Nicalizo from Nicaragua, Esmeraldas from Ecuador, and Ucayali from Peru. A 55-gram bar is $8, plus shipping.
Chocolate (not cocoa powder) for hot chocolate For a chocophile, rather than a bar, consider a jar of chocolate bits for making strong hot chocolate. Aubrey Lindley of Cacao in Portland, Oregon, offers a “drinking chocolate” from Felchlin, his “favorite mid-volume producer,” that’s a combination of 74 percent organic Dominican with 68 percent wild Bolivian. When you prepare the drink with milk and cream, per the simple directions, the surface whisks to a lasting froth and the taste is intense. For the deeply committed, there’s also 100 percent chocolate (no sugar) for the same purpose. A 340-gr (12-oz) brown glass jar of either one costs $25 plus shipping.
Lithuanian dried mushrooms After a package of dried boletes I bought in Vilnius turned out to be better than any I had tasted in Italy, I began to think Lithuanians might care about wild mushrooms more than anyone else. (Unfortunately, the brand, Girios Grybas, is unavailable in the US.) By way of Etsy, I learned of Renata Gasperoviciene, who sells mostly decorative forest items but also dried mushrooms. The black trumpets were more tender and far more flavorful than any I’ve encountered in the US; the dried chanterelles were also flavorful; and the dried boletes weren’t unusually strong but nonetheless full of character. Fifty grams of black trumpets are $6.49, 100 grams of chanterelles are $7.95, and 50 grams of boletes are $5.73, plus shipping.
Lithuanian cured meats and cake cooked on a spit Also on the Lithuanian theme, Skanumélis in Palm Coast, Florida, where there’s an unexpected concentration of Lithuanians, produces its own cold-smoked ham and sausages; I like the cold-smoked and dried items. Plus there’s šakotis, or tree cake. To make the last, a liquid batter is poured onto a rotating spit to create a highly unusual, spiky, evergreen shape. The meats are $15 to $20 per pound, and a seven-inch, two-pound cake, said to serve 12 but in my experience more, is $30, plus shipping.
Digital cook’s thermometer More precise than analog cook’s thermometers, which have the charm of a low price and freedom from batteries, are digital ones. The critical consensus has settled on options from Thermoworks in the United Kingdom, which switch readily from Fahrenheit to Celsius. Perfectly fine is a ThermoPop at $29, which reads in three to four seconds and has an accuracy of ±1 degree C (±2 degrees F). But you can step up to a Thermapen classic at $79 and other models, which read in two to three seconds and have an accuracy of ±0.4 degrees C (±0.7 degrees F).
Analog compost thermometer Every kitchen gardener with a yard may now be a composter, but how active is the pile? A Reotemp compost thermometer, with its 20-inch stem, will tell you. The optimum range, sought after and rarely achieved, is 55 to 70 degrees C (130 to 160 degrees F). The best price for the Fahrenheit model may be that of US Amazon, at $20.65.
Gray sea salt in bulk for pickling For the home curer and fermenter, bulk unrefined sea salt from the Guérande marshes in Brittany might be just the thing. From San Francisco Salt Co., ten pounds of fine or coarse salt are $31.99, and 20 pounds are $59.99, plus shipping. (If you’re in Canada, a much better price is offered by Maison Orphée, suggesting a different attitude: that gray salt is an essential, not an indulgence. Volume brings down price.)
A wooden packer and glass weights for pickling To go with the gray salt, for someone who might make a few jars of sauerkraut, say, or kimchee, a wooden packer compresses the vegetables and glass weights keep them submerged in the brine. Lehman’s sells an acacia packer for $21.99 and four wide-mouth-jar-size weights for $24.99, plus shipping.
A special ceramic bowl Hanaka Nakazato, who has studios in Karatsu, Japan, and Union, Maine, is a fourteenth-generation potter whose work is meant to be used. (You can read more about her here and especially here.) She doesn’t sell directly, but besides galleries and shops in Japan, her work is sold in the US at Entoten, Covet and Lou, The Good Supply, and Sara Japanese Pottery.
Petrus “Aged Pale” sour ale Perhaps the archetypal Belgian sour ale (not that you would confine yourself to just one) is Petrus “Aged Pale” from Brouwerij De Brabandere, which was originally made only for blending into the brewery’s other beers and never sold on its own. It was the late critic Michael Jackson who prevailed on the brewery to bottle it for his UK and US beer clubs, and as part of the deal the brewery asked him to name it (it has only an English name, no Flemish one). Unlike the red or red-brown “mother” beers you might expect in the region, this one is blond. It’s aged for 24 months in 220-hectoliter oak foeders, but the taste is fresh, as well as deep, rich, and complicated, with a marked but balanced acidity. It’s not for everyone, but some people, including me, truly love it. In the US, where it’s available in certain beer shops, a four-pack of 330-ml bottles is around $15, and a 750 ml-bottle is around $12. ●
