Matters of Taste

Wake Up and Drink the (Best) Coffee

This week’s Wall Street Journal featured a front-page (Marketplace) story about yet another David taking on the Starbucks Goliath. Italian coffee maker Illy-Caffe, a household word in Italy for decades, has announced plans to join forces with independent cafes across the U.S. in an effort to splash its name around amongst the coffee cognoscenti.

The story in a coffee bean shell: Illy signs an agreement with your favorite local café to provide them with espresso machines, cups, recipes and intensive training. In return, the café agrees to use only Illy Caffe for three years and broadcast that fact to the world via signs, logo gear and patio umbrellas.

 The WSJ muses that Illy’s efforts may seem “odd” given the fact that Starbucks has been closing stores and lowering prices on some drinks. Moreover, “There has also been a surge in lower-priced coffee competition from McDonald’s Corp. and Dunkin’ Brands,” the article continues. “On the other hand, world coffee consumption has been growing for the past five years, partly because young people are drinking more of it outside the home.”

I say hip-hip-hooray for Illy Caffe. I don’t know how successful this move will be from a financial standpoint, but I do know that consumers will be drinking far better coffee because of it. Much as I love the consistency of Starbucks products (a latte is a latte is a latte) and the fact that they provide espresso drinks in cities and towns formerly ruled by cheap drip coffee, I find Starbucks coffee mediocre. Moreover, I’m all in favor of giving local coffee shops and cafes a boost in business, something that, presumably, will happen if they join the Illy program.

I became an Illy fan years ago. Until then, I was a diehard whole bean person, intent of getting beans locally roasted and grinding them myself each morning. I still respect that approach, but I find that Illy produces a better shot of espresso than many locally roasted coffee and upscale purveyors such as Peet's and Tully's. It’s also easier to purchase (available in many supermarkets); and more convenient since you can have an unopened, vacuum-sealed can on hand for emergencies.

And, while we’re on the subject of a cup of joe.

 A few weeks ago, I was sitting at a wobbly sidewalk table in front of Sant' Eustachio Caffe in Rome, just a stone’s throw from the Pantheon. Like the name Illy, Sant' Eustchio is synonymous with coffee-taken-very-seriously. The company has been around since the 1930s and the café has always been wildly popular with locals and savvy tourists alike. (This photo is from a terrific Web site called RonInRome.com...don't leave for Rome without checking it out. In fact, don't drink another cappuccino without reading Ron's primer on the perfect cup of Italian coffee.)

We sat in the warm sunshine of a bright October day and sipped our intoxicatingly fragrant, smooth, intensely flavored cappuccinos and watched the non-stop show that is any Italian piazza. Inside the café, people stood four-deep at the stand-up bar, belting back thimblesful of espresso before hopping onto Vespas and into Smart Cars and zooming away.

While Illy is a vast world-wide operation these days, Sant Eustachio is still more of an artisan affair, with beans roasted in the back of the Rome café, and a far less extensive export operation. Both coffees cost somewhere between $13 and $15 for a can that weighs about 8.5 ounces. Sant’ Eustachio is available from Gustiamo.com, a sophisticated yet user-friendly Web site peddling hand-selected Italian food products. It’s also available at Amazon.com, but shopping at Amazon isn't nearly as delectable an experience as browsing Gustiamo.com.

 

 

 

 

 

 

What I Did on My (Late-Summer) Vacation

 Anyone who looks at the date of my last post might think I’ve been loafing. Not so.

In fact, the last three weeks have been a whirlwind of  eating and drinking, interviewing and reviewing, cooking and cruising (on the Seaborn Spirit), touring (did you know they found 35 bakeries and 82 carbonized loaves of bread in the ruins of Pompeii?), taking classes (including one by Seabourn chef Björn  Wassmuth, whose elegant take on the lemon tart is pictured here), testing recipes, and tasting…everything from seasonal mushrooms, olive oils and quinoa to thirty-minute pasta dishes, Champagne cocktails and inexpensive Merlots from the Friuli-Venezia area

I’ll be sharing all of this and more in the coming days.

 

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That's the Spirit!

Of all the issues that actually get people worked up these days – automaker bail-outs, Adam Lambert, Gitmo, Manny Ramirez – vodka seems one of the silliest. But the liquor that the Wall Street Journal calls “overexposed, overmarketed and overpoured” does seem to lubricate a lively exchange of opinions.

On the one side are the cocktail purists who call vodka “passé.” This contingent asserts that the spirit is inherently flavorless and brings only a boozy wallop to the table. Moreover, they say, the industry has taken one of the cheapest and most easily made liquors and duped consumers into paying big bucks with a highly polished marketing campaign.

On the other side are those folks who can’t seem to get enough of the stuff. Clearly this side is winning the war in terms of numbers: Vodka’s been the leading category of distilled spirits since the ‘90s.  It’s easy to see why vodka aficionados defend their choice. The “Miss Congeniality” of any bar scene, vodka is the ultimate mixer, capable of being teamed with just about any beverage. Moreover, the ladies-who-lurch on “Sex and the City” turned Cosmo-drinking into a high-status sport.

However, there are signs that vodka’s popularity may have peaked. In Food & Wine magazine’s annual drinks book, “Cocktails ’09,” vodka is démodé. Dedicated to showcasing the fashionable quaffs in the country’s bars, the book is a collection of about 150 cocktails designed by top mixologists around the U.S.   Whereas vodka was king in the 2005 book, only ten recipes in the new book call for the spirit. (The book’s available on Amazon.com for $10.) As Wall Street Journal “Drinks” columnist Eric Felton recently said in one of his columns:

“It’s a though there were finally the realization that making cocktails with vodka is like making paella with instant rice – it can be done, of course, but it doesn’t exactly burnish one’s culinary bona fides.”

I’m planted firmly in the “Why waste the calories and the brain cells on something so boring” camp. However, I did discover a flavored vodka recently that deserves a second sip. Van Gogh Pomegranate Vodka is a beautiful, rosy-red liquor with an appealing fresh fruit flavor. Perhaps because the alcohol content is slightly lower than most vodkas (70 percent), the fruity essence seems more pronounced.

 A bit tart, a bit sweet, it’s terrific in a vodka tonic (with lime wedge) or vodka sonic (tonic and club soda) and even better dripped into a glass of sparkling wine (Italian prosecco’s my choice). My mother flipped over the Pomegranate Cosmopolitan that I made her on Mother’s Day.

The Van Gogh PR machine also suggests a PomPom made with pomegranate vodka, POM Wonderful 100% Pomegranate Juice and a splash of water. It’s a bit over the top for my tastes, but it does contain a supposedly healthy dose of the anti-oxidants that deflect cancer, increase blow flow,  and slow prostate cancer. Can’t blame a guy for trying to stay healthy.

Mocha Match: Starbucks 1 -- McJo 0

Please pardon any typos in today’s post.

My fingers are flying over the keyboard. My brain is in overdrive. And my heart is racing.

This morning I set out to single-handedly settle the Starbucks-McDonald’s coffee war.

And now, two hot mochas, two hot lattes, two iced mochas and two iced lattes later, I have an opinion….and a bad case of the shakes.

Most folks who read my blog (or read, past tense, my articles in The San Diego Union-Tribune) know that I’m passionate about coffee and savvy enough to know that Seattle’s Caffe Umbria and Italy’s Illy coffee are the standard bearers. But I’m also pragmatic and I do appreciate Starbucks consistency and ubiquitousness (though I’m not crazy about the bitter, over-roasted taste of  its coffee). 

Like most journalists, I also love, every so often, to act the iconoclast and shake up readers with unexpected opinions.

That’s why when I walked into my local McDonald’s McCafe this morning – face to face with Miss California and “The Donald” on a huge hanging TV screen – I was actually kinda rooting for McJo.

Didn’t happen.

I sipped all the hot coffee drinks side by side, while very hot, and later at room temperature (which is when a coffee’s flavor is actually more pronounced).

Starbucks’ latte had a significantly deeper, more layered flavor than the McDonald’s latte which tasted mostly “dark” and slightly burnt. I felt that the Starbucks coffee had a livelier flavor that “sang” good morning to me, whereas, in comparison, the McDonald’s just half-heartedly nudged me into the day. 

Moreover, I was disappointed in the McDonald’s one-size fits all approach. The large signs proclaiming “Made To Order”  are lying. The chain uses a press-here machine similar to those used in many airports and convenience stores. You want a medium latte, you get it the way the machine wants to make it. Want only one shot of espresso in that instead of two?? Want heavy foam or no foam at all?? Don’t waste your breath.

In addition, the chocolate syrup in the McD mocha is more about sugar than about cocoa flavor and the McDonald’s mocha drink is, indeed, a lot sweeter than the Starbucks version. The whipped cream on the Mickey D comes from a ReddiWip can; Starbucks uses real whipping cream in a canister. Not only can you taste the difference right away, but after a couple minutes the real stuff is still there and the Reddi Wip is but a slimy memory.

The iced versions of latte and mocha were more of the same. Flat flavor and too much sugar in the McDonald’s drinks, decent coffee and chocolate flavor in the Starbucks.

Lastly, a note about value. To all those folks out there thinking that they’ll hit the Golden Arches to save money: Think again. A medium McD latte was $2.89;  a medium (grande) Starbucks latte was $3.25.  There’s even less difference in the prices of iced drinks.

Bottom line: If you’re cruising through the backroads of America, you’ll find the new McDonald’s coffee drinks a lot better than what was there before. But, dollar for dollar,, in an area where you have a choice, Starbucks is the place to satisfy that caffeine craving.

For Cinco de Mayo: A Bold Cold One

There’s not a whole lot of good news coming out of Mexico these days. But with Cinco de Mayo just around the clock, this seems like a good time to toast the country that gave us chocolate, Frida Kahlo and Spring Break, Cancun-style, and to wish it well in coming days.

What better drink to do this than the Michelada, a refreshing brew of blond beer, lime juice and hot sauce.

In a recent Wall Street Journal article, writer Eric Felten declares that this south-of-the-border drink “has yet to really break out…” meaning that New Yorkers haven’t embraced it yet. But in the Southwest it’s a familiar face – served on the rocks in a pint glass at backyard barbecues and beach picnics. And the big boys – Bud and Miller --have already gotten into the act with Budweiser Chelada and Miller Chill.

At its simplest, the Michelada is beer and lime juice in a salt-rimmed glass (photo from the WSJ). But, as Felton says, the drink is in a “state of evolutionary perambulation,” with different regions of Mexico and different bars in, say, San Diego juggling flavors and adding flair.

You can follow the basic recipe here, and spend the extra time on mashing a few avocados. Or you can get crazy and improvise with stuff like Clamato juice, Maggi seasoning, cumin or black pepper, but I’d advise against all such actions.

Felton says he’s partial to using a dark Mexican beer like Negra Modelo because it stands up to the ice cubes better. But I’m in the camp that goes for a lager such as Corona or, my favorite, Dos Equis Green.

THE MICHELADA

12 ounces beer
1 ounce fresh lime juice
2 dashes Worcestershire (in my opinion, optional)
2 dashes Mexico hot sauce (ideally Cholula)

Combine ingredients over ice in a salt-rimmed highball glass or pint glass and stir. Avoid watering down the beer with too much ice or small cubes that melt quickly. For an extra kick, try a mixture of coarse salt and Chef Merito “Salt, Lemon and Chili” seasoning mix (available on supermarket spice racks) on the rim.

Starbucks Hoping for "Instant" Hit

Over the weekend, I walked by the original Starbucks at Pike Place Market here in Seattle. You would have thought that Madonna was barista-of-the-day…or at the very least that they were giving away free Frappuccinos. The sidewalk was jammed with people waiting to get inside and taking photos of each other like they were at the Statue of Liberty or the White House. 

We all know they weren’t there for the coffee.  Even Starbucks fans acknowledge that it’s not a particularly good cup of coffee…slightly burnt tasting and overall, undistinguished. 

In fact, the folks on Pike Place were there for the history, the hype, the joy of hanging out with the Goliath of the caffeine world.

Part of that hype and history these days is store closings and employee layoffs. Part of it is desperation measures designed to attract new customers and hang onto old customers questioning their pricey latte habit
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That’s where the VIA instant coffee comes in.  The buck-a-pop VIA instant coffee.

Talk about a “Hail Mary" pass.

I don’t get why any java connoisseur would settle for instant coffee when A. it takes just a couple minutes to crank up a Mr. Coffee two-cupper or B., on the road, there's likely a coffee shop within a couple blocks. Nor do I understand  why any non java connoisseur would shell out  a buck a packet for something that’s not really going to taste that much better to them than what they’re already drinking at McDonald’s?

(That said, I did find the Italian Roast Extra Bold pretty tasty and will keep a pack in my glove compartment for the very rare occasion that A. or B. is not applicable.)

Last year, when Starbucks’ former chief executive  Howard Schultz re-took the reins, there seemed to be a lot of talk about going back to the basics. I figured that meant focusing on the product that got them into the party…namely coffee.

Instead, a peek into the cases at a Seattle Starbucks this morning revealed an entire menu of breakfast sandwiches, ciabatta “panini,” egg McMuffin-like numbers, even an eggy “wrap” forpetessake.  And oatmeal? Don’t get me wrong. It’s a great alternative to the artery-clogging fast food that’s out there. (OK. So it’s not Irish steel-cut or Bob’s Red Mill Organic. It’s nutritious and, with dried fruit and nuts, very satisfying.)  But is it a fast train out of the doldrums for the Starbucks brand? I doubt it.

I wish Starbucks well. And I will continue to contribute to their bottom line whenever I’m traveling. The presence of Starbucks counters in airports and along the I-70 in Utah and Colorado has brightened up many a travel day for me.

But while I’m in Seattle this week, I’ll luxuriate in the finest espresso and espresso drinks, intoxicatingly fragrant, richly flavored and supremely satisfying… at two of my favorite haunts:

Caffe Umbria on Occidental Avenue near Pioneer Square. An atmospheric café where serious coffee lovers relax and contemplate the picture-perfect latte in front of them. Umbria sells its beans throughout the Northwest. 

And Caffe Migliore on downtown’s Fourth Avenue, a tiny, bright café in a modern office building, where a charming team treats each customer and each drink with great care. "Migliore" is Italian for "best," and that's what I'd call the mocha (made with unsweetened chocolate) and artfully swirled latte that I'm drinking each morning.

A New Look at "Red Hots"

The whiskey and bourbon purists out there are going to howl…but I’m here to tell you that the wacky-sounding “Red Hot” cocktail on the very cool Web site “Playing With Fire And Water” is deee-licious.

First you grind a handful of red hot cinnamon candies in a coffee or spice grinder and spread the crumbs on a large plate. (You can use a food processor but I found that the smaller grinders made a finer “dust.”)

Then, rub the rim of a martini glass with a cut piece of  fresh ginger root. (Or you can squeeze some juice from a chunk of ginger and dip the glass in that.) Dip the glass rim into the pulverized red hot candies.

In a shaker, shake your favorite bourbon (Maker’s Mark, Bulleit, Pappy Van Winkle, whatever) with ice and strain into the glass.

It’s amazing how the flavors play together, and how the ginger and cinnamon bring out the best in the bourbon.

But Playing With Fire and Water doesn’t stop there.

The site also includes a recipe for Ginger Bread Bourbon that involves soaking a hunk of brioche in a glass jar with bourbon, cloves, cinnamon sticks, nutmeg and slices of fresh ginger root.  You let the concoction sit for about three days, then strain it.

Fans of playing with fire (as well as fans of “shots” of all flavors) then proceed to step 2. Rub the rim of a shot glass with a piece of peeled ginger. Dip the rim into the crushed Red Hots.

“Gently warm Ginger Bread Bourbon. Pour into shot glass. Ignite. Don't do anything silly like try to drink it while its on fire.”

With all the freezing temperatures and record snowfalls barreling across the country, I think  these cocktails are just what the weatherman ordered.

Going Bonkers Over Bourbon

When it comes to cocktails these days, bourbon is the star of the show, with restaurants and bars across the country hyping their bourbon fantasies.

***A chic Manhattan made with Pappy Van Winkle Bourbon at Bobby Flay’s Mesa Grill in Las Vegas.

***The “Frick” cocktail at Vessel in Seattle – bourbon, Cinzano Rosso, peach bitters and dried fig.

***An Old-Fashioned made with bacon-infused bourbon, maple syrup and Angostura Bitters at the hip PDT cocktail lounge in New York City’s East Village.

***Maker’s Mark infused with caramelized Turkish figs. At City-Bar in Boston.

But nothing I’ve tasted – and I do try to get around the trendy bars of any city I find myself in -- can beat the "Kentucky Tuxedo" concocted by bartender David Nelson at Spur Gastropub in Seattle. This marriage of Bulleit Bourbon, Sherry, lavender syrup and homemade orange bitters, is smooth and elegant, with a come-hither aroma and layers of flavor.(Photo by Kristin Zwiers for Spur.)

(Bulleit Bourbon was developed by Tom Bulleit in 1987 using the “recipe” of his ancestors who journeyed from new Orleans to Kentucky in 1830. It’s made from “soft limestone water” that’s supposedly found only in the Bluegrass region of the state, corn, barley, malt and rye.)

Bartender Nelson (photo below by Barbie Hull for Spur), who’s been working in restaurants since he started flipping burgers at the age of 15, is a real presence at Spur. Folks gather around the bar to watch him work and talk about his art (which includes hand-making his own bitters and syrups).

His cocktail menu includes such temptations as the Lover’s Lock (Aperol, grapefruit juice and Absinthe), Gentleman’s Lemonade (Gentleman Jack, lemon and honey) and the Cara Carina (Cara Cara (orange-scented) bourbon, Punt e Mes, Chartreuse and blood orange bitters).

Nelson’s passion is part and parcel of the artisanal mixology craze that prizes fresh squeezed seasonal fruit juices, homemade infusions, even housemade mixers like tonic water. And versatile bourbon, a constant presence behind the bar for a couple hundred years, is an ideal fit in drinks that balance classic tastes with newfangled presentations.

By the way, there’s great stuff to eat at Spur, too.  The menu’s Pork Belly Sliders with heirloom apples, mustard and bourbon, are famed in Seattle. The slow-cooked butterfish with fennel and brown butter is very special, too. And I wrote an earlier post about the Sockeye Salmon Crostini that leaves every diner wide-eyed and at a loss for words.

Coming Up:

Now that I’m fixating on bourbon… This weekend, I plan to try a cocktail that I just discovered on a Web site called Playing with Fire and Water. It’s called a “Red Hot” and involves fresh ginger root and pulverized red hot candies. Come back next week for the verdict.

Viognier....Like Whoa!

On Saturday night, I sat at Piatti restaurant in La Jolla Shores, and ordered a glass of Viognier before dinner because I just couldn’t face another under-distinguished, over-oaked Chardonnay.

The wine arrived. I took a sip. And, like whoa…

When was the last time a sip of white wine stopped me mid-sentence, mid-thought? I sniffed and sipped some more. There was something fruity in the nose….Melon maybe? Pear? A whisper of jasmine and orange blossom, too.

And the taste….man, oh man, a sunny garden of apricots, melons, a hint of passion fruit, tangerine, and, again, those pears. But unlike so many fruit bombs, this one had some steeliness and enough acidity to perk up the palate, too.

Some people sit around waxing eloquently about wine all the time. I’m not one of them. That’s what made this experience so much fun.

The dazzler was Renwood Viognier. 2006. Widely available for about 11 bucks a bottle.

Renwood, located in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada Mountains, is best known for its award-winning Zinfandels, most of which cost $30 to $40. The family-run winery opened in 1993, when it produced 2,500 cases. Today it turns out about 100,000 cases, including “proprietary wines,” vineyard-designated wines, and, most recently, the lower-priced Red Label wines.

Viognier, pronounced VEE-ohn-yay, is an ancient grape that until fairly recently, grew pretty much only in France’s Northern Rhone region. In the mid-‘60s, it was almost extinct in France. Today it’s a darling of ABC drinkers (Anything But Chardonnay) and widely (and successfully) cultivated in California, Oregon and Washington, Australia, Italy’s Piedmont region, New Zealand, and even Brazil.

In France, the viognier grape is the only grape allowed in the Rhone wine known as Condrieu.

Guigal is one of the best-known producers; prices in the U.S. generally hover around the $40-a-bottle mark.

Viognier is a charmer, with a surprise in every bottle. Some are lean and crisp, some are big and lush…depending upon where the grapes were grown. Unfortunately, from my personal viewpoint, some are overly high in alcoholic content. The Renwood is a rather modest 13.5 percent, a fact that, for me, adds to its elegance and appeal.

There are many Viogniers out there with pricetags over $25; some of the best of that bunch are said to be Calera, Qupe and Geyser Peak. It’s a bit harder to find treasures in the under-$20 category, but La Crema, Rosenblum and Hogue are highly regarded.

Renwood Viognier seems to me to be a rather unique triumph, delivering so much satisfaction for just 10 or 11 bucks a bottle

If you have a favorite that can give the Renwood a run for its money, I’d like to hear about it.

A Taste of 2009 -- The Fancy Food Show, Part II

It’s a tough job…but someone’s gotta go out there and taste the 80,000-plus specialty food items that will be competing for your precious dollar in 2009.

Here are some of the “best bites” that I found at this week’s 34th Winter Fancy Food Show, held at San Francisco’s Moscone Center. (For an overview of the annual food-fest, please see yesterday’s post, below.)

CHOC-O-LAIT is a swizzle stick with a luscious cube of Belgian chocolate and creamy ganache at one end. Said to be the original way to make hot chocolate (funny, I thought Nestle’s Quik got that honor), the Choc-o-lait is designed to be plunged into a cup of steamed milk, and swirled around ‘til the cube turns the milk into haute cocoa. It comes in four flavors (dark, milk, nut and Cointreau). The elegant cubes are just coming into the American marketplace (from England). You can find them on-line at ChocolateSource.com for about $2 each.

JOSEPH BANKS CASSAVA CHIPS Introduced to the marketplace last summer, these root chips are terrific. Impeccable crisp texture. Excellent vitamin C and fiber profile. Four flavors, including an irresistible “Chilli and Kaffir Lime.” But there are a couple factoids about the chips worth noting. First, they’re cooked in palm oil, which a spokesperson said makes the extreme crispiness possible.  Also, the chips come from Indonesia, a part of the world not particularly known for strict quality control and one with plenty of problems these days. I’m not saying the Indonesia passport would keep me from buying a product…but it seems to me that there might be an equally good product made elsewhere?

B. T. MC ELRATH CHOCOLATE BARS. Brian McElrath, one of my favorite chocolatiers, has “reinterpreted” his best-selling truffles into bars. Unlike the truffles (pictured here), the bars contain no cream and have a longer shelf life. I loved the simple, sublime Salty Dog Chocolate Bar of dark chocolate, toffee bits and salt. Let it melt slowly on your tongue and you’ll be amazed at the many layers of flavor and texture sensation. The Passion Fruit and Tangerine Chocolate bar is delicious, too. The new bars are due in markets and specialty stores on February 16th.

HOT SQUEEZE SWEET HEAT CHIPOTLE SAUCE.  Nothing fancy. Just  a well-made, sweet-smoky-spicy sauce that makes everything taste better. About 7 bucks in such stores as Metropolitan Market, Whole Foods, Krogers and Cost Plus.

 

 

BALSAMIC HONEY VINEGAR is, first off, not really balsamic vinegar, the best of which comes from Italy. Rather, this tasty product is made right here in the US of A by a  fifth-generation family of beekeepers. It’s made from pure honey in the style of balsamic vinegar which involves fermentation and aging in oak among other steps.
I tasted it plain and loved the hint of sweetness and the sassy tang. It’s very smooth, without the “catch” in the throat of other vinegars. It’s available on-line for about $12 (8.5 ounces) at HoneyRidgeFarms.com and at Amazon.com.

BELLA CHI-CHA TORTAS With these layered cheese-and-pesto concoctions on hand in the fridge, impromptu happy hours get a lot happier.  Six flavors are offered including a three-layered affair with fresh basil and sun-dried tomatoes and, my favorite, a gorgonzola wonder with figs, honey and balsamic vinegar.

 

SILVER MOON LIQUEUR-INFUSED ICE CREAM & SORBETS will not be on store shelves until March. I’m planning to be first in line to get another slurp of the Orange Creamsicle ice cream made with crème fraiche, Cointreau and swirls of candied orange peel.  That happened to be my favorite at the show, but I’m not likely to turn down a bowl of Bourbon Vanilla Bean, Lavender Limoncello or Crème de Mint Chip either.

VOSGES BLACK PEARLS are as elegant as classic white pearls on a little black dress. Made by the high-profile Chicago chocolatier Vosges, the Black Pearl Bombolinas are dark chocolate-covered cashews with wasabi and ginger. I also loved the Naga Mango, thin wisps of dried mango dusted with sweet curry and enrobed in 62 percent dark chocolate. They cost about $9 a box at Vosges.com

FIGAMAJIGS. One of the most interesting of the many figgy items on display, these bars are made of ground figs, cocoa, and a  bit of rice flour. They’re delicious, filling and good for you, thanks to a desirable amount of calcium, fiber and minerals in the fruit. Available in four flavors: almond, mint, raspberry and original. They cost about $1.75 each.

HAZELNUT OIL from Pariani. One of the most opulent products at this year’s show, this elegant oil will dress up everything from melon and prosciutto and risotto to fresh peaches, chocolate ice cream and shaved sunchokes. The folks at the Manicaretti (importer) booth couldn’t tell me the price but I’m guessing it will be wildly expensive. Check it out at Manicaretti.com.

FIELD ROAST GRAIN MEAT CO. Doesn’t exactly make your mouth water, does it? But folks who eschew meat as well as those who’d just like to try something different, will be thrilled with the “vegan grain meats” from this Seattle company. I especially liked the coarse texture and bold flavors of the Italian Sausage which is made with eggplant, fennel, garlic and red wine. The Mexican Chipotle (with chilies, garlic, onions, cumin seed and oregano) will make a mighty fine breakfast burrito. Widely available in supermarkets.

MARBLE POP. Economic wobbles notwithstanding, this year’s show featured start-up companies fervently hoping that the marketplace might make room for yet another chip, cheese torte or Chukar cherry. One dramatic example is the Marble Pop, a glass bottle of soda pop that is guaranteed to captivate kiddies and parents alike. Modelled after a popular Japanese soda pop, the bottle has a glass marble embedded in the top, said to be held in place by the carbonation within the bottle. Remove the plastic safety cap. Press it firmly on the marble. The marble pops and drops into the bottle. The soda flows out and the marble rattles around in the bottle. At about 2 bucks a bottle, it’s not going to replace Pepsi or Dr. Pepper. But it might make for fun birthday party entertainment….and it’s cheaper than pony rides! A box of 16 bottles is $32 on Amazon.com.