A wonderful bit of chocolatey deliciousness in a buttery pie crust

Over the 20-plus years we’ve been making it, Chocolate Chess Pie has quietly become a big favorite here at the Bakehouse. As the New York Times wrote a few years back, chocolate chess pie is “the perfect move for a gathering where some people want pie, some want chocolate and everyone wants something sweet.” Closer to home, it’s one of longtime Bakeshop manager Jake Emberling’s favorites (out of the hundreds of terrific treats we make regularly)!

The original recipes for chess pie call for lemon—what I imagine as essentially a “lemon curd” pie—and appear in the English author Hannah Glasse’s The Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy from 1747. The history of chocolate chess pie is far shorter, since chocolate came into popular use in cooking and everyday eating only towards the latter part of the 19th century. Most likely, it would date to the early years of the 20th century. Which means that while Marie Curie was winning Nobel Prizes, some far less famous, and actually anonymous, American bakers began putting a chocolate custard into their pie shells in place of the more typical lemon. And the rest is culinary history! I’m not sure it’s Deep Understanding, but it is definitely delicious!

Our Chocolate Chess Pie is a rich and creamy baked chocolate custard in an all-butter crust. We use a very special local dark chocolate from Mindo Chocolate Makers in Dexter, Michigan that takes this pie over the top. It’s been described by some as “a brownie in a pie shell” and it’s definitely a staff favorite. I like to top it with toasted walnuts or hazelnuts. Great with a big dollop of homemade whipped cream. And/or you could gild the lily by serving a small scoop of chocolate or vanilla gelato on the side. Better still, adopt the Vermont tradition of pie for breakfast and start your day with it! However you eat it, it’s luscious, creamy, sweet, and wonderfully chocolatey!

Pick up pies

P.S. Looking ahead, Lemon Chess Pie will be emerging from Bakehouse ovens in January, just after the start of the new year—a great way to brighten a winter day!

Soft hazelnut meringue and a whole bunch of buttercream

One of the planet’s premier pastry makers and baking book writers, the Paris-based American David Lebowitz offered, “Yes, marjolaine is a project, but worth it!” He’s writing, of course, about making marjolaine at home. Happily, for folks like me who like the idea of marjolaine but have enough other, not-related-to-pastry projects on our daily dockets, the crew at the Bakehouse has done all the work for us. The only project we need to undertake is to plan a drive over to Plaza Drive this month and purchase as much marjolaine as we want. Single slices work well for an individual dessert or an afternoon pick-me-up; whole tortes are terrific for family gatherings, office parties, or pastry-loving football fans. It also lasts really well!

In mid-September of 1987, the author of A Food Lover’s Guide to France—a book that influenced me enormously back when I was working in the early years of the Deli—Patricia Wells wrote a piece about the party she threw at her Provencal farmhouse for her 40th birthday. The dessert she chose was, as you’ll have guessed, marjolaine: “a marvelous, multilayered chocolate cake that, thank goodness, tastes best when aged for two or three days.”

Writing for Epicurious, Genevieve Yam liberally sings the praises of the magical marjolaine. In a piece entitled, “This Classic French Cake Tastes Like the World’s Best Candy Bar,” Yam writes:

The majestic marjolaine—beloved by chefs all over … ask any chef who is well-versed in classical French cuisine and it’s likely they’ll start going on and on about how delicious this layered dessert is. The marjolaine … was created by celebrated French chef Fernand Point. During its heyday in the 1930s, Point’s restaurant La Pyramide, located in Vienne, France, was a culinary temple for many—including famed chefs Paul Bocuse and the Troisgros brothers.

Thomas Keller, of French Laundry fame, says the marjolaine torte is “a cross between a cake and a meringue, one that’s creamy, with a slight crunch, both chewy and cakelike, fully flavored … All those components in one bite.” Co-managing partner at the Bakehouse (and co-author of the widely acclaimed Celebrate Every Day) shares that it’s one of her long-time favorites.

Here at the Bakehouse, we make our Marjolaine Torte by alternating layers of a lovely soft, hazelnut meringue with a rich chocolate Swiss buttercream. The cake is iced with espresso-scented Swiss buttercream and then covered on the sides with a whole bunch of chopped toasted hazelnuts. It really is a uniquely magical combination of flavors and textures!

The Marjolaine Torte is terrific as is. Be sure to let it come to room temperature so that you can access its fine full complex flavors. If you want to gild the marjolaine’s magical chocolate-hazelnut-meringue marvelousness, consider putting a smear of the lovely Noccioliva Italian artisan hazelnut chocolate spread on the plate—we have jars of it for sale at the Coffee Company, Deli, and Roadhouse! Or try it with some of the Georgia Grinders Hazelnut Butter smeared across the plate and put the torte on top!

Preorder one for pick up

Amazing artisan offering from the Italian Dolomites at the Deli

One of my favorites from the many great vinegars we have at the Deli is probably among the least known. It’s not that surprising—very few folks walk around Ann Arbor, angsting that they haven’t been able to score some quince vinegar. If I can convince enough vinegar lovers to try this one though, that could all change! This exceptional naturally converted, barrel-aged quince vinegar from northern Italy is something truly special!

Food writer Faith Durand wrote, “Quince is a tough fruit, not well known, and often hard to come by. But it has the most amazing, sweet, and secret reward.” This vinegar is one of the best ways I know to access that reward, one that takes no work at all on our end. The labor that goes into this is all done in northern Italy, in the region of the Alto Adige by the folks at the acetaia (vinegar maker) Pojer e Sandri. I think all of their vinegars are amazing, but I can’t seem to get this quince vinegar out of my mind over the last few months. Or off our counter at home. There’s something so elegant, so exceptional, so light, but still so lovely, about it that I’ve been putting it on pretty much every salad I make of late.

Fiorentino Pojer and Marco Sandri have been making vinegar in the Trentino region of Italy since the mid-’70s. They do what they do with dignity for their raw materials, the region they come from, their products, and the people they work with. For their wine vinegar, they use the not-well-known, but really wonderful regional varietal grapes. Their fruit vinegars—like this one—are made solely from fruit. Most ‘fruit vinegars’ on the market are made by mixing wine vinegar with fruit extract. But as Michael Harlan Turkell wrote in his terrific book, Acid Trip, “The best vinegars are made from the best ingredients.” In that spirit, Pojer e Sandri uses local fruit to make fruit wine, the way it’s been done for centuries, then converts that over a period of 18-24 months to vinegar using old-style, natural-conversion methods. The juice is placed in oak, cherry, or acacia barrels to acetify for up to 2 years before bottling.

Rolando Beramendi, friend and importer of amazing artisan Italian foods (of which Rustichella pasta is probably the most famous) for almost 40 years now, shared this from his apartment in Florence:

I can’t think of a better vinegar to welcome Autumn than quince vinegar… especially splashed all over the Thanksgiving turkey! I used it last week when I taught a cooking class for a group of wonderful people I co-hosted with our wonderful mutual friend Miss E! (Elizabeth Minchilli!) I used it in making the recipe in my book Autentico “Cipolline in Agrodolce” Sweet and Sour Cipolline (Page 302). I’ve been using the quince vinegar instead of white wine vinegar because I think it gives it another dimension… sweeter, softer, gentler, and a flavor that not many people are familiar with. 

I think the vinegar is especially perfect for everything with onions! I love it on stewed caramelized onions, on a simple onion salad. I love it on even pork roast, a drizzle before serving it! It tones down the acidity and it’s not a sweet stupor as balsamic does, especially the ones used in salads. The other day I made a nice mixed green salad and used Fuji persimmons sliced very thin. I cut the persimmons thin and then marinate them in the quince vinegar, a touch of great olive oil, and salt and pepper… delish! I have also sneaked a few drops on crema gelato… YUM!

The quince vinegar has been very good on every sort of salad I’ve tried it on, and is particularly wonderful with blue cheese or walnuts. It’s super nice as a deglaze for scallops. A little bit sprinkled into a bean salad adds a bit of brightness and sweetness. It also enlivens any apple pie, salad dressing, or fruit salad. In fact, I’ve been sipping it a fair bit straight from the bottle—it’s that good!

Bag your bottle

A rare treat pops up at the Deli

One of the Deli’s most delicious treasures comes in a modest, two-inch-tall jar—so unassuming that most people are likely to walk right past it. Still, there it sits on the retail shelves, a short, squat little glass bottle, holding some of the most incredible roasted peppers you’ll find anywhere. If you’re like 99.7 percent of Americans who haven’t yet tasted Cristal (pronounced “kree-STAHL”) peppers from Spain’s Basque Country, consider this your invitation to explore. If you enjoy roasted peppers even a fraction as much as I do, it’s worth it to treat yourself to these deep, dark-red jewels. They’re a special treat that might just elevate your day. I’ve been known to finish off the entire jar in one sitting!

Oddly enough, I actually discovered these for the first time about 25 years ago when I was in, of all places, Australia. I’d never heard of Cristal peppers, even though we’d been buying from the supplier for something like years! Piquillo peppers had become pretty popular but I’d no idea that Cristals existed. Even in Spain, the Cristals are hard to come by.

Although they come from the same area (Navarre), the Cristal is a completely different pepper from the Piquillo. In their fresh state, the Cristal peppers are actually larger, with four little bumpy points up at the top. After being picked each autumn, they’re roasted over beechwood as they have been for many centuries. “Everyone makes Piquillos,” one local told me. “But only a few do the Cristals.” Their high cost is, not surprisingly, tied to the rarity of the pepper, and even more especially so, to the labor involved in preparing them. “When it’s roasted the flesh is so thin it’s like paper,” my source said. “We use tiny little knives to scrape the skins off.” And it’s a lot of scraping—each little jar contains an entire kilo (over two pounds!) of raw red peppers.

To get to the heart of the matter, the Cristals are super rich and delicious. When you take one or two out of the jar to eat, the rest look a bit like a deep red rose in a bottle. I like to empty the bottle into a white bowl (the better to appreciate their color), sprinkle on a pinch of fleur de sel and some great black pepper, and drizzle a bit of olive oil. Try it with Marqués de Valdueza oil from further west in Spain, or with some of that inspiringly good Navarino Icons oil I wrote about last week from the southwest of Greece. Put them on slices of toasted Farm bread if you like. Or add them to softly scrambled eggs. They are great with the Detroit St. Brick cheese that the Creamery crafts so carefully. That’s it. You could also just eat them right out of the jar with a loaf of warm Paesano bread alongside to tear pieces off of. They’re smoky, rich, and buttery. Something special to grace any table.

Pop open some Cristal (peppers)

Newly Arrived Olive Oil from Western Greece

Captain Vassilis Constantakopoulos was born in 1935 in the small village Diavolitsi in Messenia in the southwest of Greece—due north of the town of Kalamata, and due east of the island of Sicily that I wrote about last week. As a young man, he was forced to flee the village for Athens during the Greek Civil War in the late 1940s. From the port of Piraeus in Athens, he went out to sea for the first time at the age of 13. Constantakopoulos quickly fell in love with the ocean. He went on to become a leading Greek businessman, most of his work centering around shipping, sailing, and the seacoast. Navarino was one of the capstones of his long and creative career. It’s the leading sustainable resort on the Mediterranean. That commitment to the environment is at the center of their work. They reduced carbon emissions by 80% between 2019 and 2022 and they devote almost 10% of their annual spending to making ecological improvements in all facets of the work.

The Navarino Icons segment of their work is very aligned with our longtime focus here at Zingerman’s on full-flavored and traditional foods. Offering, as they say, “Authentic food products inspired by the culinary history of the Peloponnese region” they are true to Captain Constantakopoulos’ hope to honor the kind of simple and delicious country dishes he grew up on. All are made using regional recipes and local ingredients. We’ve carried many of their products over the years, and each has been excellent.

Last month, we scored some of their limited-edition, single-estate extra virgin olive oil. It’s made from the beloved, native-to-Greece, Koroneiki olives. The trees are farmed organically, without any chemicals. All the olives are hand-picked, which is super labor-intensive and very costly but makes for exceptional oil. They are then pressed within two hours at a local mill—the impressively short time between the tree and pressing is a significant contributor to keeping the oil’s quality so high. The flavor is fantastic. Big, bold, and peppery, but not overpowering. I’m impressed anew each time I eat it.

Our wonderful longtime importer, Vivianna Karamanis of Hellenic Imports, is the one who makes it possible for us to get this special oil. She shared that “the project has hired the local community and the local, family producers, giving them work and building a community and almost like a security for them by packaging and selling these great traditional foods.”

The oil is terrific on toast, and great on the many autumn salad greens at the market right now. I used it the other evening to finish a dish of Mancini spaghetti, sautéed radish greens, and Fishwife anchovies. I added a bit of the IASA pepperoncino as well! Great on sautéed fresh fish—swordfish is still in season, and would be fantastic. It would be great, as well, in my friend Aglaia Kremezi’s classic Potato and Olive stew.

Nab your Navarino

Spend a week eating and drinking with us in the Mediterranean

You might not want to tell the owner of X, but the Colombian author Gabriel Garcìa Màrquez (who won the Nobel Prize the year we opened the Deli in 1982) once said, “Going to Sicily is better than going to the moon.” For a whole lot less than one would need to spend to score a seat on SpaceX, you can spend a week in Sicily next spring with Zingerman’s Food Tours (ZFT). While you won’t be able to see the whole planet from Palermo, you will see some truly exceptional sights that I’m pretty sure you’ll remember for the rest of your life. And, while I won’t suggest that a visit to the moon wouldn’t be memorable, I feel completely confident saying that the food and drink on the Zingerman’s Food Tour will be way, way, way better than what they serve in outer space! So good, I suppose, you could even say it will be out of this world!

Many 21st-century people mistakenly form their understandings of travel destinations based on the political construct within which those places are currently a formal part. Far more often than not that leads to false assumptions and missed opportunities. A deeper study of history, though, gives a more accurate picture, greater cultural and culinary understandings, and amazing experiences. As one example, French Catalonia, from whence the Banyuls vinegar hails, has alternatively been part of various Spanish and French kingdoms over the centuries, and, for a time, was also an independent principality. Sicily is certainly one of those places as well. While the island is currently part of the same political construct as Rome, Milan, and Florence, the reality is that for far longer it was, proudly, just itself. In fact, the Kingdom of Sicily existed for over six centuries up until 1860, three times longer than Sicily has been one of the regions of Italy.

When one mentally detaches Sicily from the rest of the Italian boot, it can be understood in a wonderfully different way. Having been to the region more than a few times, I think about it as part of a magical culinary triangle—Tunisia to the south, southern Greece to the east. Sicily a bit off center left to the north. Sicily, in that setting, brings together significant influences from North Africa and Greece; Arabs and Europeans; Christianity, Islam, and Judaism. It has olive oil, wine, honey, exceptional produce, and amazing almonds. It has pasta shapes and styles not found anywhere else in Italy. British historian Vincent Cronin called Sicily “an island lying outside time, where past events endure in an external present, a beach on which the tides of successive civilizations have heaped in disorder their assorted treasure.” In my own experience, it’s a magical, one-of-a-kind place with out-of-the-way gems and hidden culinary jewels. Exactly the sort of place that’s ideally suited to spending a week on Zingerman’s Food Tour.

The ZFT trip to Sicily this spring starts the week of U of M’s graduation. If you aren’t going to the commencement, then consider taking this beyond-terrific trip. The tour is six days and focuses on the eastern side of the island of Sicily. Visit amazing restaurants, learn from incredible home cooks, sip at wonderful wineries, commune with the culture, the history, and how to cook the food! Some of the highlights include:

• A visit to the amazing artisanal chocolate producer Antica Dolceria Bonajuto. If you want to experience what chocolate making in Europe would have been like four hundred years ago, this is the place to do it. And the chocolate is terrific!
• An amazing lunch all built around Bonajuto’s artisan chocolate.
• A visit to Taormina, the ancient city founded by the Greeks but with the influence of Romans, Normans, Arabs, and more.
• Visit the remarkable volcanic Mount Etna.
• Partake in the bounty of the fertile plains of volcanic soils—grapes, vegetable fields, and pistachios spread out from the slopes of Mount Etna.

As you consider whether or not to go, I’ll remind you of what Johann Wolfgang von Goethe said nearly two hundred years ago,

To have seen Italy without having seen Sicily is not to have seen Italy at all, for Sicily is the clue to everything. The purity of the contours, the softness of everything, the exchange of soft colors, the harmonious unity of the sky with the sea and the sea to the land … who saw them once, shall possess them for a lifetime.

Save your seat to Sicily