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3 things we're loving this week:
1. Food for Design's novel and visually intuitive FOODPAIRING website. Displaying relationships among and between foods on spidery, cladogram-like starbursts, the site offers new ways of thinking about ingredients. We have used the site to create a few wonderful dishes we never would have considered before: a dill and sambuca aioli crab salad, and a roasted cauliflower side dish made even better with crushed, roasted almonds.
2. Icelandic chocolate from Noi Sirius (sold domestically at Whole Foods Markets). We have written about excellent Icelandic candies before, so we knew the little island nation made some great sweets, but Noi Sirius's premium bar chocolate–available in milk and dark–surprised us with its ultra-smooth, grain-free texture. It also makes some of the best chocolate frosting we have eaten…and it's not too bad for snacking.
3. Miolo Vineyard's 2006 Pinot Noir, probably the best $10 bottle of red wine you'll buy this year. And it won't be that inexpensive for long–this fruity, moderately tannic red is only a bargain because of its provenance. Winemakers from the Vale dos Vinhedos have applied the hard-earned South American viticultural wisdom of the past three decades and have quietly started producing some stellar wines. Sure, Brazil might not be the first country you think of when you shop for a pinot noir, but if the country keeps producing wines with this kind of structured acidity and balance, Napa and the Yarra Valley might have some stiff competition in the New World.
