I love me some hot choco­late, yet some­how the thrill of it is so fleet­ing. I don’t think it’s humanly pos­si­ble to con­sume an entire pot and live to tell about it.

Mulling over the morn­ing paper with a toasty mug of hot choco­late, perus­ing mag­a­zines in the after­noon — who am I kid­ding — guz­zling while read­ing the online gos­sip sites is just not that enjoy­able for more than a few sec­onds. Hot choco­late is made for drink­ing; not mulling, lin­ger­ing or sipping.

It’s sad that that such a won­der­ful food item such as bread is rel­e­gated to carbs= bad. I love bread! Not all kinds, just most. I know they are not entirely healthy for me..but every­thing in mod­er­a­tion — even moderation!

Bread sig­nals the begin­ning of a won­der­ful meal with friends or fam­ily, hence, “break­ing the bread.” It is a true sym­bol of hos­pi­tal­ity and good will.

Bread is the per­fect accom­pa­ni­ment to a cap­puc­cino the morn­ings of a beach vaca­tion or before you set off for the day down the Via Veneto.

But I’m not going to wax poetic about breads, I’m here to set the record straight on some con­tro­versy sur­round­ing two of my favorite bread items: Bruschetta and Crois­sants. I choose to cap­i­tal­ize them because they are just that impor­tant to me.

What could pos­si­bly be the issue with these 2 delec­table items? One savory the other sweet? Calo­ries– who cares!  Carbs-pshaw! No my fel­low food­ies– it’s how you pro­nounce them.

There are gen­er­ally 4 schools of thought on insert­ing the regional pro­nun­ci­a­tion of a for­eign word when speak­ing your native tongue; 1– pro­nounc­ing a for­eign word with the regional accent is elit­ist (in a bad — over-educated kind of way), snob­bish and super­fi­cial; 2– pro­nounc­ing it in the angli­cized accent is clumsy and elit­ist (in the –we’re in Amer­ica– speak “Amer­i­can” kind of way): 3– Like to think they don’t care but are aware when peo­ple pro­nounce the oppo­site of what how they do; 4– Self– con­scious either way.

I fall some­where between 2 and 3, mostly 2 if I’m hon­est. There are times I con­tra­dict myself and fall into cat­e­gory 1, but we’ll stick with bread here.

This is the time of year we all need quick, easy and deli­cious recipes that give the illu­sion of culi­nary mas­tery and good taste.

Well, you’ve come to the right place. Not so much for a fine din­ing expe­ri­ence, but if you’re look­ing for delight­ful nib­blies to serve with drinks and more drinks…I’m your Diva.

I won’t over­whelm you with my hors d’oevre artistry all at once,
I will roll out the recipes like exquis­ite pearls of caviar. Too much smeared on a toast point all at once will dull the senses and bruise the caviar, no, I will gen­tly spoon them out in small dollops.

The first is a new dis­cov­ery, For­mag­gio di Capra.
Or…Goat Cheese Log. Boor-ing. Yawn.
How about Goat Cheese Log Rolled in Dried Pome­gran­ate Arils. Yum.

My sis­ter and I were spend­ing the week­end together and decided to catch a quick break­fast at my local bagel place. Who am I kid­ding, there was no other option for break­fast unless we wanted black cof­fee and month old Eng­lish muffins in my kitchen.

I go to said bagel place fairly often and don’t think twice about it. There’s always a line of peo­ple from vary­ing demo­graph­ics; run­ning bud­dies, young fam­i­lies, cof­fee klatches,  pajama clad teens from a slum­ber party etc. Again, I don’t think any­thing about it. My sis­ter actu­ally com­mented about how the econ­omy didn’t seem to be affect­ing the bagel biz. Think­ing more about it, we decided that it was still real­is­tic for a major­ity of peeps to run out for a meal for less than $5.00, spend some time with the neigh­bor­hood folks, even if you didn’t know them, and just hang out.

Is grab­bing some cof­fee and a bagel with a schmear a neces­sity? No.  Yet, way less expen­sive than an evening meal at the local steak­house and more ful­fill­ing than a quick trip through a drive-thru or even eat­ing inside a fast food place.

It got me to think­ing about my busi­ness, La Dolce Diva. Hon­estly, soap is a neces­sity for most peo­ple. Soap wrapped in leop­ard skin paper sell­ing at a local bou­tique is not. One ful­fills a need for per­sonal hygiene, the other pro­vides an expe­ri­ence that sat­is­fies a need to treat our­selves and others..and it also ful­fills the per­sonal hygiene bit. We def­i­nitely fall into the the “lux­ury” category…but an afford­able one.

I think it’s very impor­tant to live within a bud­get and really define the dif­fer­ence between need and want. But don’t make the “want” side of the list the enemy. To quote one of my favorite designers:

If I had 2 euros left to my name, I would spend one on bread the other on flow­ers. One feeds your body, the other feeds your soul ~ Valentino

If there’s one thing in life I hope I never learn it’s the amount of tor­tilla chips I’ve consumed.

After years of study around the world, I think I’ve found the per­fect chip. Light, crispy, just the right amount of salt and oil, able to hold salsa and/or cheese dip eas­ily. Ahhh.

This may sound like a descrip­tion of any chip from Dori­tos to the best Mex­i­can restau­rant chip you’ve ever had. Seman­ti­cally, yes, but to a true tor­tilla chip afi­cionado, these words have a much deeper meaning.

On a good day, the finest chips I’ve had are from Pappasito’s Can­tina, who are also the pur­vey­ors of the finest Mar­gar­i­tas this side of the Rio Grande, but that’s another post.

Typ­i­cally I have 2 favorite super­mar­ket brands of chips, Mis­sion and Santita.

- Mis­sions are a “gourmet” –read expensive-  tor­tilla chip; medium-thick chip, can be heavy, good crunch, oil and salt, about $4.00 a bag.

- San­tita are the best chip for the price; medium-thin crispy chip, slightly dry, slight salt, $2. per bag.

How­ever, today my friends, I will share with you Holy Grail of tor­tilla chips. Restau­rant taste and qual­ity right in your supermarket.

Xochtil, Toto­pos de Maiz (white Corn Chip) by Salsa Xochitl.

Xochitl {so-cheel} was queen of Tol­lan, lived in the 11th cen­tury Mex­ico. She was the daugh­ter of Papantzin, a noble in King Tepacaltzin’s court. Xochitl, whose name means “flower”, is cred­ited with invent­ing pulque, the fer­mented juice of the agave plant, and and an early fore­run­ner of tequila.

I was all set to buy my usual San­ti­tas, when I saw the Xochitl. They were new to my Pub­lix store since the new reset. Being the afore­men­tioned “chip afi­cionado” I felt it my duty to check them out.

I opened them as soon as I got to the car. Manna from heaven. Just like my beloved Pappasito’s chips.

The down­side is that they are not cheap. They are priced up there with the gourmet chip– $3.99– $4.25. But they are worth it.

Don’t waste them on ama­teurs. Save them for your­self, when you can enjoy every last snappy CRUNCH!

DISCLOSURE OF MATERIAL CONNECTION: http://cmp.ly/0

If you’re like me and my BFF, you’re always look­ing for a nice bot­tle of wine to crack open and enjoy in the evening. Not for a spe­cial occa­sion, not for an evening with friends, not to enjoy with a spe­cial meal. No.… just because.

Hav­ing a glass of wine “just because’” really is about enjoy­ing the Sweet Life. Some­thing as small as this is a cel­e­bra­tion in itself. The prob­lem is, most of the time a decent bot­tle of wine is at least $18 — $25 a bot­tle. That’s not a lot when you’re out with friends at a restau­rant, but when you’re at home, that’s not a casual price.

I’ve found the answer — how does $10.99 sound?
Yes, you can truly buy a nice bot­tle of wine for $10.99. To top that off, it comes with a delight­fully charm­ing name and label; Cup­cake Vineyards.

Don’t just take my word for it, The Wine Spec­ta­tor gives the Chardon­nay 88 points.

I’ve tried the Chard and the Cab. Both are very good and I highly rec­om­mend them.

What’s even bet­ter is that you can give this as a nice host/hostess gift and it’s classy and reasonable.

Give it a try — what have you got to lose?

DISCLOSURE OF MATERIAL CONNECTION: http://cmp.ly/0