Truffle popcorn

I bring this to you straight from the wine bar where I've been working. You know about bacon fat popcorn--that is, popcorn popped in bacon fat, it tastes wonderfully smoky and you don't even need more salt--and the other night I tried duck fat popcorn. (Verdict: bacon fat was better.)

Truffle popcorn is normally-popped popcorn, tossed with a drizzle of truffle oil (and another of regular olive oil, to round it out) and a dusting of truffle salt.

It smells amazing.

Spice-brined pecans

I adapted this recipe for spice-brined pecans from Food52.

2 cups of raw pecan halves
2 teaspoons of sea salt
½ of a cinnamon stick, broken into 3 or 4 pieces
½ teaspoon ground mace
3 whole cloves
2 pieces of orange peel, each 1” x 3” (I used tangerine peel)

1. Combine 1 ½ cups of boiling water in a glass or ceramic bowl with all of the other ingredients except the pecan halves. Cool to lukewarm, then stir well.
2. Add the nuts and allow them to soak for 6-8 hours.
3. Preheat oven to 150 degrees Fahrenheit.
4. With a slotted spoon, remove the pecans from the brining liquid and spread them on a baking sheet lined with parchment. Remove the whole spices and the orange peel.
5. Roast for 10-12 hours, stirring occasionally.
6. Enjoy!

Notes: my oven only went down to 170, and I was doing this during the week. So my pecans sat in the brine for the better part of a day, then I roasted them in two spurts, one night for five hours and the next night for five hours (I left them in the oven the whole time).

And they were still delish.

Zapp's potato chips

Another local find. Zapp's are made in Louisiana, and guess what--you can't find them in the rest of the country. (Naturally I only like things I can't actually get on a regular basis.)

Their Crawtator chips are my favorite. (No crawfish were involved in the making of these chips--they're covered with a spicy blend of flavorings typically used on seafood, kind of like Old Bay.) But the limited-edition Voodoo chips are a close second.

Whenever I visit my sister in Gulfport, I make sure to stock up on these chips.