Flavor

Looking for something a little more calorie-conscious? Let's revisit flavored popcorn. You'll find that these recipes for chile-flavored popcorn and rosemary-Parmigiano popcorn make for quick, health-conscious gifts and snacks. RECIPES: 25 homemade holiday gift ideas! Flavored popcorn is just one way to get crafty this holiday season with homemade gifts from the kitchen. We've compiled 25 great ideas, ranging from quick and simple gifts (perfect if you're working with kids)

Dear SOS: A while ago, on a visit to Cleveland, our son took us to eat and drink at the Market Garden Brewery. I believe it is near the interesting Garden Market on the near west side of Cleveland. I ordered the sweet potato pie. It was out of this world! I was glad I had eaten lightly before devouring it. Ruth L. Brown Los Angeles -- Dear Ruth: This is no ordinary sweet potato pie. Creamy mashed sweet potatoes are lightly spiced with nutmeg, cinnamon and vanilla paste, and sweetened with a touch of honey, sugar and muscovado brown sugar -- a rich, dark, unfiltered brown sugar -- for a wonderful medley of flavors.

If you're a vodka purest, you might want to look away. Whether sipped or shot back, the clear liquor is prized for its lack of odor or flavor. The world's most expensive vodka brands boast multiple distillations for a clean, unadulterated product. So where does iced-cake flavored vodka fit in? Fruit-flavored vodkas have been on the market for years, but there's a whole world of odd varieties available for every conceivable palate. Here are 10 of the wackiest vodka flavors around (in no particular order)

Dear SOS: On our anniversary we had dinner at Flavor del Mar in San Diego County. I had an amazing butternut squash soup. I asked our waiter what the spices were. He said the chef did not give out information and recipes. I am wondering whether you can get me the recipe. I have tried various ones and cannot duplicate the flavors. My mouth waters just thinking about the soup. Lynn Whitehouse San Diego Dear Lynn: A perfect fall dish, roasted butternut squash is combined with onion and garlic and finished with rich cream in this soup, a touch of fragrant nutmeg and cinnamon rounding out the flavors.

Long before the marketing folks decided to rebrand prunes as dried plums, they renamed Jerusalem artichokes "sunchokes" with somewhat more success. It's no wonder that consumers adapted easily: These tubers don't really resemble artichokes, and they're native to North America, not the Middle East. They look more like raw ginger than anything else. Whatever you call them, Jerusalem artichokes have a crisp texture and a mildly sweet flavor (a better alternative name is "earth apple")

As with toasting spices and nuts , toasting grains before cooking can enhance the nutty depth of the grains, lending an extra layer of flavor to a final dish. Toast grains in a dry saucepan over moderate heat, just until they become aromatic and color a little. Rice can be toasted in a dry pan, or sauteed with butter and a little flavoring before the liquid is added to cook (as with risotto). If cooking a large batch, you can toast grains in the oven. Spread them out on a sheet pan and toast at 350 degrees just until aromatic, 5 to 7 minutes depending on the heat and quantity of grains.

Here's the problem: "I'm a wine lover," says Hans Reisetbauer, spreading his hands for emphasis. But he was unlucky enough to be raised in upper Austria, too far north to grow grapes. The son of a farmer, at school he studied agriculture, but normal farming, like wheat or corn, didn't interest him much. So when Reisetbauer took over the family farm, he thought he'd try planting some old varieties of apple trees and selling the fruit. Bad timing: In 1993, his first harvest, the apple crop in Austria was huge and prices were paltry.

When the Stokes Purple sweet potato shows up in markets next week, it's hard to say what will be more intriguing: its look, with dramatically deep purple skin and flesh, its flavor or the mystery of its origins. It was discovered in the United States by Mike Sizemore, 61, who grew up on a farm in North Carolina, the nation's largest sweet potato-producing state. He said in a phone interview, speaking in a delicious Southern drawl, that he worked for 30 years catching car thieves for the state government before retiring in 2003.

What makes a tomato taste good … or taste blah? Scientists have a lot still to learn about this, but they've made inroads. They know that sugar matters. They know that acidity matters. Recently, a group of scientists at the University of Florida identified another factor:  chemicals called volatile acetate esters. In a study of nearly 100 heirloom tomatoes, the higher the level of these chemicals in the fruit, the less people like them. Volatile esters are chemicals that impart fruity flavors: Bananas get their signature aroma from a type of volatile ester, as do apples.  Green tomatoes have lots of these esters.

Yeah, yeah, I know -- Brussels sprouts? Some vegetables are magnets for abuse, and the Brussels sprout is certainly one of the kings of that. But given proper respect, it is one of the finest of the cool-weather vegetables. Cooked properly, Brussels sprouts have all the delicate sweetness of great cabbage, but with a more complex vegetable flavor as well. If you really want to stun people, use them as a centerpiece--they come dozens to a single thick stalk, looking like a vegetable from Mars.