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Care for a giant chocolate chip cookie that’s flat and crispy on the edges, but soft, chewy and extremely chocolatey on the inside? I’d say go to Jacques Torres’ Chocolate shop in Brooklyn, but I won’t because, yay—you can make them yourself!

Until now, there were only two chocolate chip cookie recipes I’d ever made in my life. One is the recipe I’ve used pretty much since the day I could hold a wooden spoon—the Betty Crocker chocolate chip cookie recipe that my mom made us throughout our childhood. The other is the Cook’s Illustrated version that I only started making two years ago. Both are delicious in their own right—mom’s Betty Crocker recipe is cakey and somewhat puffy and the CI recipe is extremely chewy and buttery. I love both kinds of cookies, and I’ve never felt the need to try any others.

That is, until now. I didn’t jump on the Jacques Torres/New York Times cookie bandwagon when it was racing through food blogs everywhere last June. I just didn’t want to try the recipe until I had eaten the real deal first. And I got that opportunity on my last trip to New York City in August, when my sister and I tried it in ice cream sandwich form. It was love at first bite. So of course I bought a bag of his chocolate disks so that I could recreate the cookies at home.

These cookies are perfect in every way. They of course taste good, but they also look impressive too. For one thing, they’re the size of your hand when you spread all your fingers out. Then, the sea salt that you sprinkle on top give it that gourmet look. And finally, the cross section of the cookie looks like no chocolate chip cookie I’ve ever seen—as the disks melt while baking, they end up creating a series of chocolate layers. If you love chewy, buttery and chocolatey cookies, you must give this one a go!

[Get the recipe →]

I know… it seems like I did a lot of traveling this summer. Because of the nature of my job, I’m really only allowed to take my vacation days during the summer months (with exceptions here and there, for short three-day weekend trips and such), so I generally try to do the big vacations in the summer.

About a month after we returned from our Mediterranean cruise, I flew to the Big Apple to visit my sister. You may remember the last time I wrote about such a trip—it was basically a weekend of non-stop eating. It was pretty much the same this time.

This post actually starts about two-weeks before the trip to visit my sister, when I headed to NYC on business. It was there for only one night, and thankfully there was no business dinner. So my sister and I headed to Market Table in the West Village, where we started off with Marinated Heirloom Tomatoes with Basil Vinaigrette and some wine. Market Table focuses on Seasonal American food, and our dinner was simply delicious. We also had a fantastic server, which made our meal that much better. For the entree, she had the Grilled Pork Porterhouse with Summer Squash Succotash and Fried Onions and I had the Grilled Arctic Char with Red Flannel Hash, Bacon and Fennel Salad.

When I headed back to NYC two weeks later for a four-day vacation, my sister and I were ready to hit the ground running. We’re both huge morning coffee addicts, and as soon as we roll out of bed, we head out to a nearby grocer/deli, the Garden of Eden Gourmet. Besides the little coffee bar they have, they sell all kinds of produce, shelved goods, pastries and breads. I had to take a shot of this—don’t the breads look so tasty?

For lunch, we made our way to Cafe Habana, a hole-in-the-wall dive specializing in the best Cuban food ever. Actually, I’m not really even sure I could call it a “hole-in-the-wall” or a dive because it’s pretty darned popular and it’s always packed to the gills. Anyway, between the two of us, we shared the restaurant’s Grilled Corn Mexican Style (served with chili powder lime and cheese), Rice, Beans and Spinach Plate and a Cuban Sandwich. Can you see the roast pork, ham and swiss cheese in between the crispy, chewy toasted baguette?

Neither my sister nor I can leave a meal without having something sweet. We headed to Balthazaar Bakery, where we ordered a sliced Pecan Sticky Bun, and munched on it as we window shopped in SoHo. On a totally unrelated note, we are now officially addicted to Sabon, a fabulous soap shop where you can give your hands a mini-spa treatment—exfoliate them with delicious-smelling sugar scrubs, then slather them with thick, creamy lotions, all for free! (They’re of course hoping you’ll buy something you like.)

The great thing about visiting my sister in New York is that we walk everywhere. We rarely take cabs or the metro, so we feel that we’re burning off a lot of the calories that we consume. Which is good, because later that evening, we had plans to visit family in the Jersey suburbs for a BBQ. Of course when you’re with family, you’re always going to OD on good food!

I probably ate a little too much that day, because when I woke up the next morning, I wasn’t feeling too hot. My sister and I walked to Morandi, where we sat outside and she had a yummy-looking poached egg dish. I passed on brunch and instead got a big fat raspberry bran muffin at Birdbath Neighborhood Green Bakery, an eco-frienly, all-organic offshoot of the famed City Bakery.

Right around the corner from Birdbath, we stumbled upon the most precious little cookbook store—a tiny little nook of a place, filled from top to bottom with cookbooks of every kind. Bonnie Slotnik Cookbooks is just what you’d imagine an old-fashioned indepenent bookstore to be. Antique cookbooks from the 1800s, ethnic cookbooks from every corner of the world, etiquette books, housekeeping manuals, little novelty kitchen knick-knacks—things were just spilling from the shelves. But don’t let me give you the wrong picture—it was in no way messy. In fact, Bonnie herself was organizing everything meticulously the morning we walked in. She asked if we needed any help, and we said no, we were just browsing through her wonderful collection of used cookbooks. She was never pushy in any way, even though we stayed in her store thumbing through cookbooks for the better part of an hour. It was just the loveliest way to spend a Saturday morning.

And what about a great way to spend a Saturday evening? We were so excited for our reservations to the famous Momofuku Ssam Bar! Now if you haven’t heard of David Chang’s four-restaurant Momofuku empire… well, you should! He’s been hailed as one of the city’s most innovative chefs, perfecting the art of noodles and elevating pork to whole new level. And yes (as I’m sure you noticed with the Cuban sandwich I ate earlier), I pushed aside the worries meat would have on my sensitive tummy, and dived into deliciousness. If you ever get the chance to dine at Momofuku Ssam Bar, don’t miss the Spicy Pork Sausage and Rice Cakes (with chinese broccoli and crispy shallots). They have the crispiest outer shell, but the chewiest, tender insides. And they pack a kick! It was by far my favorite dish of the night. Others will say the Steamed Pork Buns (with pork belly, hoisin, cucumbers and scallions) are a must—I enjoyed them enough, but to be honest, they were a little too fatty for my tastes.

We also had the Snap Peas (with mint, egg and XO sauce), and the Hawthorne Valley Buttermilk (with fuji apple dashi, honey locust herbs and pine nuts). Both were so innovative and magically delicious. I’ve never had food like what we had at Momofuku, and I’m so glad we went.

Day three started out somewhat dreary, and we were worried it was going to rain. Instead, it was incredibly humid, which wasn’t the best condition for what we had in store. We decided to walk all the way down to the Brooklyn Bridge, walk all the way across it, and head to the Brooklyn Flea market, at its DUMBO location (Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass for those of you who were wondering). We love rummaging around flea markets, antique stores, thrift shops and the like, and we had a blast digging through vintage clothing and jewelry. Our mom would have loved to have been there with us—she is the queen of finding great deals and then flipping them on eBay!

The flea market wasn’t our only stop though. Just a hop, skip and jump away is Jacques Torres Chocolate. If you love chocolate (are there people out there who don’t?), you must visit Jacques Torres. It’s a little pricey, but it’s so worth it. Chocolate covered corn flakes, cheerios, marshmallows and more; thick and creamy hot chocolate; and of course, the famous flat chocolate disks for the famous Chocolate Chip Cookies, which I’m sure will go down in history.

My sister and I dilly dallied in the shop, browsing the goodies and breathing in the delicious chocolate air. But we couldn’t leave without spliting a chocolate chip cookie ice cream sandwich. What makes these ice cream sandwiches so delicious is definitely the cookie—it’s flat and crispy on the edges, but chewy in the middle. And because the chips in the cookies are really disks, when they bake and melt, the disks create layers of chocolate instead of chunks. Can you see chocolate strata in the picture?

That ends my blog entry about the NYC trip of 2009. The next day we laid low, and had dinner at Cafe Mogador, a fantastic Moroccan restaurant in the East Village. We completely overdosed on hummus, baba ghanoush, falafel and a chicken tagine. It was the perfect ending to a perfect weekend!

Three months after our Mediterranean cruise, I give you the last installment of our two-week vacation: Istanbul, Turkey. Spain, Italy and Greece were wonderful, but the place I was most excited to visit during our cruise was Turkey. I have a slight obsession with Middle Eastern food and culture, and was so looking forward to spending time in Istanbul. And I have to say, the city did not disappoint. We had a fantastic time there and it’s definitely some place we’d like to return to for a longer stay.

In two days we were docked in Istanbul, we visited the Basilica Cistern, the Blue Mosque, Hagia Sophia, Topkapi Palace and, of course, the Grand Bazaar. Two days was certainly not enough time to really get to see the city the way we would have liked to, but we are so glad we at least had the opportunity to visit. It’s always been a dream of mine to visit a Muslim country, and I thought Turkey was so beautiful. The mosques were simply breathtaking. From the outside, they were stunning, with the minarets pointing into the sky. But it wasn’t until we stepped inside that we experienced the true beauty. The Blue Mosque  in particular (above) was an almost cavernous-like space, with thousands of handmade ceramic tiles and hundreds of stained glass windows.

Hagia Sophia (below) was equally as awesome. Initially built as a church in the 1st century AD, it was converted into a mosque in the 1400s. It too had amazingly high ceilings, but otherwise, it was very different from the inside of the Blue Mosque. Everything had a bronze-gold hue to it. I think the most interesting part of the inside of Hagia Sophia were the disks inscribed in Arabic. I was just fascinated by their beauty.

We heard that you could get lost in the maze that is the Grand Bazaar, and we’re here to tell you, it’s true! It’s so easy to turn one corner, and then another, and then have absolutely no idea where you are. I loved getting lost in winding alleys filled with textiles, lamps, ceramicware, jewelry, leather goods and more. I ended up leaving with a beautiful silk pashmina and a lovely set of two ceramic bowls.

We came this close to purchasing an authentic Turkish rug. B and I both thought that despite the hefty price tag, it would be a lovely investment for our home. After humming and hawing and negotiating the price, we ended up walking away from a beautiful burgundy wool and silk-mix rug, because I just couldn’t get myself to spend that much money. In some ways I regret not buying it, because who knows when we’ll get that opportunity again?

For dinner the night we were in Istanbul, we ate at an amazing banquet, filled with the most delicious Turkish cuisine ever. I loved it because there were so many vegetarian options: biber dolma (stuffed peppers), yaprak dolma (stuffed grape leaves), patlican dolma (stuffed eggplant) and a lentil salad were just some of the things we feasted on.

Of course, I couldn’t bypass the sweets table. Unfortunately, they weren’t as tasty as I had expected them to be. I did take a smidgen of everything on the table—and I do mean everything—but some things I just didn’t finish. My favorites were the little honey-soaked cakes (maybe a semolina pudding?) and a berry-filled spongy cake. Does anyone know what they might have been?

And finally, the world-famous loukoum, or Turkish Delight: a chewy, jelly-like confection dusted in confectioner’s sugar. My favorite is the kind containing pistachios—in fact, we bought four boxes to share with family when we returned home.

Sadly, that ends my four-part blog series on our amazing summer vacation. We had such a wonderful time, and I hope that one day, we’ll be able to return to some of the places we visited!

Other stops on our Mediterranean cruise:

• Barcelona, Spain
• Taormina, Sicily
• Athens and Santorini, Greece (We went to Greece last year too, and ate so many yummy things!)

If there is anything I always have in my refrigerator, it’s Fuji apples. I love how sweet and crisp they are. So I was excited to see that Dorie suggested them for her flaky apple turnovers. It’s not often that you see a sweet variety of apple as the star of a pastry-enveloped treat. Usually, pies and such call for tart apples… which I can’t stand.

But while the apples were stellar, alas, my flaky apple turnovers were not. Actually, I take that back: They were delicious… but in a crumbly-pie-crust sort of way. They were not flaky.

I did have a lot of trouble with the dough. It never really came together for me. And rolling it out was another mess. By the time I’d gotten the dough cut into circles with my cookie cutter, the butter got pretty soft—and I know that soft butter is not good if you want a flaky crust. Then I couldn’t fold the dough over the apples, so instead, I just put another circle of dough on top of the apples and pinched the sides. What should have been a beautiful, light and flaky apple treat ended up being a heavy, apple-filled hand pie.

Oh well. Another Dorie fail for me, *sigh*. That’s OK though—B, my sweet little garbage disposal, said he liked them!

Thanks to Julie of Someone’s in the Kitchen, who picked this recipe this week. Sorry I didn’t do them justice! If you’d like to try your hand at Dorie’s Flaky Apple Turnovers, the original recipe is below!

[Get the recipe →]

It’s almost fall, and I still haven’t posted about all the amazing ports of call we stopped at during our two-week Mediterranean cruise earlier this summer. One of the places we were most excited to visit—or revisit, I guess I should say—was Greece. B and I gorged on great Greek food when we vacationed there last summer, and we were thrilled to be headed back—almost exactly a year ago to the day.

In Athens, we skipped the Acropolis, since we already toured it last year. But did visit the newly opened Acropolis Museum—more on that later. First, we took the Metro from the Port of Piraeus and headed back to the Athens Central Market, where B and I walked through a maze of raw meat, poultry and seafood. Very gross and very stinky, but also really fascinating.

We’d only been at the market for an hour when B complained that he simply had to have a gyro before he passed out. I’m not exaggerating when I say that B has dreamed about authentic Greek gyros almost every single day since our vacation in Greece last year. We’ve eaten in Chicago’s Greektown many times since then, and none of the restaurants or dives make a gyro even remotely close to the ones he had in Greece.

So… we headed to the Monastiraki Flea Market to find a gyro for him. I remembered the exact location of a place we ate at last year. He wolfed this giant gyro down in just minutes… even though it was only 10 in the morning.

Next stop in Athens was the new Acropolis Museum, which we had wanted to see last year but couldn’t, because they kept postponing the grand opening date. The Acropolis Museum finally ended up opening to the public just a few days before we arrived this year, and they were running an admission special—only 1 Euro to get in! The museum was fascinating—it houses every artifact found on the Acropolis and the building itself is stands above ancient ruins, which you can see through a glass floor. Very cool.

At about 1pm, I was starting to get hungry myself. The summer sun in Athens can be brutal, so again, we opted for a restaurant we visited last year, where you sit outside under a canopy of trees and fans blow mist at you. It was lovely to catch a break, people watch and eat great food. I myself was dying to have a Greek salad. I know Greek salads seem easy to put together, but believe me when I say you’ll never find a better Greek salad than the ones you find in Greece. The Greek salads in Greece have only bell peppers, red onions, cucumbers, tomatoes, Kalamata olives and a fat slab of feta, sprinkled with oregano and drizzled with olive oil. There’s no lettuce, no capers, no chickpeas, no nothing else. And even though all Greek restaurants automatically serve you bread, and then charge you for it, nothing beats a true Greek salad with a lovely hunk of carb on a very hot day. Yum.

Although it had only been three hours since he ate that ginormous gyro, B ordered a chicken souvlaki. As I said, he really missed authentic Greek food.

And if you really don’t believe me, take a look at this photo. Taken about two hours after eating his chicken souvlaki, we found ourselves back at the same gyro stand in the Monastiraki Flea Market. We had to hurry back to our cruise ship before it left the port, and he wanted to make sure he got his fill of gyros… even though we’d be in Santorini a few days later (where he again ate gyros, oye)!

Finally, I leave you with this photograph of one of the most beautiful, peaceful and magical places on earth. A few days after we left Athens, our cruise ship stopped in Santorini. We hiked the caldera again—but this time, we hiked only the 6.5-mile path from the port town of Fira to Oia, on the northern tip of the island, instead of the round-trip hike. It was lovely, just as we remembered it. I wish I could say when we’d be there again. Hopefully once more in our lifetimes…

Other stops on our Mediterranean cruise:

• Barcelona, Spain
• Taormina, Sicily
• Istanbul, Turkey