Walnut

(CHOCOLATE CAKE WITH NUTS AND RAISINS) Here is a chocolate cake that will delight your palate. Use the best bittersweet chocolate you can find!

Pour a chilled dry Gewürztraminer to accompany the salad and offer crusty bread throughout dinner.

Can be prepared in 45 minutes or less.

Can be prepared in 45 minutes or less.

You can start making these savory cookies up to three days ahead. Even easier: Serve the cheese roll with store-bought crackers. (We especially liked this roulade made with a spiced cranberry-apple chutney, but any thick chutney will work.)

Sfratti means "sticks" in Italian, as well as "evicted," for at one time landlords were allowed to persuade unwanted and delinquent tenants to leave by force of a rod. A similar practice was employed to chase away Jews during all-too-frequent periods of expulsion. This nut-filled cookie, a popular Italian Rosh Hashannah treat, got its name from its resemblance to a stick, the Jewish sense of humor transforming an object of persecution into a sweet symbol.

We always had this coffeecake for birthday breakfasts and other special occasions. Even when we lived far away from Maine, the smell brought us back to Bar Harbor.

Terrific with cappuccino or ice-cold milk.

Note that this recipe calls for either walnuts or almonds and either water or crème de cacao. Use the walnuts and ice water for the <epi:recipelink id="102543"">Caramelized Apple and Pear Pie</epi:recipelink>, and the almonds and crème de cacao for the <epi:recipelink id="102544"">Chocolate-Almond Pie</epi:recipelink>.

The best recipe I have for brownies comes from a friend who got it from a magazine article about Katharine Hepburn. It is, apparently, her family's.

Can be prepared in 45 minutes or less.

Can be prepared in 45 minutes or less.

Rugelach are classic cookies in the Jewish culinary repertoire. The surprise ingredient in this version--cottage cheese--makes for tender, rich cookies.

A standard at health food restaurants across the country, carrot cake was ubiquitous in the seventies. Grated carrots made it a nutritious choice, or so the thinking went. This ultra-moist version is updated with a maple icing.