It has been a while since I’ve posted on this sad and neglected site and what better way to resume than with the best darn cookies in Manhattan! Heck, let’s just go for the gold and call them the best darn cookies I’ve ever tasted (sorry, Mom)!

And speaking of the best, I have a hard time labeling anything “the best.” Unequivocally once something is branded the best, a host of “the better” crop up. I should know. I’m a hard-core judgmental eater: never fully satisfied and always on the prowl for the Holy Grail of eating.

Without a doubt, however, I have never ever tasted a more perfect cookie than those made by Levain Bakery on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. I stand by my bold statement (and feel free to play devil’s advocate). My cookie monster husband and I both agree- Levain makes the most bang-up cookie in town.

Each cookie weighs a whooping six ounces. Though their choices of chocolate chip walnut, oatmeal raisin, dark chocolate peanut butter chip and dark chocolate chocolate chip seem limited, once you take a bite out of any one of them, you will crave anything but diversity. My Achilles heel is the dark chocolate peanut butter chip but all varieties leave their competition in the dust. Each are perfectly chunky mini-mountains of dough, slightly crispy yet tender on the outside and if warm, gooey (read: almost raw) and soft in the middle.

A Levain cookie costs $4 and worth every cent, ample enough to satiate even the most consummate sweet tooth.

The bakery itself is a petite and uber-French-looking subterranean hole-in-the-wall on 74th and Amsterdam. The sweet aroma of chocolate morsels, decadently fresh baked bread, baked jelly doughnuts, scones, and cinnamon brioche wafts onto the street level, making it difficult for anyone, even exclusive salt lovers, to resist.

Last year I became a very fortunate fan-girl when I was asked to interview Tony Danza, one of my favorite childhood television stars, for a holiday-centric profile that was never published. Since we spoke, I have made his Sunday sauce with meatballs countless times.

With his son Marc, he wrote the adorable, pint-sized cookbook Don’t Fill Up on the Antipasto: Tony Danza’s Father-Son Cookbook (Scribner, 2008) jam-packed with his beloved Italian-American family recipes. And I have to admit, Mr. Danza is one hell of a cook!

“Food was what we did in my family,” reminisced Danza. “We met over food, and not just during the holidays. It was always about food: what we were having, who was making what. I had a real Italian upbringing: my grandfather made wine, my grandmother made homemade olives. And you never know what would appear in the Sunday sauce. I’m sure a pigeon or two made it in!”

The Christmas meal was particularly significant for Danza’s family, especially his grandparents. It signified their journey to the United States, their struggles, their successes and, most of all, their desire to make a better life for their children and grandchildren. “They tried to assimilate into the country and wanted to do better for their kids,” he says. “Christmas became a sign that they made it.”

Danza told me that their Christmases consisted of Italian-American dishes such as his family’s beloved lasagna, manicotti, an array of antipasti and very American roast turkey. He also gave me the recipe for his meatballs and sauce, which includes two ingredients his family used to make their holiday lasagna: meatballs and Sunday sauce.

I didn’t know what to expect the first time I tried the recipe. I guess you could say I was skeptical. I mean, isn’t this the man known for the catch phrase “ay oh- oh ay?” The sauce is cooked in the true Italian mode: low and slow. And with pork ribs and meatballs simmering in the red sauce for hours, the taste is deep, rich and complex. In fact, it may be the most layered, full-bodied red sauces I have ever tasted.

Sunday Sauce with Meatballs

Sauce:
2 cans (35 ounces each) plum tomatoes with basil
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
4 garlic cloves, chopped
1 medium onion, chopped
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes
1/2 cup red wine
1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup water
1/2 cup fresh basil leaves, cut into thin strips

Meatballs and Ribs:
1 pound ground sirloin or lean ground beef, pork, turkey, veal, chicken, or any combination
2 eggs
6 garlic cloves, finely chopped
1/2 cup seasoned bread crumbs
1 tablespoons salt
1 tablespoon black pepper
1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese
1/2 cup milk
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup extra virgin olive oil
3 garlic cloves, chopped
1 pound pork spareribs, trimmed
1 can (6 ounces) tomato paste

1. Strain the tomatoes in a colander to extract the juice, breaking the tomatoes apart with your hands. Discard the pulp. (This eliminates the bitter part of the tomato.)

2. Now make the meatballs. Put the ground meat in a mixing bowl. Beat the eggs and add them to the meat along with 6 cloves garlic, the bread crumbs, salt, pepper, Parmesan, and milk. Mix this all together with your hands. Wet your hands with water and continue to wet them as you pinch meat from the bowl and roll into 2-inch balls. Roll the balls in the flour.

3. Heat the oil in a large skillet. Add 3 cloves chopped garlic and sauté until golden brown. Remove the garlic with a slotted spoon and set aside. Add the meatballs and sauté over medium-high heat, turning them, until they are brown all over. As soon as you can pick them up with a fork, they are ready. You don’t want them to be well done. (If the meatball slides off the fork when you pick it up, it needs to cook a little longer.)

4. Cut the ribs apart. Sauté them in the hot oil until very brown and remove. Return the garlic to the oil and add the tomato paste to the pan. Cook, stirring, over medium heat for about 3 minutes. Remove from the heat.

5. Back to the sauce: Heat the olive oil in a large pot over medium-high heat. Add 4 cloves garlic, the onion, red and black pepper and sauté until the onion is soft and beginning to brown, about 5 minutes. Add the juiced tomatoes, red wine, Parmesan, and salt. Add the tomato paste and the water and stir together over medium heat. Add the meatballs and spareribs. Bring to an easy boil, then simmer over low heat for 2 hours.

6. Add the basil and simmer for 15 minutes more. The spareribs should be very tender, falling off the bone, and the meatballs should float in the sauce.

Yield: Serves 4 to 6.

I used to cower away from baking desserts. With cooking, a misstep can unfold into a surprising success. Accidents in baking, on the other hand, yield unwanted trash weights. Searingly salty cookies and sunken soufflés weigh down garbage cans all over the world.

That’s why I always bypassed pastry-making. I was unable to handle the precision, an ironic turn for a type-A cook like myself. However, as of late, I have become increasingly drawn to baking. Blame it on my newly anointed sweet tooth, but sugar has wormed its way into my salt-encrusted heart.

So, when life gives you lemons, make French lemon tarts! This recipe, which I gleaned from epicurious.com, is as indelible and it is delectable.

The almond crust tastes earthy and buttery, which contrasts and balances the sweet and mouth-puckeringly tart lemon curd. Olive oil acts as a secret ingredient, giving the crust a complex flavor and crumbly texture and deepening the richness of the lemon curd. I recommend topping individual pieces with slightly sweetened homemade whipped cream. C’est bon!

French Lemon Tart
Updated from Epicurious.com

For tart shell:
2 tablespoons almonds with skins, toasted and cooled
3/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 cup confectioners sugar
Pinch of fine sea salt
1/2 stick cold unsalted butter, cut into 1/2-inch cubes
1 large egg yolk
3 1/2 tablespoons fruity olive oil

For lemon curd:
3 large lemons
3/4 cup granulated sugar
2 teaspoons cornstarch
2 whole large eggs plus 2 large yolks
1/2 stick unsalted butter, cut into 1/2-inch cubes
2 tablespoons fruity olive oil

Equipment:
a 9-inch round tart pan with removable side; a small offset spatula

Make tart shell:
1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees with rack in middle.

2. Pulse almonds with flour, sugar, and sea salt to a fine powder in a food processor. Add butter and pulse until mixture resembles coarse meal with some small (roughly pea-size) butter lumps.

3. Add yolk and oil and pulse until just incorporated and a very soft dough has formed.

4. Spread dough evenly over bottom and up side of pan with offset spatula. Chill until firm, about 30 minutes.

5. Bake shell until golden brown all over, about 13 minutes. Transfer to a rack to cool completely, about 30 minutes.

Make curd:
1. Grate enough zest from lemons to measure 1 tablespoon, then squeeze 3/4 cup juice from lemons.

2. Whisk together lemon zest and juice, sugar, cornstarch, whole eggs, and yolks in a medium saucepan and bring to a boil over medium heat, whisking constantly. Boil, whisking, 2 minutes.

3. Remove from heat and strain through a fine mesh strainer to remove lemon zest and other lumps. Whisk in butter and oil until smooth.

Assemble tart:
Pour lemon curd into cooled shell and chill until set, at least 2 hours. Serve with homemade whipped cream.

However, I recently got my paws on a choice piece of Ardrahan, a wash-rind, semi-soft cheese hailing from a small family farm in Cork, Ireland. Those of you who know my cheese sensibilities won’t be surprised that I’m featuring this particular cheese on this particular blog.

Ardrahan proved itself a complex cheese, worthy of the awards it has garnered. Splitting open the golden, saffron-hued exterior reveals an ocre-colored flesh that’s both firm and springy. Like some of my other stinky cheese favorites, Ardrahan possesses a somewhat sticky rind and a meaty interior that’s delivers a subtlety pungent barnyard aroma and an earthy, mushroomy flavor, which becomes slightly tangy as it ages. On the tongue, the mouthful is buttery, nutty, salty and slightly chalky.

Ardrahan is made from pasteurized cow’s milk and vegetarian rennet, hand-made in small batches by the Burns family on their Kanturk, County Cork farm.

I’m always pleasantly surprised to sit down at a restaurant and find a bread basket filled with salty, warm focaccia instead of the ubiquitous hunks of nondescript bread that fill the stomach while leaving the soul empty. I can think of nothing better to start a meal than this soft and spongy Italian specialty, its moon-like craters filled with hot pools of olive oil, coated in an inviting layer of crusty salt and crispy herbs.

And with the holidays upon us, I begin a treasure hunt for inspired recipes and flavor combinations, familiar and homey, but with a twist. This focaccia recipe is utterly simple to assemble, yet the interplay of flavors- sweet and fruity grapes and sea salt, tangy shallots and earthy rosemary- give way to synergistic bread, a marriage of aromas and tastes more dynamic than the sum of its individual parts.

The flavor combination is traditionally Italian. I used both red and green grapes as that is what I had in stock. If using sea salt, be sparse- a little goes a long way.

Requiring only premade pizza dough, there is no need to slave away with packets of yeast and no need to massage the dough. This recipe is like a holiday recipe in itself: simplicity gift-wrapped and served-up in the form of piping hot, springy bread that packs a serious flavor punch.

Grape Focaccia

1 pound pizza dough, preferably from your local pizzeria
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1 medium shallot, thinly sliced
1 tablespoon fresh rosemary leaves or 2 teaspoons dried rosemary
1 cup red grapes (or 1/2 cup red grapes and 1/2 cup green grapes)
Coarse sea salt or kosher salt to taste
Freshly ground black pepper to taste
Honey for drizzling

1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Roll the pizza dough into a rectangle on sheet of parchment paper or a silpat. Place the dough and parchment paper (or silpat) on a baking sheet.

2. Brush the dough with the olive oil and sprinkle with salt, garlic, shallot and rosemary. Spread the grapes evenly on dough and push slightly into the dough. Drizzle honey and black pepper to taste.

3. Bake about 25 minutes or until golden.

I had been conducting research on Jewish gangsters and their noshing habits. Believe it or not, they eat, just like us. They don’t inject themselves with a mercury-based liquid metal to gain mental and physical powers over the layman. Nor do they eat a solid diet of bullets and other gangster-tested, mobster-approved paraphernalia.

My gangster research was myopically focused on finding a recipe suitable for contribution to a satire magazine for their crime-themed issue, which ended up being an exercise in futility professionally, but very interesting on personal and academic levels.

I needed to find a solid dish, beloved by the Jewish mob, and recreate it in my own culinary style. In order to do my research, I spoke with notable New York historian Dr. Phil Schoenberg, a NYU PhD best known for his historic tours of New York City. I also spoke with a retired NYPD detective who, before his exit from the force, worked on Russian organized crime cases as an undercover and an investigator.

We spoke of the Kosher Mafia and their preferred restaurants. Never men to shy away from the hyperbolic lifestyle, many could be seen frequenting the kitschy, over-the-top banquet halls in Brooklyn’s Brighton Beach, such as the famed Rasputin. Others like Bugsy Siegel and Meyer Leven preferred cuisine like their bubbies made, holing up inside the mystical Ratner’s vegetarian restaurant, a kosher dairy enclave that served up to 1,200 per diem in their heyday. And still others went the way of the Jewish deli, specifically Katz’s. Maybe they sent a salami to their loved one in the army? On second thought, they probably used the salami as a club.

Since my research took me back to the Brighton Beach area of Brooklyn, I started to crave Russian specialties and decided to whip up a batch of Thomas Keller’s mini blini. Though he’s not exactly a Russian cook, Chef Keller’s blini are light, airy, creamy and as opulent as the Russian nightclubs in Brighton Beach. The savory, silver dollar-sized pancakes are made from Yukon Gold potatoes and as Keller notes, the waxy potatoes allow the batter to absorb more cream. Garnishes can be as simple or lavish as you wish, ranging from a dab of rich butter, a tomato confit like Keller uses, caviar, or smoked salmon and a dollop of crème fraîche, the latter being my personal favorite.

Blini
Adapted from The French Laundry Cookbook

1 pound Yukon Gold potatoes
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
2 to 3 tablespoons crème fraîche, at room temperature
2 large eggs
1 large egg yolk
Kosher salt and freshly ground white pepper

1. Place the potatoes in a saucepan with cold water to cover by at least 2 inches. Bring to a boil over high heat, reduce the heat, and simmer until the potatoes are thoroughly cooked and tender.

2. Peel the warm potatoes and press them through a potato ricer. Immediately weigh out 9 ounces of puréed potatoes and place them in a medium metal bowl. Working quickly, whisk the flour into the warm potatoes, then whisk in 2 tablespoons crème fraîche. Add 1 egg, whisking until the batter is smooth, add the second egg, and then add the yolk.

3. Hold the whisk with some of the batter over the bowl. The batter should fall in a thick stream but hold its shape when it hits the batter in the bowl. If it is too thick, add a little more ore me fraîche. Season to taste with salt and white pepper.

5. Heat an electric griddle to 350 degrees. If you do not have a griddle, heat a large nonstick skillet over medium-low heat. Spoon between 1 and 1-1/2 teaspoons of batter onto the griddle or skillet for each pancake. Cook until the bottoms are browned, 1 to 2 minutes. Then flip them to cook the second side, about 1 minute. The blini should be evenly browned with a small ring of white around the edges. Transfer the blini to a small baking sheet and keep warm while you make the remaining blini, wiping the skillet with a paper towel between batches. Serve the blini as soon as possible.

Yield: About 3 dozen small blini.

After a several month hiatus from food blogging, I return with glory. And nothing exemplifies glory like my mom’s luscious brownies.

My mother makes the world’s best brownies. Her brownies could save the world: peace in the Middle East, global warming, America’s healthcare crisis, and even Rush Limbaugh’s drug problem. Debonair men have been seen obsequiously begging to lick the batter-coated spoon. Genteel women throw manners to the wind, picking the crumbs from the baking dish (or the floor). My mom’s brownies are a coup in the world of baking.

Everyone who knows my family knows that my husband gets killers sugar cravings. His sweet tooth is uncanny, something of ancient myths. I’ve never seen a man single handedly wipe out a pint of ooey-goey ice cream with such fervor, or inhale a dozen chocolate cookies in seemingly one superhuman breath. Mike’s appetite for sugar destruction is bordering on otherworldly. If he could, he would live and thrive in Willy Wonka’s candy factory, living happily amongst the sugary tea cup and larger than life candy trees.

However, this is reality and many store bought cookies contain suspicious toxins and bizarre unpronounceable ingredients. If he’s going to single handedly decimate the world’s sugar supply, I’d like him to do it with homemade baked goods. Furthermore, my mom’s brownies never fail to feed his monstrous sugar craving, yet another coup in the world of baking.

The brownies are densely rich, fudgy and deeply chocolately. The brownie itself is not overly sweet, yet we do something not commonly seen in the world of brownies: we frost them with a rich, slightly cocoa-infused butter-based frosting. The combination is sinful: smooth, moist, rich cake slathered in velvety ripple of extravagance. I’ve also added a pinch of cayenne which is more or less tasteless in the final product, but really deepens the chocolatey richness.

* Let it be noted that my mom uses the Silver Palate Cookbook’s recipe as a skeletal template for her own brownies. However, she’s managed to make them her own. I’ve had other people’s versions of the Silver Palate brownie recipe and nothing comes close to my mom’s.

Frosted Brownies

Brownies:
1/2 pound salted butter, unsweetened
4 ounces unsweetened baker’s chocolate
1/2 cup unbleached flour
1 1/2 cups sugar
4 eggs
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
Pinch of salt
Pinch cayenne (optional)
Butter for greasing the pan (or nonstick spray)

Chocolate frosting:
1/2 cup of butter, softened
3-4 cups confectionary sugar
1-2 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
1-2 tablespoons whole milk
Vanilla extract to taste (optional)

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a 10×10 baking pan with butter or non-stick spray.
Melt chocolate and butter in a double boiler over high heat until melted (you can also do this in the microwave).

2. While the chocolate and butter mixture melts, beat eggs and sugar until thick and add salt and vanilla. Mix until well combined.

3. Once the chocolate and butter melt, pour immediately into egg mixture and fold quickly so as not to cook the eggs. Sift flour and fold into the batter until well blended.

4. Poor batter into the greased pan and bake for 25 minutes. Make sure not to overbake–the edges will be firm and the center will appear unset.

5. Cool brownies in pan for 20-30 minutes before frosting.

6. To make the frosting: beat butter with a mixer at medium speed and slowly add sugar, beating well. Add cocoa and continue mixing until well combined, scraping down the sides of the bowl as necessary. Beat in milk and vanilla until the icing reaches a spreadable consistency.

Yield: About 12 brownies.

In the summer months, I prefer recipes that require little forethought and little time. However, there’s no need to sacrifice flavor and substance at the hands of simplicity. In August, we often feast on cold cucumber soup with aromatic lemon, ambrosial mint and tangy buttermilk, fresh pasta tossed with ripe heirloom tomatoes, spicy basil and a light splash of sweet aged balsamic or a summer salad of fresh, crisp spinach and honeyed strawberries. Some recipes are so effortless, clean and restrained that utilizing a bevy of ingredients seems excessive.

Recently I found myself in need for a little extra something to accompany bowls of chilled truffle-oil infused pea soup. I contemplated slices of toasted baguette, but have used garlicky toast points ad nauseam to accompany soups, salads and the like and was a little weary of dipping something so hearty into the light and delicate soup. I wanted to step it up, celebrate our evening with a Thomas Keller-inspired meal, and something a little more sophisticated and airy. As I flipped the pages of The French Laundry Cookbook, I remembered Italian frico, or wafer-thin cheese crisps, from my days as a cook.

Keller’s recipe for Parmigiano-Reggiano crisps is effortless. I have a hard time calling it a recipe as it only requires one ingredient: the parmesan. I have made frico many times before, sometimes throwing in herbs and spices, or a little flour for texture. Sometimes I fry them in a cast iron skillet, rather than bake them. For Keller’s parmesan crisps, all you need is a cheese grater, a silpat (or parchment paper) and a cookie sheet, and you’re in business.

The act of baking grated cheese yields an intensified nutty flavor, a crackling texture and the most beautiful, cobweb-esque structure. Like crystallized snowflakes, no two frico are exactly the same, the cheese melting artistically into fragile, edible doilies.

Frico are perfect served alongside your favorite meal or as a crunchy snack with a glass of red wine.

Parmesan Crisps

1/2 cup finely grated Parmigiano-Reggiano (from a moist piece of cheese)

1. Preheat the oven to 325 degrees. Line a baking sheet with a Silpat (or parchment paper). Sprinkle about 2 teaspoons of the cheese in one corner of the Silpat. Use your fingers to spread the cheese into a 2-inch circle. Repeat with the remaining cheese; you should have about 12 rounds.

2. Bake for 8-10 minutes, or until they are golden brown. Use a small spatula to transfer them to paper towels. They will be soft when they are removed but will stiffen as they cool. Store the crisps in an airtight container for up to 2 days.

Yield: Makes about twelve 2-inch crisps.

The summer weather hasn’t yet reached its peak, but the humidity has been nestling in my pores and showering my skin with an impenetrable layer of ick. There’s little to cool a body down without plunging head first into a crispy-cold pool or setting up a cot in the icy frozen isle of the supermarket.

Ice cream is one of the few foods that brings reprieve from the heat, whether it be from your block’s Mister Softee-in-residence or a fancy gelateria. Ice cream tickles the tongue and penetrates body heat like the ephemeral sting of a slap in the face.

Since my stove and oven get little air time during the summer months, I need to get my kitchen fix in other ways. My ice cream maker is one lucky appliance, doing double duty in bringing existential satisfaction and physical relief.

Though I often prefer sorbets and fruit-based ices on hot days, I went with crème fraîche and buttermilk as my primary ingredients, rendering an ice cream that was slightly tart, delicately tangy and subtly sweet. Building on the richness of the silken crème fraîche, I used four eggs to create a custard base, though the finished product was less full bodied and more clean and crisp.

Of course, being the fun loving youngsters that we are, we added Nutella swirls to give the otherwise sophisticated recipe a cheerful facelift, yielding a sleek dessert with a playful twist.

Crème Fraîche Ice Cream with Nutella Swirls
1 cup crème fraîche
1 1/2 cup heavy cream
5 ounces can evaporated milk
1 1/2 cups buttermilk
1 1/4 cups superfine sugar
4 large egg yolks
1 vanilla bean pod
Pinch of salt

1. Place the heavy cream with the sugar, salt and vanilla pod, sliced lengthwise, over medium-high heat until the milk just begins to foam. Remove from heat, extract the vanilla bean and scrape the seeds from the pod with a knife. Mix the seeds back into the cream. Turn off the heat and let stand for 10 minutes.

2. In a separate bowl, whisk the egg yolks. Slowly add the warm cream into the egg yolks, whisking constantly. Return the mixture to medium heat and stir constantly with a rubber spatula, until the mixture thickens and coats the spatula.

3. In a bowl, mix crème fraiche, evaporated milk and buttermilk. Pour into blender and whip until well combined and very smooth, scraping down the sides.

4. Pass custard through a strainer into a clean bowl. Chill both custard and crème fraiche mixture until cold, about an hour.

5. Combine custard and crème fraiche and mix well. Transfer the cold mixture to the container of ice cream machine and process according to manufacturer’s instructions.

6. Layer about one third of the ice cream into a storage container. Gently swirl spoonfuls of Nutella over the ice cream and repeat with another layer. Top the second layer of Nutella with remaining ice cream and store in the freezer prior to serving.

An egg is a thing of beauty: simple in form yet representative of life, birth and sustenance. And when it comes to eggs, I like to eat around. More or less any and all egg preparations are fair game in my book of gastronomical love. While the egg can be a vehicle for some of the loftiest soufflés and custards, sometimes love comes in the form of easily accessible, simple pleasures.

Deviled eggs tend to be my go-to appetizer and snack when all else fails and I’m feeling spontaneous. That isn’t to say that I don’t hold deviled eggs in high esteem. Nothing can be further from the truth. But I always have spicy Dijon and creamy mayonnaise at my finger tips and it takes little more to whip up a batch of deviled eggs, fleshing them out with whatever sundry ingredients I happen to have available.

Like the stand-alone egg itself, deviled eggs are so malleable that one is likely to unleash the beast of versatility on the lemon-colored yolks. You can add anything from smoked paprika or Tabasco for a fiery red spiciness for which the deviled egg is named. A helping of chives, dill or tarragon herbs can also do the trick, if you are in the mood for a more of a fresh, summery flavor. Or else go both ways. Add heat in the form of cayenne and a touch of freshly minced garlic, a squirt of acidic lemon and your herb of choice. And don’t say I didn’t warn you. These puppies are highly addictive!

Summery Deviled Eggs

6 hard boiled-free range eggs
1/4 cup good mayo
1/2 teaspoon extra virgin olive oil
1 1/2 teaspoons Dijon mustard
Pinch cayenne pepper
1/2 teaspoon fresh squeezed lemon juice
1/4 teaspoon fresh Garlic, minced to a paste
Chopped tarragon to taste
Salt and pepper to taste

1. Put eggs in a saucepan and cover with cold water. Bring to a boil and then cover the pan and turn off the heat. Let the eggs sit in the water bath for 20 minutes.

2. Remove eggs from pan and cool them under cold running water. Crack and peel and cut in half lengthwise. Scoop out yolks with a spoon and into a bowl. Using the back of a fork, smash eggs yolks until no large pieces remain.

3. Add mayonnaise, olive oil and mustard to the yolks and mash until the mixture is smooth. Add cayenne, lemon juice, garlic, salt and pepper to the paste and continue to mix until well combined. Add chopped tarragon to taste and mix thoroughly.

4. Spoon mixture into the eggs whites or pipe in with a pastry bag and sprinkle with a little more chopped tarragon.

Yield: 12 deviled eggs.