Zeppola are here!

In the donut capital of Canada, it’s amazing how little Niagarians know about pastries.

Zeppola are tiny (about 2-inches), fluffy and rolled in granulated sugar. Commonly deep-fried, these dough balls may be filled with custard, cannoli-style cream or a butter-and-honey mixture. Their consistency ranges from light and puffy to bread-like. They’re delicious, addictive and warming.

Zeppola are the pastry of La Festa di San Giuseppe (Saint Joseph's Day, March 19). So from now, through to the patron saint’s day and the Easter weekend, this is the season to find these delicious little pastries.

In Niagara Falls, the famous Criveller Cakes & Pastries (4435 Portage Rd) keeps with tradition, but pastry master Giovanni Priore (the man responsible for all their heavenly pastries) creates his own exquisite versions of zeppola.

Crivelliers Zeppola de St. Giuseppe are baked cream puffs made from choux pastry. The airy little puffballs are filled with Zabaione cream (a frothy cream made by cooking egg yolks with sugar and spiked with marsala). They’re not quite small enough to pop into your mouth so you have to bite it in half; the Zabaione cream oozes over my fingers. The pastry is ultra light with a dreamy, sweet, airiness about it, very moist, light and elegant. As it sweetly floats in my mouth, I try to get it between my teeth and the rich, cream slides across the layers of sugar dusted pastry. Oh yum, ok these are the best zeppola I’ve ever tasted!

I can’t explain how donut hungry Niagarians have missed out on the most decadent, elegant, upscale, delicious pastry donuts in the world, but that just means there are plenty more for those of us who know where to find the best food Niagara has to offer – it’s the season for zeppola, enjoy.

LIFE IS GOOD, EAT IT UP!

BERRY SEASON

I just picked up some cherries from the Fruit Shack on Niagara Stone Road and they're absolutely glorious! Big, blackish red, ultra sweet and brilliant. So many of Niagara's cherries fall short of being really good. Don't know why, I'm guessing it's the variety, but the folks at the Fruit Shack grow these beauties under hoops to protect them from rain and give them much needed extra warmth to ripen this variety. The sweet cherry season is almost over, so get them now!

I was walking with Diana DeMarco at Bluemin' Acres on Line 1 yesterday afternoon and she has a bumper crop of blueberries. The same bushes that produce the delicious blueberries in previous years are producing giant berries that are bursting with amazing flavour - they love this weather. While there, Kelly Nemeth from Toute Sweet came by for some berries. She's the ice cream lady in Jordan who mixes the best Niagara fruit with ice cream on a frozen marble slab. This is her with Diana picking out the best blueberries!

Bluemin' Acres open for the season so go down with your own containers and buy them by weight. They're very reasonably priced - in case you're comparing.

I just spent the morning in the kitchen working with these delicious berries. I made sweet cherry mouse and tuile that I thought I could use as a sandwich, but the tuile shrunk, so I'm turning it into sweet cherry pate with the tuile as toasts - it's amazingly delicious!

With the blueberries I made blueberry crumb squares - don't know about the recipe I put together - think I'll have to work on it - too crumbly. I may have to make some ice cream and turn it into a blueberry sunday.

I also have some blueberry cornbread coming out of the oven - yum!

It pays to find the best berries out there. Get some and let me know what you've done with it!

For all you fiddlehead lovers, tonight was the fiddlehead feast at NorCliff Farm in Port Colborne. A fantastic chef flew in from New York City and cooked up dishes like coconut curry fiddlehead primivera - yum!