In Tunisia, partiers and laborers line up during the pre-dawn hours for the same thing - steaming bowls of lablabi, a hearty soup of chickpeas and stale baguette that tastes so much better than it sounds.
Western cooks too often go too light on fresh herbs, treating them more as garnish than flavoring. We prefer the Thai approach, which uses ingredients such as basil, mint and cilantro by the fistful.
In her cookbook "My Two Souths," chef Asha Gomez added an intriguing twist to the classic chocolate cookie - Nutella. It was an innovative way to introduce nutty flavor to an otherwise straightforward chocolate cookie dough.