Beverages

This recipe is an accompaniment for Vanilla-Bean Cheesecake with Guava Topping .

This venerable cold-weather dish has never looked so pretty or tasted so good. Partner it with a tossed green salad and French bread. Uncork a dry red wine.

Mark Taylor of West Hartford, Connecticut, writes: "I started cooking out of necessity when I first graduated from college, since I couldn't afford to eat out. Having grown up watching my mother cook for our large family, I used her recipes. She was always trying new dishes whenever we had guests and sharing her adventurous attitude toward eating. These days, even though my wife and I both work, we still cook several times a week. Now I tend to rely on recipes I've picked up from restaurants and friends. I enjoy experimenting with different ingredients and figuring out new ways to improve a recipe, as I've done with the one here." Serve the fish and sauce over couscous.

Can be prepared in 45 minutes or less.

Chopped toffee candy gives orange-scented vanilla ice cream a surprise crunch in this easy and innovative dessert.

Pernod, the beloved French anise-flavored aperitif, adds an interesting twist to the sauce. Offer Champagne with the starters.

At the restaurant the chef garnishes this dish with fresh seasonal flowers, chervil, and chives.

Broccoli is called sparaceddi in Sicilian. In this side dish, it is "drowned" in a heady mixture of olive oil, onions, anchovies, olives, red wine and cheese. While there are variations of the basic preparation throughout Italy, food historians generally think it to be of Sicilian origin.

Have your butcher order the veal breast, then ask him to bone, butterfly, and pound it, forming a rectangle that has the dimensions described in the recipe.

Look for ripe mangoes that are slightly soft to the touch. To evoke the tropics even more, serve the fruit with coconut macaroons or macadamia nut cookies.

Poach the pears and serve with traditional anise-flavored fried pastries. Start the pears one day ahead.

This luscious frozen dessert can be made without an ice cram maker. Begin preparing the recipe at least one day ahead.

Pastry chef Valerie Hill offers this appealing treat at the Morrison-Clark Historic Inn & Restaurant in Washington, D.C. Allowing the yogurt to drain produces the thick and creamy yogurt cheese.