LA Burdick in Harvard Square is my favorite chocolate store in the whole entire world.

It’s a chocoholic’s dream: the smoothest, creamiest handmade chocolates, plus pastries, gift items, and other goodies, in a cozy little restaurant filled with whimsy and warmth. As soon as I step in, I’m immediately enveloped in the magic of chocolate – it seems like every nook and cranny at LA Burdick is filled with something delicious.

I love going in there because it seems like everyone inside emanates happiness (who wouldn’t be, when you’re surrounded with such alluring treats); I look around and people are all smiling and jovial. In spite of the long lines, the crowded little tables, and the fairly expensive prices, the store draws in fellow chocolate aficionados, and keeps us captivated with bonbons and truffles and adorable chocolate penguins.

My favorite thing to order at LA Burdick  (and I bet it will be yours too, if you try it) is the hot chocolate. This is, quite literally, liquid chocolate in a cup: it’s shaved chocolate (dark, milk, or white) and cocoa powder whisked into steamed milk and topped with foam. It’s the creamiest, thickest, silkiest cup of hot chocolate. It’s different from my beloved tsokolate (Filipino hot chocolate) which, while equally velvety and frothy, has a slight graininess like Mexican chocolate. The LA Burdick version is flawlessly smooth and very intense.

Below are some pictures from a recent afternoon at the chocolate haven:

People often ask me what my favorite chocolate is, and my answers are constantly changing.  But I do append my answer with something else: that I am very lucky to live so close to a wonderful little chocolate store in Harvard Square. LA Burdick recently expanded into Back Bay too, with other locations in New York and Walpole, New Hampshire (the flagship cafe).

If you’d like more chocolate in Harvard Square, check out the Chocolate Walking Tour – a two and a half hour gastronomy indulgence (read about my experience here).

What’s your favorite food store in your city?

I feel like I’m breaking some sort of code here.

Because I’m about to give away one of the city’s most secret, newest hidden gems.

It’s so secret, it doesn’t even have a storefront sign.

It doesn’t even have a website yet.

And it’s in… Allston.

Ah yes. Allston. The little neighborhood that boasts some of Boston’s best funky little restaurants. It’s filled with exotic cuisine at student-friendly prices. And Lone Star Taco Bar is the latest, hottest addition to the hood. From the folks behind Deep Ellum, Lone Star opened a couple of weeks ago with very little fan fare.

I had high hopes – while Deep Ellum is highly regarded for its craft beers, the food there is gastropub-worthy – so I imagine the sister bar featuring tacos and tequila would be as good, if not better. And I was right to have such high expectations. The pork carnitas were the best I’ve ever had.

It looks like a typical little unassuming taco.

And then you take in the handmade tortilla, the bright flavors of salsa verde, just the right amount of cilantro, all topped with salty crumbles of cotija cheese.

And the pork! Not shredded, not cubed, not braised to a drab consistency. The carnitas here were simply seasoned to let the flavors of the pork shine though, resulting in well-marbled pieces with a golden caramelized exterior and juicy meat. This is carnitas done right.

I also really liked the house hot sauce – sweet potato-habanero and jalapeno hot sauce.

I work just around the corner for an ahem, award-winning ad agency, so my co-workers and I have been back a couple of times already. Notice the giant bison head watching over us. Also notice how the entire place is not so giant. (I was standing at the end of the bar near the front door when I took this photo).

We don’t drink tequila at lunch, but there is a tempting and impressive collection at Lone Star. They have over 40+ tequilas and mezcals, plus cocktails, cheladas, and cerveza. Grubstreet has the scanned menu here.

Aside from tacos and taco-appropriate beverages, there are also some small plates to share:

Warm fresh fried salt and pepper chips with guacamole is always a good choice when you’re in a Mexican restaurant, but the guac here is kinda anemic and onion-heavy so I would recommend the chips and salsa instead (salsa not pictured, but I’ve had it and it’s rich and briny).

The grilled corn with cotija cheese and chili lime aioli got rave reviews from my co-workers.

And so did the Dallas spicy beef tacos, which are fried tacos topped with spicy beef with mushrooms, chilis, and longhorn cheese.

But the all-around favorite were these beautiful fish tacos:

Beer battered fresh white fish, pickled cabbage slaw, and chili mango aioili. I admit that I am biased towards this because of the hot pink pickled cabbage, but I’m afraid Dorado Tacos now has some competition.

There are other items on the menu that I can’t wait to try, particularly the grilled avocado with griddle queso (!) taco and the huevos rancheros. Each item on the menu is between $4-$8 and the servers suggest two to three items per person. However I think two tacos is more than enough, especially if you share some apps too. If you want a big portion, get the chicken ranchero tostada:

At just $5, this is a heaping plate of pulled ranchero-braised chicken, a crispy tortilla, house beans, Napa cabbage, and crema.

Whatever you end up ordering, I highly recommend forking over an additional dollar and fifty cents (yes, $1.50) for a side of this:

PICKLED JALAPENOS.

Pickled.

Jalapenos!

I would go back over and over to Lone Star just for these. And the carnitas. And the fish tacos. And the grilled avocado tacos. And the margaritas. You get my point.

So, dear friends, if you’re in the area, I urge you to seek out this little hidden gem in Allston. There’s no name on the outside, but it’s right beside Deep Ellum.

It’s only marked by (what else but) a single star.

What’s your favorite hidden gem in your city?

I know I’m a day late in posting a luxurious Valentine’s Day dessert, but who says it has to be a holiday to enjoy this silky cup of heaven?

When I saw the Salted Caramel Pot De Creme tutorial on Gilt Taste, I knew I had to make it. It read, “how to bake custard like a pro, and how to get a caramel flavor without ever burning sugar” which sounded perfect to me. (Full disclosure: I’ve never baked custard and I’m always burning sugar.)

Plus, I recently had a luscious milk chocolate pot de creme at Sandrine’s Bistro and while I’m still not sure on how to properly pronounce it, I wanted to try my hand at making this dessert myself.

I also have some wonderfully fresh heirloom eggs from Pete and Gerry’s, a family farm in New Hampshire. I received a six-pack (can I refer to eggs like that or is that just for beer?) of light pastel blue eggs from a very fun event held at Stone Hearth Pizza in Allston a couple of weeks back, and I was saving the eggs for a special recipe. So it was decided – curb a craving, use some special eggs, make a sexy dessert.

Ohhh and I’m telling you, these little pot de cremes, they’re sexy and they know it. Each spoonful was smooth and silky, with a deep caramel flavor from the browned butter and brown sugar, and a subtle hit of salt.

The Gilt Taste column was extremely helpful. I followed the instructions for the Brown Butter Salted Pot De Creme but went rogue on two things: I used a combination of heavy and light cream (only because I ran out of heavy cream) and I didn’t strain it. Afterwards, I did feel like a pro. And I didn’t burn the sugar!

Coming out of the oven and still in the water bath, I could see that my custards set beautifully. Sure, the tops looked a teeny little bit more grainy than a restaurant quality dessert, but I sprinkled sea salt over it anyway so that was offset. And when I took off the foil cover, I managed to knick that one on the right (kinda like the heart I squished). But imperfections endear me, so I was happy.

Using really good quality eggs really helped in making these pot de cremes even silkier. The egg yolks were thick and plush, and the resulting custard tasted very luxurious and indulgent.

You can find the recipe at Gilt Taste. If you’d like to try another salty-sweet treat, try my Salted Dulce De Leche Macaroons! Or maybe Dark Chocolate Cookies with Espresso Salt? But if you want an indulgent, sexy dessert to impress a significant other (or uh, your parents via FaceTime) or a few of your lucky friends, or even if you just want to treat yourself like a princess, then go get your water bath ready and prepare to swoon.

What was the last recipe you made from a website or a blog that wasn’t yours? I love how I now turn to Gilt not just for my fashion needs, but also for lovely food stories and delicious sales. (And if you need an invite to the shopping site, you can use this invite link!)

I grew up eating garbanzos.

There would be garbanzos in callos, a Spanish dish made with tripe, ox tail, chorizo, and chickpeas in a tomato-based sauce. But even though I loved callos, I didn’t like those garbanzos. In fact, I pushed those little globes away when I was a little girl.

My favorite way of eating garbanzos was in desserts.

The chickpeas would be cooked in syrup, it would be tender and sweet, good eaten warm or cold. I preferred it best in a Filipino dessert called halo-halo, a concoction made with shaved ice, milk, and a variety of mix-ins like caramelized plantains, sticky macapuno (coconut) strands, flan, tapioca, and garbanzos.

When I moved to the US, I started enjoying chickpeas in more savory forms: in hummus, salads, soups. But my heart (and my taste buds) prefer sweet chickpeas. So when I was craving a little sweet snack the other day, I decided to finally try roasting chickpeas – roasting them with brown sugar and maple syrup. Mmmm…

The roasted chickpeas became crunchy little nuggets with a tantalizing glaze, as the brown sugar caramelized beautifully and the   maple syrup added more depth and a little stickiness that made them more fun to eat (because admit it, sticky food is fun food, right?).

They are very much like roasted nuts but with a little less less fat, a little more protein.

These were very easy to make: the recipe only has three ingredients, and I didn’t even use a mixing bowl. I just used a cookie sheet lined with foil.

I watched them very closely while roasting because I wanted to make sure the sugar didn’t burn. I also tossed them a couple of times to get an even coating.

Sweet Roasted Chickpeas

1 15 oz can chickpeas
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup maple syrup

Preheat the oven to 375 F.

Rinse and drain the chickpeas, then dry them with paper towels or a kitchen towel. Transfer the chickpeas to a foil-lined cookie sheet, then add the sugar and toss to coat evenly. (Use your hands – it’s fun.)

Bake in the oven for 20 minutes, shaking the tray to toss midway through. After 20 minutes, add in the maple syrup, and toss again to coat everything evenly (This time, use a wooden spoon or some other utensil – the chickpeas would be very hot.)

Place the cookie sheet back in the oven and bake for another 10-20 minutes, until the chickpeas get crunchy. Enjoy!

While these weren’t exactly the sweet garbanzos from my childhood, these roasted chickpeas satisfied my craving for a sweet little treat. This is great to keep on hand for snacks, and I’m certainly making another batch again soon!

What food do you crave most from your childhood?

I once wrote a love letter…

…. to St-Germain.

You see, I love it so much that when the time came for me to create something for the Biggest Holiday of Love, I turned to St-Germain once again. And made jello shots.

I made them with pomegranate juice to give them a dark red tint. Used strawberry jelly to make them even sweeter. And of course, made them using heart-shaped molds. It’s for Valentine’s Day, after all.

Last year I made Nutella Fudge with Espresso Salt, but this year I wanted something a little more playful. And there’s nothing more playful than jello! Although, spiked with sweet St-Germain, and served atop a pretty pink Kate Spade platter, these jello shots have matured into something much more chic and sophisticated than their dixie cup cousins.

I’ve made many different kinds of jello shots over the years, but so far this has been my favorite. The pomegranate juice tastes almost syrupy, and there is the lingering almost-flowery flavor of St-Germain. And they turned out so cute! I bought my heart-shaped mold a long time ago (it’s actually an ice cube tray) and I don’t remember where I bought it, but you can buy silicone heart-shape molds in Ikea or Amazon.

Silicone is best so they’re easy to pop out once they set, but you’ll notice that I still broke a heart (sorry, dude, I didn’t mean to). That one on the right got pretty squished.

I’m seeing “high-end” jello shots more and more (there are some AMAZING jello shots from Jelly Shot Test Kitchen ) – maybe jello shots are the next food trend?

St-Germain Pomegranate Jello Shots

1 pack strawberry flavored gelatin
1/2 cup water
1/2 cup pomegranate juice (I love the heart-shaped packaging and logo of POM juice, too)
1 cup St-Germain

You can prepare the jello shots by following the instructions on your gelatin mix, just replacing the water with the pom juice and St-Germain. Or if you don’t trust the box, you can do this:

Combine the water and pomegranate in a medium saucepan, and bring to a boil. Lower heat and sprinkle with gelatin, stirring frequently, until gelatin completely dissolves (about 5 minutes).  Remove from heat.  Stir in the St-Germain.  Pour into molds and refrigerate for at least four hours before serving.

This made more than the heart-shaped jello shots pictured above (I poured the rest in rounded silicone ice trays so they weren’t as cute or Valentine-y). You can also use shot glasses. Or even a baking pan, then just slice them into squares before serving.

Make something special for your valentine this year and try these St-Germain Pomegranate Jello Shots! They are so good that you might be tempted to channel your inner Evil Queen and gleefully say, “bring me more heart!”

Ever since Amy Adams so adorably said “boeuf bourguignon” in the movie Julie and Julia, I set my mind on one day making it myself.

Here was a movie about a book about a blog (say that three times) from a writer who turned thirty and discovered the joys of cooking with a childhood hero. And here I am, three years later (yup, it took me a while), a blogger who likes books and movies, who turned thirty (one), and still discovering the joys of cooking.

I mean, there’s some parallelism there, right?

I do have some things in common with Julie Powell, the author of Julie and Julia and Cleaving: we both love butter and beef liver and chocolate in all forms. But I did not grow up watching Julia Child on TV (I have a different hero) and I most certainly do not rely on just one cookbook alone for an entire year.

And If I had to that – cook every recipe from an entire cookbook for an entire year – I will most probably choose a cookbook by Ina Garten aka Barefoot Contessa. I’ve prepared many of her dishes and have always been happy with the results.

So when the time finally came for me to make Boeuf Bourgignon, I decided to nix the Julia Child recipe and went with Beef Bourgignon ala Ina Garten

Ina Garten’s recipe was supposed to take just a couple of hours but I gave myself almost double the time (I’ve learned from experience to allow myself extra time when trying a new recipe for the first time), which turned out to be a wise decision because I ran into a few delays: dropping bowls by mistake and shattering them, knocking over a salt crock onto my hardwood floor, cutting myself. You know, random graceful things that usually happen to me.

I only made a few of changes to the recipe: I omitted the cognac because I sadly didn’t have any, I cooked it in the oven at 325 F (instead of 250 F), and I added the frozen pearl onions about an hour after everything went into the oven, because I wanted to make sure they were thoroughly cooked and softened.

This boeuf bourgignon was a main entree I served during my small birthday dinner, and my friends and I loved it. It got really thick, and the lean stew meat tasted like tender, wine-braised, pieces of steak.

I served it with egg noodles tossed in a little bit of olive oil and butter, salt, pepper, and shredded parsley. I made some roasted brussels sprouts on the side too, and served everything with Jam Jar sweet shiraz.

For appetizers that night, I made some pimiento cheese, and set out a wedge of aged gouda, with a little jar of hot pepper jelly, mini pita rounds, and plain kettle cooked potato chips. And for dessert, we had the best birthday cake.

You can find the recipe for Ina Garten’s Beef Bourguignon here and for Julia Child’s Boeuf Bourgignon here.

It was one of the longer (step-wise and time-wise) recipes I’ve ever made but I have to say that the end result was very rewarding. I waited so long to make this because I was intimidated by the long ingredient list and the long prep time, but it was all worth it and it actually was not hard to make at all! Just lots of steps, but fairly easy.

I think Julie, Julia, and Ina should be proud, as am I!

Have you been inspired by a movie to try a new recipe? Tell me about it in the comments section!

Have you ever been to France?

I haven’t yet, and often fantasize about visiting Paris and enjoying all the sights and fashion and food. But, alas, right now I don’t have enough money to go on a French vacation, so I’m consoling myself with French things instead. The past month I have bought Givenchy perfume, made boeuf bourgignon, and ate my weight in macarons.

(Okay, I haven’t done the last one yet, but one day I aspire to.)

I continue to pine for my Parisian holiday but in the meantime, I can enjoy a little bit of France right in my own neighborhood, thanks to Sandrine’s Bistro in Harvard Square. Sandrine’s is a charming restaurant that focuses on classic French cuisine, with an emphasis on Alsatian cuisine, which is strongly based on German culinary traditions. Think flammekueche (tarte flambe) and sauerkraut and lots of pork.

Here are some pictures from our dinner last week, which was provided free of charge by Sandrine’s:

Milk chocolate pot de creme with peanut butter mousse (we did not start with dessert, but this was my very favorite thing that night!)

Smoked trout with warm fingerling potatoes, horseradish creme, and salmon roe

Traditional baked Alsatian escargots

Moules Marinieres (mussels steamed in Riesling wine, garlic, shallots, and onions)

Traditional flammekueche (crispy flatbread topped with nutmeg-scented fromage blanc, smoked bacon, and caramelized onions)

Chef and owner Raymond Ost

My dining companions (from left clockwise) Martini of Beyond Boston Chic (one of the fashion photography blogs I religiously follow!), Meghan of Travel, Wine, and Dine, Brian from The Gringo Chapin, Emily of A Cambridge Story, me, Will of The Boston Foodie, PR maven Chris Lyons, and Melanie of Kiss my Glass Boston

Apple and gorgonzola salad

Alsatian Choucroute Garnie au Riesling (or, as I’d like to call it: the Meat Platter): sauerkraut slow cooked in Riesling, bockwurst, wiener, grilled smoked porkloin, ham hock, and bacon-wrapped fingerling potato

Mango sorbet

Profiteroles

Once again: that luscious pot de creme

I had a really lovely evening, so thank you so much to Sandrine’s Bistro for having us and transporting us to France for a few hours that night. I have a soft spot for Sandrine’s because my parents always mention it when they used to live in Harvard Square. Whenever I think of Sandrine’s, I remember my parents and their date nights – which my sisters and I would always crash, so it inevitably becomes family dinner. And speaking of date nights, since there is that little love holiday coming up on the 14th, I highly recommend checking out this charming French restaurant. And don’t forget to order the pot de creme!

I’ve known for a while what kind of birthday cake I want: Yellow cake with a dulce de leche filling and a dark chocolate frosting.

But I didn’t know where to get it, and honestly, I didn’t want to buy my own birthday cake. So… I baked it myself.

And it was glorious.

The kitchen gods must have known in advance, because the moment I started searching for recipes online, I found a wonderful recipe on Smitten Kitchen for Best Birthday Cake. It was yellow cake with a dark chocolate sour cream icing, and the icing didn’t even need a fancy mixer or anything like that (remember my baking confession?). A chocolate icing made by hand? I was sold.

Now, don’t think that baking a cake is easy for me. Sure, I make a lot of cookies and brownies and truffles and whatnot. But – here’s another baking confession – I’ve never actually made a full, layered, frosted cake. This was my first attempt.

So my cake wasn’t exactly a thing of beauty…

(But hey, to me, it was beautiful!)

I read all the Secrets to Frosting a Layer Cake by American’s Test Kitchen and I also followed Deb’s recipe exactly, only making a couple of adjustments:

1) I used regular cream soured with lemon juice, instead of buttermilk

2) I used a dulce de leche filling

Of course my dulce de leche came from a can. Ain’t no shame!

I only encountered a couple of mishaps during my birthday cake making. The edges of the cake got a little too crispy, so I just trimmed those off (resulting in a not-perfectly round cake). And the cakes puffed up in the middle, but I simply sliced off the domed portion with a serrated knife. It also helped to chill the cakes in the freezer first to harden it up (one of Smitten Kitchen’s great layer cake tips) before frosting, which I had really enjoyed (resulting in an almost-perfectly round cake).

It was everything I wanted it to be. The yellow cake was moist and subtly sweet, which went so well with the velvety dulce de leche and the thick dark chocolate frosting. It really was the best birthday cake.

I had such a wonderful birthday, doing things I love the most (running, cooking, spending time with friends, talking to my family). I did the big party last year and so this year I wanted to just stay in and have a nice, quiet dinner at home with friends. Thank you to all who greeted me and for all the well wishes!

And now that I’ve successfully made my first birthday cake, my question is… whose birthday is coming up soon?? Let’s make another one.

I’m just going to say it straight: the only reason why I wanted to eat at Trade was so I could try the whole roasted fish.

I mean, yeah, of course I wanted to check out one of Boston’s newer restaurants. And yeah, I wanted to find out if Jody Adams pulls off the same elegant, clean taste of her dishes at Rialto. And fine, yeah, I wanted to be seen at one of the hottest spots in town.

Actually scratch that. I was sucking on some fish bones, so I did not really want to be seen by so many people.

Anyway, so this whole roasted fish, I think it was a branzino.

You can order it already filleted, but I wanted to do the work myself. The last time I ate a whole fish at a “fancy” restaurant was many years ago at the now-closed Rocca, but otherwise my friends and I always order whole roasted or fried fishes at Chinese restaurants (my favorite is the pan fried gray sole at Victoria Seafood Restaurant in Allston).

And whenever I go home to the Philippines, a whole roasted fish is pretty much normal at our dinner table. My mom taught me how to de-bone a whole cooked fish when I was very young, probably eight or ten. Everyone has different way of doing it:  Martha Stewart has a tutorial on how to eat a whole fish, but I don’t like her technique because it requires flipping the fish and that could create a mess. I much prefer removing the dorsal fins first, eating the top fillet, removing the spine, then eating the bottom fillet (similar to this tutorial).

So the whole roasted fish at Trade? I really liked it. The skin was nice and crispy, and the fish was flaky and clean-tasting. It came with crispy cumin potatoes and was topped with a pesto. I would definitely consider ordering it again, even for just those little baby potatoes. I tried a bunch of other items from the Trade menu too (my friends and I shared several dishes), and some of them were hits, some were misses…

Pomegranate glazed eggplant with capers, olives and pine nuts = hit. There were a lot of components in this dish but everything worked together really well. (Top Chef talk, I know.)

Ricotta salata flatbread = hit. Just look at those shards of ricotta salata on top of the golden chewy crust! Big hit.

Whole globe artichoke with aioli = miss. Unfortunately while this looked beautiful, my friends and I did not like it. The artichoke was a little thin so there wasn’t enough flesh to scrape off, and the aioli was  bland.

Brussels sprouts with romesco sauce = hit. I am glad to find yet another way to dress up brussels sprouts (my latest discovery was buffalo sauce). The romesco sauce had just the right amount of spice, and I am thinking of re-creating it at home soon.

Peach tart = hit. I was surprised by how much I ended up liking this dish because I usually don’t care too much for peach in desserts. I do care much for caramel though. And sweet, flaky crusts. This reminds me of the summer crostata at Rialto, which was similarly rustic and refined at the same time.

Baked Alaska = miss. This is not Trade’s fault. This is Oleana‘s fault. Because after eating the phenomenal baked alaska there, I don’t think I’ll ever be happy with a baked alaska elsewhere…

Chocolate bundino with rosemary, olive oil, and sea salt = miss. I had high hopes for this one. I tried rosemary-chocolate tartlets at The Chocolate Tarte and really liked it, and had a dark chocolate bundino at Towne and really, really liked it. So I thought I would love Trade’s version, but I did not. It was almost a too oily for me, and the rosemary flavor was very strong.

Panna cotta = hit. A nice way to end on a good note (actually, ending a meal with panna cotta is always a good note). This was silky-smooth and lightly sweetened.

And of course, my favorite of the evening: whole roasted fish = HIT! The fish was fragrant and flavorful from the lemongrass and ginger chutney, finished nicely with a bright-tasting pesto of mint, cilantro, and basil. It satisfied my craving for seafood, as well as my nose to tail penchant.

Have you ever de-boned a whole fish?

Cabbage, it’s not sexy.

It’s not trendy or exotic-looking or as well-loved as kale, artichokes, or sweet potatoes.

It’s just… so plain.

But, enter the red cabbage (which should actually be called purple cabbage, in my opinion).

Red cabbage is crisp, bright, and vibrant. Suddenly, cabbage is looking a little better. More robust. Attractive, really.

After I read about Heather’s Dijon-Roasted Cabbage, I knew I could do some magic of my own with this often-ignored veggie. I wanted to roast it, but I wanted a deeper, darker flavor.

So I tossed it with sweet balsamic vinegar, satiny olive oil, and a flavorful mix of garlic, salt, pepper, cayenne, and – the rockstar ingredient in this recipe – brown sugahhhh.

After coming out of the oven, the balsamic roasted cabbage becomes tender and yet retains some of its crunch. It tastes like it was braised in tangy, spicy, garlicky syrup. It makes a kitchen smell all inviting and appetizing and warm. It is fantastic.

Balsamic Roasted Cabbage

2 cups shredded red cabbage
2 garlic cloves, minced
3 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1 tablespoon brown sugar
pinch of red pepper flakes
salt and pepper, to taste

Preheat oven to 400 F.

Toss all ingredients together and spread evenly on a baking sheet. Roast for 20-30 minutes, stirring every 10 minutes or so to make sure everything is cooked evenly.

Serve warm or room temperature. This would be a great side dish. (Would be a great side dish if you don’t end up eating a whole bowl for dinner, like I did. Whoops.)

Sure, I have a thing for purple food. And yes, anything roasted with balsamic tastes like some sort of seduction on your taste buds. But really, this roasted red cabbage is so good, it’s just a few steps away from being sexy.

Tell me, are you a fan of cabbage?