Turkish-Spiced Chicken Kebabs with Pomegranate Relish and Tahini Yogurt

I got this recipe for Middle-Eastern spiced chicken skewers from Bon Appetit magazine sometime last year. I didn't save the magazine so I don't know what they thought about this recipe. So you're stuck with hearing what I think about it.

I think it's terrific. Pretty too. Pomegranate seeds make everything pretty. Which is similar to the way that tahini makes everything delicious and yogurt makes everything healthy. Making this recipe terrifically pretty and healthy too. I'd say this was a fresh, modern interpretation of Middle Eastern cuisine. It features an interesting mix of seasonings known in Turkey as Bahārāt, which includes cumin, oregano, and dried mint. Bahārāt is the Arabic word for 'spices'. So you might get confused when you Google around for the word. What makes this version typically Turkish is the addition of mint into the mixture.

So that's what I think (and know) about this recipe.

What do you think?

Melon with Blackberry Sauce & Pistachios.

Is that really a salad? Well I wittily titled this series "Summer Salads and Some Aren't". Get it? Some are some are not! That's clever writing, huh?

But clever writing or not I still think it's a salad. In fact I'd call it a breakfast salad. Perhaps a new culinary category– but delicious nonetheless. Hey! This could even be a dessert salad...

Okay, so now we have determined that this is indeed a salad. But not all salads need a vinaigrette. Some salads are sauced. In the case of this melon and blackberry salad the dressing is simply blackberries with some lemon juice and a bit of sugar. I infused the sauce with some fresh lemon verbena leaves as well. I think the herbal quality makes this sauce more suited to a sophisticated salad than a banana split sundae.

You could use any melon you like in this salad. You could even mix your melons (now I'm blushing). I chose galia, a green fleshed musk melon that is super sweet this time of year. I made mine into perfectly shaped little melon balls (blushing again) but slices or chunks taste just as delicious.

Crunch is a texture all salads need in some measure. I made that point yesterday when I introduced this week long series of Summer Salads. I also explained exactly what a salad was in my mind. This salad gets its crunch from pistachios. Besides the green color works so well with the melon flesh (now you're blushing).

The financier (pronounced fee-nahn-see-AY) is a simple style of French cake. It is typically made with ground almonds. I have tweaked the classic French pastry today for the final entry in my series of small plates with wine pairings. Mine is reminiscent of the original, but it's made with pistachios. We paired this delicately flavored cake with an Emilio Lustau Reserva Capataz Andres Deluxe Cream Sherry.

If you have ever had a good financier you know their simple allure. The best of them have a springy, sweet texture not unlike a sponge cake. They're made with ground nuts which helps give these little cakes an exterior that's a bit crisp. But don't let the straightforward nature of this classic French pastry fool you. It can be exquisitely refined.

In France, financiers have been a staple of fine pastry shops for more than 100 years. They have only recently begun making their way into restaurants in America. For the home cook they're something of a mystery: most of the classic French baking tomes fail to include recipes for financiers.This may account partly for its anonymity, but it's also true that they are sometimes hard to define. There is not a lot of continuity beyond nuts and butter. In some cases the shape may be round, rectangular in others. It has been that way for more than a century.