Walnut

Cheese balls were all the rage in the 1970s, an easy, tasty, fab party food for any occasion. What's old is now retro-chic—this lightened-up cheese ball seduces with the sweetness of dates, the savory bite of blue cheese, a hint of shallot, and a teasing whiff of lemon zest.

Although herb salad mix tastes especially good here and makes for speedy assembly, feel free to use any type of flavorful salad mix you like.

The season's best beans shine in this salad. Shaved pecorino fresco—a mild, fresh sheep's-milk cheese—is a delicious finishing touch.

This is a delicious, very delicate cake. It's served for dessert everywhere in Charleston, but I like it as a morning cake or afternoon snack. The recipe was named for a small but influential group of French Protestants who fled persecution by their Catholic countrymen and settled lands that became South Carolina more than a century before the Revolutionary War.

If you're lucky enough to have a persimmon tree, you're guaranteed to have plenty of gorgeous persimmons come autumn. Or, if you have a neighbor with one, you're bound to find a bag of persimmons on your doorstep one fall day. The prolific trees are especially striking when the leaves drop and the traffic-stopping bright-orange orbs are still clinging to the bare, gnarled branches, silhouetted against a clear autumn sky. Even if you don't have a tree, or a neighboring one that you can benefit from, you might have seen persimmons at the market. Most likely they were Hachiya persimmons, the most common, elongated-shape variety. It's the one I recommend for this cake. They must be squishy soft before they can be used. If you buy them rock-hard, leave them at room temperature until they feel like water balloons ready to burst. When ready, yank off the stem, slice each persimmon in half, then scoop out the jellylike pulp and purée it in a blender or food processor.

As the tart bakes, some of the beet juice will color the custard and the goat cheese, giving each slice a pretty, almost marbleized look. Since the flavors are a riff on the classic beet, walnut, and goat cheese salad, this tart pairs especially well with greens tossed with a bright vinaigrette. A small slice also makes a somewhat unusual but delicious side dish to grilled lamb chops.

I have always loved a good, cinnamon-scented carrot cake but somehow found the normal cream cheese frosting too rich and too sweet for the cake. Carrots, after all, are sweet enough in their own right. However, this mascarpone topping—sharp textured with lemon and lime zest—contrasts perfectly with the texture and crunch of the carrots and walnuts. Take the path of least—if not no—resistance.

This delicious dessert gets a double dose of maple flavor: one in the cake, another in the cream cheese-maple frosting. Keep in mind that maple syrup affects the baking time of this cake (it takes almost an hour to bake).

Stirring homemade chutney (left over from Country Pâté with Pineapple Chutney) into softened cream cheese makes an easy and irresistibly bright spread. A topping of crunchy curried walnuts gilds the lily and also plays up the chutney's cheery color.

With its mischievous cherry-stem fuse and sleek chocolate shell, this ice cream bombe should definitely get the fireworks started at your Fourth of July cookout. Cut into the bombe and you'll see cherry ice cream dotted with crisp chocolate wafer cookies and toasty walnuts. Look even further and you'll find the gunpowder—er, a center of chocolate ice cream.

Feeling burnt-out on the same old chicken salad from the corner deli? We were, too, until our love was rekindled by this lively version, studded with crunchy walnuts, plump grapes, and little beads of salty capers.

This traditional sweet is believed to have originated in Sichuan, where walnut trees from Persia were first planted in China. As with many Chinese foods, the walnut is imbued with symbolic meaning: it is believed to benefit the mind because the shelled nut looks like a brain lobe. Brain food or not, the walnut was a deliciously significant sweet long ago in Sichuan and western China. Reminiscent of halvah, mashed walnuts encased in a thin, flaky dough and covered with sugar syrup is a famed tea-time dish and just one of many Sichuan creations based on walnuts. In this recipe, walnuts go through four distinct cooking processes: they are boiled, reboiled, glazed, and finally deep-fried. Once a provincial sweet, they emanated outward from Sichuan many years ago, turning up in restaurants in Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Hong Kong, usually as appetite-whetting, pre-meal snacks and just as often as snacks to conclude a meal along with fresh fruit. They were quickly dubbed "honey walnuts," though they are glazed with sugar syrup. They began to appear in the West about forty years ago, with the onset of the popularity of Sichuan and Hunan restaurants. These days, they are a standard offering. One particularly attractive aspect of these crisp, sweet walnuts is that they do not become soft if stored properly. Packed into an airtight container and left at room temperature, they will keep for at least 1 week. They will keep for at least 6 months in the freezer, and when served directly from freezer to table, they will still be crisp. Although I do recommend freezing them for an inordinate time, I did once leave them in the freezer for a year as an experiment. They were perfectly crisp and not at all stale. If you decide to make walnuts for storage, do not double the recipe, as the walnuts won't cook properly. Instead, make individual batches. Pecans can be prepared the same way.

This seasonal salad is a great mix of colors and flavors.

In the early 1990s we hired a chef who loved to bake, and he came up with this pie. It became an instant classic. The fruit is only lightly sweetened, and its tartness combined with the sugar-crumb topping is a perfect pairing. Served warm with vanilla ice cream, it's heavenly. If you use frozen berries, increase them by 1/2 cup each and defrost slightly before tossing with the other ingredients.

Shape some tuiles into cups, then use the remaining batter to make cookies to serve alongside.

Treviso is a red, spear-shaped variety of radicchio. Combining it with prewashed baby greens makes a bowlful of holiday colors. Keep the cheese cold until grating so that it forms firm strips.

When earthy greens are tossed with a walnut- and garlic-scented oil and lots of crunchy nuts, they taste delightfully new.