Rosemary Babies

“Ewwww, look at these baaaee-beeez heeeere.”
That’s an exclamation the two of us heard in the kitchen for years. Whenever Chef Whalid, our bombastic, Mercedes-driving Afghani chef would parade around the prep kitchen examining produce or partially prepared hors d’oeuvres he would inevitably utter something about “these baaee-beeze.” It translates roughly to ” beautiful little morsel,” or something. Truth be told, Chef Whalid was usually holding something pretty uninspiring, like a piece of frozen chicken, a commercially grown basil leaf or a mini-mango quesadilla with mediocre brie. But that’s just a testament to the dudes’ character — perpetual optimist with a love for snacks!
With that attitude in mind, we recently were putzing around the kitchen on a Saturday afternoon (favorite pastime!) and decided to make some snacky nuts to have in a bowl on the kitchen table. We had a bouquet of fresh rosemary in our face, which had just been clipped from the garden and jammed in a vase, so herb nuts became the mission. As luck would have it, pecans were the only nut in the house. We roasted, tossed, served ’em up and exclaimed in our best Whalid impression: “Look at these babies here!”
Rosemary Pecans

2 cups raw pecans
4 Tbs. extra virgin olive oil (good stuff)
3 Tbs. fresh rosemary (about 3 sprigs)
1/2 shallot, minced
Sea salt and black pepper to taste
1. Before toasting your nuts, prepare the rosemary oil. Remove rosemary from its stem, and chop into small pieces. Heat a small saucepan on low heat, add olive oil and rosemary and shallot. Before any sign of a sauté sizzle, turn oil down to simmer. You merely want warmed oil that will soak up the rosemary essence. Let sit on simmer until ready to use. Add fresh cracked black pepper.
2. In a large sauté pan, toast your nuts on high heat for about 8 minutes. Flip or stir every 3 seconds to keep from burning, you don’t want any black edges. Salt throughout.
3. In a large mixing bowl, combine nuts and rosemary oil. Let sit for a few minutes before serving.
Beverage: Dogfish Head’s Midas Touch
Soundtrack: Spiritualized, “Oh Baby”