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To Shop: Chocolate for You, Coffee for Me

Coffee and chocolate, both bean-based crops, are on display at 2Beans, a rare Midtown resource for lovers of both. This unusual cafe and shop has an Illy coffee bar, where espresso and other brews are served in ceramic cups, European-style, on a small tray with a glass of water and a piece of chocolate or biscotti. Pastries from places like Tisserie are also available. There’s a chocolate display in the cafe, but turn the corner in the shop and you are confronted with a chocolate fantasy. Every inch of space is filled with bars and boxes of chocolates from around the world, more than 300 items by first-rate brands from Europe, the United States, Vietnam, Brazil and even the Middle East (Al Nassma camel-milk chocolates). A display case holds chocolate truffles and other bonbons from Chocolat Moderne in Manhattan and Aeschbach of Switzerland, sold by the piece, and slabs of chocolate bark made for the shop: 100 Park Avenue (41st Street), (212) 937-8914, 2beans.com. Closed Sundays.

To Enjoy: Sweet Things to Chirp About

Bright, iconic marshmallow Peeps tempt children and pastry chefs alike. And those chefs have made their own versions, to delight adults. Dominique Ansel has them emerging from real eggshells, with a layer of soft, rich caramel at the bottom. Marguerite Preston, the pastry chef at Greene Grape Annex, makes plump yellow chicks that rank higher on the cute-o-meter than genuine Peeps: Peep-a-Boo, from Dominique Ansel Bakery, 189 Spring Street (Sullivan Street), (212) 219-2773, are $26 for a box of six. Marshmallow chicks at Greene Grape Annex, 680 Fulton Street (South Portland Avenue), Fort Greene, Brooklyn, (718) 717-8193, are $1 each.

To Donate: Wine Auction Aids Storm Repairs

The cleanup and repairs after Sandy continue, and money is still needed. John Ragan, the wine director of Union Square Hospitality Group, has organized an online benefit auction of 250 lots of wines, donated by sommeliers, restaurateurs, chefs, wineries, importers and distributors. Called DeVine Intervention, it will be open to the public for bidding from Monday to April 7. None of the commissions and fees paid at auctions will apply, so the entire price reached by each lot will go directly to the Mayor’s Fund to Advance New York City, which helps with the recovery effort. Champagne Krug, Domaine de la Romanée-Conti, Giuseppe Quintarelli and Peter Michael Winery are just a few of the labels in the auction: de-vineintervention.com.

To Sip: Bee to Bottle: Spirits From Honey

Read the label on a bottle of artisanal spirits and it may seem as if you can ferment and distill just about anything. Up at Caledonia Spirits in Hardwick, Vt., they’re using honey. The results? Barr Hill Gin, delicately straw-colored, has an intense juniper aroma but becomes gentle on the palate and truly elegant on the rocks. Barr Hill Vodka is crystal-clear, easygoing and smooth: The gin, 90 proof, is $42.99 for 750 milliliters and the vodka, 80 proof, is $32.99 at Astor Wines and Spirits, (212) 674-7500, astorwines.com.

To Covet: A Périgord Treasure Now Grown in Oregon

The fragrant, elusive, mysterious and costly truffle, whether white, black or in between, has been the object of scientific research for decades. The challenge has been to cultivate it to increase the supply. According to Charles Lefevre, who owns New World Truffieres, which supplies trees inoculated with truffle spores to growers, a genuine black Périgord truffle, the Tuber melanosporum, has been harvested for the first time in an orchard in Oregon that was planted with his company’s trees. The wild variety originated in southwest France and is the most prized black truffle. Black Périgords are already harvested in Northern California, Arkansas, Tennessee and North Carolina. Oregon cultivates other types of truffles and boasts four varieties of native wild ones.

To Use: For Passover Cooks, Kosher Panko

You probably want to avoid using the term “breading” during Passover, but that’s what you can do with chicken, veal, fish or vegetables using a new kosher-for-Passover panko. Jeff Nathan, the executive chef at Abigael’s, a kosher restaurant in the garment district, had been selling a gluten-free panko made with tapioca starch, potato starch and flour, oils and egg yolks before introducing this version. The panko is toastier-tasting and a bit coarser than matzo meal, and somewhat more absorbent when coating cutlets or fish cakes. It comes plain or with aggressive Mediterranean seasonings: $7.50 for a 15-ounce can, available with one day’s notice at Abigael’s, 1407 Broadway (39th Street), (212) 575-1407; a minimum of two cans from abigaels.com.

To Read: No Wonder Turks Were Delighted

Elaborate concoctions like pulled sugar, fruit leathers, baklava and lokum (Turkish delight) have been devised over the centuries to satisfy the sweet tooth in Turkey. Just how elaborate? According to “Sherbet & Spice: The Complete Story of Turkish Sweets and Desserts,” by Mary Isin (I. B. Tauris, $28), certain sugar mixtures must be stirred for hours in one direction so they remain smooth and unbroken; it takes two people to do it. Each chapter in this fascinating and scholarly book is devoted to a different confection, and it goes beyond Turkey to give the history of sugar, halvah and ice cream, among other sweets. It also covers the influence of Europe on Turkey, and vice versa; Rumi, a 13th-century poet from Konya, is quoted as saying, “The sea of sugar knows no shore, no boundary.” There are recipes, too, mostly historic ones, which you might try if you can translate measurements like ritils and dirhems.