Daniel Boulud’s pastry elves have gone whimsical to produce this holiday chocolate pâté, densely studded with pistachios, hazelnuts, bits of marshmallow, dried fruit and amaretti, covered in chocolate glaze and decorated with gilded holly. For a holiday buffet or to slice and serve, it also makes a splendid gift and does not require refrigeration: Chocolate pâté, $59 to serve eight or more, $7 a slice, Épicerie Boulud, 1900 Broadway (64th Street), 212-595-9606, epicerieboulud.com.  A passion for books and working in book stores finally led Paige Lipari to open a cookbook shop that sells mainly vintage titles. She decided to specialize after exploring her Sicilian heritage. “I started to think about food as a way to look at the world,” she said. In the rear of the store, there’s a small kitchen and a few tables where lunch fare and Sicilian pastries are served. On Thursday evenings, there is dinner. Ms. Lipari stocks about 4,000 titles, including some new releases. Book signings, a cookbook club and other events are starting to fill the schedule: Archestratus Books & Foods, 160 Huron Street (Manhattan Avenue), Greenpoint, Brooklyn, 718-349-7711, archestrat.us.  This takes nose-to-tail to the limit: At Cookshop in Chelsea, the chef, Andrew Corrigan, has started using the beef tallow to make soap. The plain variety, simply tallow and lye, performs well; it reminded me of Ivory. He’s also making one that’s subtly seasoned with lemon, and another tinted and scented with chocolate and coffee with a little more texture: Beef tallow soaps, 2 to 4 ounces each, $3 an ounce, Cookshop, 156 10th Avenue (20th Street), 212-924-4440, cookshopny.com.  Mixing drinks more complex than martinis at home is messy business. Cristina Ros Blankfein and Jennifer Ross, who met at Harvard Business School, created Be Mixed, their line of simple, flavorful cocktail mixers that couldn’t be easier to use. Just pour the spirit of your choice into a glass over ice, add a bottle of the mixer and stir. Finish with soda if desired. Ginger-lime, cucumber-mint and margarita are the flavors, all with but a trace of sweetener from monk fruit (which allows the label to state “zero calories”). The partners wanted mixers with flavor but minimal sweetness, especially for Ms. Ross, who has Type 1 diabetes. “There was a void in the market,” Ms. Blankfein said: Be Mixed cocktail mixers, $33 for 12 four-ounce bottles, be-mixed.com, $9.49 for four from freshdirect.com.  Japanese sweetened rice flour paste is a confection called mochi. Wrap it around a small scoop of ice cream and the result, looking a little like a macaron, is mochi ice cream, a frozen treat popular in Asia, Hawaii and increasingly elsewhere in the United States. Green tea, sesame and red bean are traditional, but now mochi can be anything short of cookies and cream. Mochidoki, a new company with the pastry chef Michael Laiskonis as its consultant, offers a dozen flavors, including ginger, mochaccino chip, mandarin orange cream, lychee colada and the inevitable salted caramel, all for home delivery: $10 for four in addition to shipping, mochidoki.com.  Though this 735-page encyclopedia of food in New York is as up-to-date as Shake Shack, it also goes deep into history, with entries covering the Erie Canal, Sherry’s restaurant and Ebinger’s blackout cake. There’s something to savor in every listing, be it an intriguing tidbit or scholarly detail, as with the food served on Ellis Island. Barney Greengrass, slicer of lox and sturgeon, is there, as is Edward Hopper, the painter of diners. And, full disclosure, so am I: “Savoring Gotham: A Food Lover’s Companion to New York City,” Edited by Andrew F. Smith (Oxford University Press, $34.95).
A cookbook store with treats, washing with beef tallow, simple cocktail mixers, mochi at your door and an encyclopedia of food.