Italian sweets, chocolate, vanilla, jujubes

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Granita can be served in a cup, on a brioche, or in a cup with a brioche for dipping. Photo by Louise Hagger.

Pastry chef Victoria Granof relishes the diverse, and often misunderstood, sweets of Sicily. Essayist and poet Aimee Nezhukumatathil explains the laborious process of cultivating vanilla and the fragile state of its existence. Rowan Jacobsen travels deep into the Bolivian Amazon to uncover the chocolate's origins. Molecular biologist Raven Hanna shows us how to produce tree-to-bar chocolate. At the farmer's market, Klementine Song reminisces about the jujubes her parents grew while farmer Terry Kashima shares the fruit's health benefits.