Date me.

I can only hope you have had a really fabulous New Year, and have stuffed yourself good and proper. Please don't decide to starve yourselves in time for Chinese New Year, people. Because you must try these dates, topped with cream cheese and pecan.

There's something interesting about this after-dinner treat - served in Spain, it actually came to be when Moorish Armies (bringing dates) plundered the Spanish, thought their blue cheese delectable, and left the conquered nation a dish to remember them by - blue cheese atop Medjool dates, and sprinkled with a little orange blossom water. And not forgetting a pecan.

But this ain't Spain, and I'm quite sure, that as many of my friends do, you might be a wee bit averse to blue cheese. It does have a strong flavour, I know. I personally love blue cheese, but my family can also attest to the fact that for 20 years I slept every night with mangy pillow that had its own peculiar smell, and reeked lightly of baby pee.

Sorry to suppress your appetite there.

Here, this starter tastes equally good with a flavoured cream cheese - it doesn't just taste good, everyone. It tastes fabulous.

Health geek note: Dates are high in potassium (for the nervous system) and magnesium (for the bones). While high in sugar, they're also immensely high in fibre. Anything to make you go in the mornings.

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Dates with cream cheese and pecan

For 36 stuffed dates:

• About 150g flavoured creamy cheese (like Boursin), or blue cheese if that doesn't make you break out in a cold sweat
  
• 18 Medjool dates (do get Medjools, as they are the best and most moist)
• 36 pecan or walnut halves
  

Medjool dates are the larger variety of dates, at least larger than their California cousins. They are also the best tasting -with a dark amber color, slightly wrinkly, but with a fresh-looking shine. When you bite into one, it should be so sweet as to bring on a sugar rush in your bloodstream. Mmmm.

Use a soft creamy cheese that's been flavoured with garlic and herbs, or else one that has a strong flavour on its own, like blue-veined cheese. If your cheese is any milder - like Edam - the date would suffocate its flavour.

1. First toast your pecan halves in a heavy-bottomed frying pan (heavy bottomed so the nuts don't burn, as these pans conduct heat more slowly and evenly), at medium-low heat for about 5 minutes. Check constantly and shake them about in the pan from time to time. When they turn a little darker and you smell the sweet nutty fragrance, they're done.
   


2. Now your dates. Split your dates down the middle with a small knife.
   


3. Remove the seed.
   


4. Press your date half (the cut area facing up) with your thumb slightly, so as to broaden the surface area for spreading on your creamy cheese.
   


5. Take a tsp or so of the cheese (or start off with a half tsp if you're using a smaller date), and spread that on in a neat little mound on your date half.
   


6. Press the pecan or walnut half into that pretty mound, try one to be sure it's as you like it, and serve alongside port or sweet dessert wine. Or 7-up or Coke, or tea, although that might be sacrilegious. It tastes good regardless.

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