Liqueur

While most of my friends are foodies, David Alan’s central focus is liquid refreshment. A coffee distributor by trade, he devotes most of his free time to the art of the cocktail. He writes a witty, drink-packed blog called Tipsy Texan. I asked him to create a couple of drinks for my backyard garden party. Both are beautiful to look at and delicious enough to be dangerous. The drinks are tastiest made one at a time and enjoyed immediately. If you are throwing a party with a spouse or partner, suggest they help by manning (or woman-ing) your “bar”—any small to medium table will do—for the first 30 to 45 minutes of the party. The bar action provides a focal point for incoming guests, and it’s a great icebreaker. Have all the ingredients and drink-mixing paraphernalia assembled in advance and set them out on your bar just before guests arrive. A large ice bucket, or even two, filled with crushed ice is a must.

Salt makes tart things taste sweeter (and, oddly, cuts the sweetness of sweet things to bring out their subtler flavors) and mellows the sharpness of alcohol. The salted rim of the margarita is iconic because it capitalizes on all the opportunities lurking within the sweet-tart-alcohol bite of the cocktail; because it is beautiful; and because it revives us with every sip. The salted rim allows margaritas to be served on the tart side, so this recipe calls for more fresh lime juice and less triple sec than is commonly recommended. As tempting as it may be to bring out the heavy guns and rim the cocktail with more massive flake salts, I often prefer the fine crystalline froth of Marlborough flakey. It gives a truly satisfying crunch, like the feeling of stepping on powdered snow—a welcome sensation when drinking a margarita in the waning heat of a late summer afternoon.

Imagine strolling home along the long dusty road after a hard day in the fields. At the crossroads you encounter a gaggle of tow-haired youngsters sitting at a card table. “Sidecar, mister?” they shout. The sidecar is a lemonade drink for grown-ups. A touch of salt opens up the entire experience, makes it restorative. Citrus playing tag with sugar, chilled juice teeter-tottering with warming alcohol, the entire drink alloyed with salt’s wisdom and captured beautifully in a glass of coppery liquid.

We use the cereal milk ice cream base (the unfrozen ice cream; stop after step 2 in the ice cream recipe) to make white Russians because it stands up to the Kahlúa and vodka better than regular cereal milk does. The liquor in this recipe dulls the cereal milk flavor, so we add freeze-dried corn powder to bring it back. Why Ruskies? Because I have a younger sister from Kazakhstan and a younger brother from Russia, whom my family affectionately called our “little Ruskies” when they were kids. Here’s to Zha-Zha and Dima.

This simple, old-fashioned dessert is for chocolate lovers everywhere! Serve it warm or cold, with whipped cream or a dessert sauce.

You can substitute another coffee-flavored liqueur for the Kahlúa and, of course, increase or decrease the amount of liqueur, depending upon your taste.

Summer is unthinkable without watermelon. As children, my sister and I would stand for what seemed like hours on the back steps and eat and eat and eat chilled wedges of homegrown watermelon. The seed-spitting contests were fierce. As we were often barefoot and playing in the dirt, the watermelon juice served as an adhesive for a fine dusting of red Georgia clay. We would get so sticky and messy, we were barred from the house until we’d washed off with the hose. And, if we didn’t do a good job, Meme was more than happy to help. This watermelon salad is decidedly grown-up enough to eat indoors (barring any seed-spitting challenges). Spiking watermelon with vodka is an old trick, but the crème de cassis—a Burgundian liqueur made from black currants—elevates this to the extraordinary.

I love the word spremuta, which means “freshly pressed orange juice” in Italian. At any caffè, if you order one, you’ll be brought a tall, vivid red glass of juice served with a few packets of sugar and a long, slender spoon alongside. Although years ago Americans were astonished when confronted with blood orange juice, this colorful citrus fruit has become common stateside and can be found in many supermarkets and farmer’s markets. When sliced open, they reveal a brilliantly colored interior, and like snowflakes, each one intrigues me, since no two seem to be colored alike. The Moro variety of blood oranges is the most intensely colored, but other varieties, like Sanguinelli and Tarocco, make remarkably colorful granita as well.

Inspired by the classic Kir Royale, this granita makes a similarly elegant after-dinner dessert. Because of the quantity of Champagne in this recipe, it takes bit longer to freeze than other granitas.

I live above a huilerie in Paris, a shop that sells top-quality oils from all over the world. I decided that Colette, the owner, would be my primary ice cream taste tester. Not only did she have an excellent palate and love to taste things, but I knew that, being French, she’d have absolutely no problem expressing her opinions, good or bad. This was her favorite of all the ice creams I made. Her eyes rolled back in her head when she slipped the first spoonful in her mouth. “Oh lá lá,” she exclaimed.

Maybe I’m not the sharpest knife in the drawer. When I visited the Chartreuse distillery in the French Alps, our guide told us that the exact recipe for the famed herbal liqueur was a closely guarded secret, known only by three brothers who worked at the monastery. Astounded, I spoke up. “Wow, that’s incredible. What is the likelihood of three brothers going into the same business together, as well as becoming monks at the same monastery?” The other guests on the tour simply stopped and looked at me with their mouths slightly agape. Then our guide enlightened me and we moved on, but not before I overheard a few hushed conversations evaluating my intellect. This is a very light ice cream, and it’s so simple that anyone, regardless of their intelligence level, can easily put it together.

This ice cream is for those who are nostalgic for those orange-and-cream-flavored popsicles. If you miss that taste, you’ll discover it again here.

With the addition of sprightly tangerine juice, this twist on traditional butterscotch sauce goes very well drizzled over Buckwheat Cake (page 44) paired with orange or tangerine sections instead of the cider-poached apples, or spooned over Pâte à Choux Puffs (page 232) filled with Caramel Ice Cream (page 144) and topped with toasted or candied nuts.

After years of carefully studying dessert habits, I’ve begun to refine my theory that there are two types of people—those who like lemon desserts and those who like chocolate. I’ve observed that there’s a subspecies that likes desserts with a crunch, a group that includes me. I’m a big fan of seeds, and I like to add them to these jam-filled cookies to put them squarely in the crunchy camp. Or should I say “roundly,” since they are, indeed, round. But feel free to use any cookie cutters you have—round, square, oval, or even heart-shaped.

Sabayon is the French term for zabaglione, the frothy Italian dessert made of egg yolks and wine. It was a great day when I discovered that it could be frozen and scooped like ice cream without being churned in an ice cream maker. Because of the less-than-shy wine flavor, it holds its place in a bowl of fruit soup, especially one made with intensely flavored blood oranges.

I read an article in a magazine about the difference between being “frugal” and “cheap” and was relieved to find myself in the frugal category. I’m certainly not cheap when it comes to buying ingredients, but it does go against my frugal nature to throw anything away. Here, oranges do double duty: the insides supply the juice and the rinds become the serving dishes for the sorbet. Those who are extra thrifty can candy some of the leftover peels to go alongside (see Candied Orange Peel, page 254). Egg whites left over from another project can be used to make the fluffy meringue that hides the sorbet surprise underneath.