Your balsamic vinegar can multitask as a dessert sauce: Strawberries drizzled with balsamic vinegar have been a classic Italian dessert for centuries. To go a step further, add cracked pepper and whipped cream or vanilla or chocolate ice cream (fig ice cream is great if you can find it or make it). Another balsamic dessert: Reduce fig balsamic vinegar by boiling it with some red wine to half its volume; drizzle it on pound cake and top with whipped cream or ice cream with a macedoine of fruits or a fruit compote on the side. It’s also delicious on ripe cantaloupe. These desserts are classic, yet fresh and modern.

Truffle oil is an inexpensive way to get the flavor of truffle into foods. But when you buy a bottle, make it “truffle season” in your house. The aroma dissipates quickly after opening, so use up the oil within a few months. Fortunately, it works almost everywhere—as a bread-dipper, in salads or on meat, fish, eggs, chicken, corn and other vegetables. Just don’t cook with truffle oil—the scent evaporates when the oil is heated. Instead, brush it onto the food when it comes off the flame, or drizzle it into soups. Truffle oil’s “companion,” truffle vinegar, can be used to deglaze, but vinegar is not the ideal form in which to enjoy a hint of the fungus. Most truffle oil and vinegar are not made with real truffles, but are synthetic approximations. Some are much better than others.

In celebration of Mushroom Month, take a walk on the wild side. While most people think of mushrooms as a winter dish, wild mushroom season actually begins when winter ends: The fab fungi pop up from March through September. Thankfully, cultivated wild mushroom varieties like cinnamon cap, enoki, hen of the woods, morel, oyster, porcini and shiitake are available year-round. A mélange of mushrooms, sautéed in butter with garlic and a pinch of rosemary, makes an elegant, impressive and easy first course (you can add a splash of red wine, too). It’s a heavenly side to almost any grilled or roasted meat, poultry or fish dish; and a delicious topping for linguini or other “long cut” pasta. Pair mushroom dishes with earthy red wines like Pinot Noir and Nebbiolo.

• See all the different types of mushrooms in our Mushroom Glossary.

Go for the gold: Try this year’s gold medal
winner in the Tuscan olive oil category.

Lovers of Tuscan olive oil: Cafaggio Extra Virgin Olive Oil was just awarded the Gold Medal at the 2009 Los Angeles County Fair. We haven’t tasted it, but Cafaggio has been described by its importer, Gustiamo (which sources the most delicious specialty items from Italy) as full-on-the-tongue, pleasantly pungent, clean and smooth. It’s pleasantly spicy with a touch of artichoke flavor and grassiness. They suggest that it is excellent on salads and grilled meats.

Tenuta Cafaggio is located in Impruneta, the Tuscan hill town between the valleys of the Greve and Ema Rivers that is famous for its terracotta. The local clay is imbued with valuable minerals necessary to create the highest-quality terracotta products. During the Renaissance, the rich and powerful Medici family used Impruneta terracotta to decorate their palace gardens.

The earth evidently creates some magic in olives as well. Hand-picked Frantoio, Moraiolo and Leccino olives are blended by Tenuta Cafaggio to create an extra virgin olive oil of low acidity. A .500 liter/16.9 ounce bottle of the Cafaggio Extra Virgin Olive Oil New Harvest 2008/2009 is $42.00, and would make a nice gift for an olive oil connoisseur.

You can get a 20% discount until August 15th, or until supplies last, at Gustiamo.com. Type the words “Los Angeles” in the Special Instructions box of the shopping cart to get the discount. Gustiamo advises, “We have a stupid shopping cart and the discount is not reflected in your automatic order confirmation. Do not worry: it will be reflected on your bill and credit card charge!”

Photo by Jasper Golangco | SXC.

For years, mayonnaise-based foods like potato salad and macaroni salad have taken the rap for food poisoning at summer picnics. As the story went, unrefrigerated mayo-based dishes spoiled more easily in the heat than others…or the combination of mayo with other proteins plus heat caused Salmonella. Mayonnaise should never be used in picnic foods, mother cautioned; mayo-based foods left on the kitchen counter should be tossed.

But these common misconceptions simply are not true. According to The Association for Dressings & Sauces, an international association of salad dressing, mayonnaise, mustard and other condiment manufacturers and their suppliers, commercial mayonnaise is one of the safest products you can eat.

Carefully prepared under strict quality controls, mayonnaise is made with pasteurized eggs that are free of Salmonella and other dangerous bacteria. Additional ingredients such as vinegar and lemon juice create a high-acid environment that slows, and even stops, bacterial growth. The salt in the recipe also contributes to an unfavorable environment for bacteria. In fact, hazardous bacteria die off if placed in a commercially prepared mayo!

Once, there was truth in the story. Many years ago, when mayonnaise was prepared from scratch, home cooks used unpasteurized eggs, which we now know can sometimes be contaminated by Salmonella bacteria. Also, homemade mayonnaise, unlike commercial products, may not contain
enough salt and vinegar to counteract the growth of harmful bacteria.

While mayonnaise does contribute 100 calories a tablespoon and cholesterol from egg yolks (that’s the bad news), it is made with healthy oils such as soybean and canola. Both are natural sources of alpha-linolenic acid, an essential omega-3 fatty acid—no trans fat. Both are also a major source of vitamin E. Read the label of your favorite mayonnaise to see what healthy oils it contains (some have olive oil, for example).

Lemon-infused olive oil is one of six spectacular flavors.

Gertrude Stein may have espoused that a rose is a rose, but to us, an infused olive oil certainly is not an infused olive oil. All of them suffice, but Sonoma Farm Olive Oil is one of a handful of brands that we’ve tried where the flavors leap out of the bottle and transport you to a garden of wonderful aroma and flavor. (See our >Oils & Vinegars Section for other favorites.)

When we first looked at our task—tasting six different flavors of the Sonoma Farm brand of extra virgin olive oil, plus unflavored EVOO and a dipping oil—it seemed like work. By the end of the tasting, we were drunk with happiness on olive oil, drinking tablespoon after tablespoon. (The FDA recommends two tablespoons a day for heart health; we had a month’s worth.)

What did we experience? Lemon, lime and blood orange wafting out of the EVOO bottle, as if fresh juice were pent-up and waiting to escape. The fresh garlic, hot pepper (cayenne) and rosemary/basil olive oils jockeyed for position as well. Honestly, we couldn’t even pick a champion—they’re all winners. And that’s before we got to the regular EVOO, the dipping oil and the regular and strawberry balsamic vinegars.

Read the full review and see how we used these lovely oils. And note that delicious, heart-healthy olive oil makes a mighty fine Father’s Day gift. Read the full review.