Here’s a dessert for you!

The Macallan Brownie Sundae was created for a private tasting dinner of The Macallan Scotch at Michael’s Genuine Food & Drink in Miami.

Executive Pastry Chef Hedy Goldsmith took note of the guests’ enthusiasm for the dessert and put it on the menu for the month of August.

You can make it at home with this recipe.

 

FOOD TRIVIA: WHISKEY VS. WHISKY

Alcohol distillation was discovered in the late eighth century by an Arab scholar, Abu Masa Jabir ibn Hayyam, “the father of modern chemistry.”

The distillate was used as medicine, and distillation remained a secret process.

But who can take credit for whiskey? The Irish and Scots both claim it. The word comes from the the Gaelic uisce and the Scottish uisge, pronounced ISH-ka. Uisge became usky and then the English whisky.

In Ireland and the U.S., the word whiskey is spelled with an “e”; the British, Scots and Canadians usually opt to drop it.

Scholars can’t determine why the “e” was dropped by the Scots. One theory is that the Irish made whiskey first and pronounced it with a broad “e.” When the Scots began to make it, they dropped the “e” to differentiate their product.

Serve a shot of uisge with your brownie sundae.

When we began eating oysters (way back in our college years), the de rigeur wine was a crisp Chablis from northern France—or Champagne, if you were a bon vivant.

But if you know what to look for, you can buy an oyster-friendly white wine for $10—and have more money to spend on oysters. We’ve asterisked * the more affordable wines we tried (of course, some wines in these categories are more than $10—ask your wine store clerk for help).

And here’s another budget-wise tip: Each participant was assigned one of these wines to bring to the party.

STILL WHITE WINES

 
SPARKLING WINES

BEER WITH OYSTERS
While we were comparing all of the wines, someone asked for a beer.

We pulled out several different styles: an amber ale, IPA, Pilsner and stout. All were delicious, but the stout, a roasty style of beer (the term comes from the dark-roasted malts used to brew it) was deemed a perfect beer pairing.

If you’re looking for a gourmet Labor Day activity, here’s your blueprint!

See our Oyster Glossary for everything you wanted to know about oysters.

Check out the different types of beer in our Beer Glossary.

Our friends at Heinz have donated two picnic baskets to entice you to complete the two-minute survey: a classic picnic basket filled with bottles of tangy Heinz 57 Sauce with a special 100th anniversary label, plus:

And everybody wins with this $1.00 coupon for Heinz 57 sauce.

Use Heinz 57 Sauce on steak and in dips, pasta sauce, meatloaf and hundreds of recipes. Click on the coupon link and then on the recipe tab to find hundreds of recipes.

You can buy lychee-coconut water or take
advantage of lychee season and enjoy
fresh lychee. Photo by Deasy Setiawati
Widjaja | Dreamstime.

If you’ve seen the uber-trendy Rihanna posing in ads with a container of Vita Coco coconut water, you know that chilled juice from green coconuts is a hot drink.

When Vita Coco was introduced in the U.S. in 2004, coconut water had minimal visibility and sales were confined to certain ethnic communities. A mere five years later, sales of coconut water were about $35 million. And two years after that—this year—U.S. coconut water sales will top $350 million.

That’s impressive—and the reason why we set out to taste the different brands of coconut water to see how much they differ.

We’ve looked at:

Start at the beginning with the overview.

Dimple It
If your burgers tend to puff up, here’s a tip to keep them looking good: Use a spoon to press a dimple into the top before placing them on the grill. The burgers will rise while remaining shapely.

Butter It
We had burgers at the home of a friend who shaped her patties around a pat of butter, like Martha Stewart does. We were shocked at the addition of cholesterol to cholesterol, but decided to taste it before passing judgment.

It was luscious, and inspired us to do the same, with our own improvement: compound (flavored) butter (see here for our favorite compound butter recipes).

More burger cooking tips.

Fifty burger variations—including turkey burgers and veggie burgers—plus condiments and toppings you haven’t tried.