Take-out food with a good, affordable wine
makes for a pleasant evening. Photo
by Katharine Pollak | THE NIBBLE.

But every town has its favorite take-out spots. In a survey conducted by Turning Leaf wine, 38% of respondents nationwide said that Friday night—after a long week—was their favorite night for take-out food.

Most Americans enjoy their take-out on the sofa or the dining table. We recommend adding a nice glass of wine to the experience. Here are Turning Leaf’s take-out-and-wine pairing suggestions:

• Cabernet Sauvignon: cheeseburger, cheese pizza, meatball hero
• Chardonnay: grilled cheese, spring rolls, mozzarella sticks
• Merlot: dumplings, gyro, veggie burger
• Pinot Grigio: garlic knots, miso soup, tortilla soup
• Pinot Noir: falafel, taco, salmon roll sushi
• Riesling: chicken tikka masala, pad thai, spicy tuna roll
• Sauvignon Blanc: broccoli with garlic sauce, green curry, seaweed salad
• White Zinfandel: California roll, General Tso’s chicken, rainbow roll

Find our favorite special-occasion wines in our Wine Section.

In addition to buttercream and cream cheese frostings, the busy bakers came up with a third concept: icing cupcakes by dipping them in chocolate sauce (a.k.a. hot fudge).

We like that idea—especially since our Top Pick Of The Week is Sassy Sauce’s delicious line of chocolate sauces (and caramel sauces).

A good chocolate sauce is like fudge-in-a-jar. Chocolate sauce becomes “hot fudge” (as opposed to calling it “hot chocolate”) when it’s heated to a liquid consistency. (There is no official definition of “hot fudge”; see our Dessert Sauce Glossary for details.)

To create our own hot fudge cupcake topping, we first tried using Sassy Sauce’s chocolate sauces (in Bittersweet, Peanut Butter, Spicy and Milk Chocolate Caramel) right from the jar at room temperature. In another test, we warmed the sauce slightly—10 seconds in the microwave.

We copied Saint Cupcake’s idea. Here, a
peanut butter cupcake frosted with
chocolate sauce and garnished with peanuts.
Photo courtesy SaintCupcake.com.

• Check out our recipe for dark chocolate cupcakes and preheat the oven!
• Prefer buttercream or cream cheese cupcake frosting? Here are recipes.
• How about some easy cupcake decorating ideas?

Soup will be dished out more cheerfully at
the reopened location of the original Soup
Nazi. Photo courtesy OriginalSoupman.com.

After the place, its owner and the Larry David-penned catchphrase, “No soup for you!” entered the national consciousness, a group of investors enlisted owner Al Yageneh (who abhorred being called the ‘Soup Nazi’) to turn his name and likeness into a franchise operation. The first The Original Soupman store opened in 2004.

The franchise did not find the same success as the little shop on West 55th Street. Outside of New York City, people resisted paying $7.00 for a cup of soup. Some franchises closed, including the first The Original Soupman store on Fifth Avenue in New York City. Others are still ladling out the soup.

Al Yageneh will not be in the kitchen, behind the counter or even at hand. Instead, baseball great Reggie Jackson and Chef Dan Rubano will be there to cut the ribbon—with a chef’s knife instead of a scissors.

What will the soup be like without the original soupman at the helm? We’ll drop by to check it out—but not on opening day, when Reggie Jackson and the draw of free tee shirts will have lines wrapping around the block.

The ribbon cutting is at noon on Tuesday, July 20th. If you want to be part of the opening day crowd, show up between 12 p.m. and 7 p.m. But if you want to meet Reggie and get a shirt, come early. Otherwise: No shirt for you—and no Reggie, either.

Everyday fruits such as apples, grapes, oranges and grapefruit, are excellent ingredients. But you can follow your palate and add anything from seasonal fruits to exotics such as star fruit. Here’s an easy yet absolutely delicious salad recipe:

Ingredients

• 1 bunch leafy greens (we love the flavor of mixed
  microgreens)
• 1 sweet apple such as Fuji or Golden Delicious, sliced into matchsticks
• Half fennel bulb sliced thin and soaked in water to retain crispness
• Pinch salt and pepper to taste
• Handful of sautéed grapes or 1 sliced orange
• ¼ cup walnuts or almonds chopped (optional)
• ¼ cup dried cranberries (optional)
• Favorite salad vinaigrette**We love 1 part yuzu mixed with 3 parts olive oil and a pinch of sea salt.

Our fruit-accented salad pairs well with
baked or grilled proteins. Photo by
Jerry Deutsch | THE NIBBLE.

Find other great salad ideas in our Gourmet Vegetables Section.

[1] One of the three shots in a deconstructed Margarita (photo courtesy Sauza).

For cocktail fun this weekend, try this deconstructed Margarita.

Deconstruction means taking something apart. In the case of deconstructed food, creative chefs and mixologists deconstruct a familiar recipe to present the ingredients in a new and exciting way.

In this recipe, the Margarita is deconstructed into three cocktail shots: a shot of reposado tequila, a shot of sweetened lime juice and a shot of citrus foam. You take a sip of each to “reconstruct” the drink.

 
Here’s another Margarita, deconstructed into three shots.

Have fun deconstructing!