This week’s featured products are a trio of beverages, from zero-calorie sparkling water to low-calorie iced teas to an exciting IPA (240 calories pee 12 ounces, and worth it).

Here they are, in alphabetical order.
 
 
1. BEER: BALLAST POINT SCULPIN IPA

IPA is the hottest category in craft beer, and it’s been our favorite style—hoppy and robust—for more than a decade.

While the classic British IPAs were our first foray, once American craft brewers started brewing with Pacific Northwest hops, we were hooked. Goodbye, Old World IPA.

While a discussion of hops requires a long session, American craft brewers use Pacific Northwest hops, known for their fruitiness: their ability to generate flavors of apricot, grapefruit, mango, orange, peach, and tropical fruits.

We try every American IPA that comes our way. Most recently, Ballast Point, a San Diego brewery, has stolen our heart.

The brewery began in 1996, in the back of a homebrewing supply store: a small group of San Diego home brewers who wanted to make a better beer. It is now owned by Constellation Brands, but the beers still taste like loving artisans fuss over the tiniest detail to coax exciting flavors from each ingredient.
 
Ballast Point’s flagship beer, the first Sculpin IPA (sculpin is another name for the California scorpionfish, photo #2), has hints of apricot, lemon, mango, and peach.

The newest, our beloved Aloha Sculpin (photo #1), develops even more flavor by using a different strain of yeast called Brux Trois for short*. It contributes to the layers of flavor from the hops: guava, mango, and pineapple (hence “Aloha,” from the tropics). It’s the first Brux Trois IPA to be distributed nationally.

IPA lovers: Seek it out!

Discover more at BallastPoint.com.
 
 
2. ICED TEA: HONEST TEA

We applaud reduced-calorie iced teas and are fans of Honest Tea’s Just A Tad Sweet Line. An entire 16-ounce bottle is just 60 calories.

The line is naturally flavored, USDA organic-certified, and the tea and sugar are Fair Trade.

There are philosophical-inspirational quotes on the undersides of the caps. An example from Charles Darwin: “It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but the one that is most responsive to change.”

We enjoyed the three newest flavors (photo #3) immensely: Lemon Grove Maple Black Tea, Mango Maté Black Tea and Moroccan Mint Green Tea. But then, we’ve enjoyed every flavor we’ve tried (there are 15+ at last count).

Even the aroma of the empty bottles was intoxicating!

Discover more at HonestTea.com.

[2] The brand “ambassadorfish,” the sculpin (California scorpionfish, Scorpaena guttata). Watch out for the venomous fin spines (photo © Ken Jones Fishing).

[3] Three flavors from the Just A Tad Sweet line of Honest Tea, certified organic and Fair Trade (photo © Honest Tea).

[4] Just peachy: new peach-flavored Perrier (photo © Perrier).

Peach is the latest of Perrier’s flavored sparkling waters (photo #4). Its formal name is PERRIER Carbonated Mineral Water Peach Flavor, but Peach Perrier works fine for us.

Peach joins the other Perrier flavors: Green Apple, Lemon, Lime, L’Orange, Pink Grapefruit, Strawberry, and Watermelon.

We’re going to try to assemble them all and have a Perrier tasting. It sounds great for light summertime dining, with an assortment of salads including fruit salad, of course.

Discover more at Perrier.com.
Three new flavors join the lineup: Lemon Grove Maple Black Tea, Mango Maté Black Tea and Moroccan Mint Green Tea.

They join 13 other flavors, which gives us an idea…for another tasting lineup!
 
 
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*The full name is Saccharomyces “Bruxellensis” Trois.
 
 

[2] Fancy or casual roulades: julienned cucumbers rolled in prosciutto. You can soak the cucumbers in gin! Here’s the recipe from Parma Crown (photo © Parma Crown).

[3] Cucumbers, yogurt, garlic, and dill are the ingredients of Greek tzatziki, but can also be served as a dip (photo © Ausport | Australia).

[4] Chilled cucumber soup is a summer refresher. Here’s a recipe for Chilled Cucumber Yogurt Soup (photo © Chocolate Lab |San Francisco [now closed]).

[5] Cucumber ice pops, here accented with green tea and mint. Here’s the recipe from Cake Over Steak (photo © Cake over Steak).

[6] Spiralized cucumber salad with sesame. Here’s the recipe from Bowl Of Delicious (photo © Bowl of Delicious).

[7] These heirloom cucumbers have a yellow peel, not green (photo © Baldor Specialty Food).

[8] You may be able to find Armenian cucumbers at a farmers’ market—or grow your own. Its creamy flesh has good crunch, superb flavor, and few seeds (photo © Burpee).

But what else can you do with them? Here are nine more ways to go beyond “the usual.”

While it is natural to buy the largest cucumbers to “get your money’s worth,” smaller cucumbers are more tender.

Should you peel them? It’s a question of how tough the peel is. Chew a slice with the peel on to decide. One of the things that we like to do is make vertical stripes with a vegetable peeler.

After you check out the different ways to use cucumbers, take a look at the different types of cucumbers.

And don’t overlook the history of cucumbers, below, plus these heirloom cucumbers.

June is National Cucumber Month and June 14th is National Cucumber Day.

The history of cucumbers is below.
 
 
1. CUCUMBER APPETIZERS

Fancy cooks have long used cucumber slices as a base for hors d’oeuvre, instead of bread or crackers. Just add the topping.

With thicker slices, you can scoop out a well in the center to stuff crab salad, goat cheese, etc.

Or, make cucumber stacks: “sandwich” bites filled with chicken salad, hummus, olive cream cheese, or whatever you like.

Here are two recipes to start you off:

 
 
2. CUCUMBER DRINKS

Use cucumbers in cocktails and non-alcoholic drinks. Serve cucumber water often!

 
 
3. CUCUMBER ICE

Make cucumber sorbet or ice pops. There are many recipes for both, accenting with coconut water, lemon, lime, matcha tea, or mint.

Here’s a recipe to start you off (photo #5).
 
 
4. CUCUMBER PICKLES WITH GLOBAL FLAVORS

You don’t need to put them up in Mason jars: Recipes for quick pickles abound.

By changing spices and vinegar types, you can create delightful “signature pickles.”

Look at your spice shelf, pass by the conventional pickling spices, and go for it. Cayenne? Cumin? Curry?
 
 
5. CUCUMBER SANDWICHES

Cucumber sandwiches on buttered bread are a perennial feature of afternoon tea. Use good butter and bread, and they’re delicious.

Use cucumber slices like iceberg lettuce, to add crunch to a sandwich.

 
 
6. CUCUMBER SAUCES & DIPS

Cucumber and yogurt are served as sides to grilled meats. The two most famous:

 
 
The major difference is the seasoning: garlic, cumin, and cayenne for raita; garlic and dill for tzatziki.

You can thin either of these for dips.
 
 
7. CUCUMBER SIDES & SALADS

You can grill cucumbers, stuff and bake them, or dredge them in cornmeal and fry them. Serve those with lemon wedges and ketchup!

 
 
8. CUCUMBER SOUP

Chilled cucumber soup, like vichyssoise, has long been made in France with a base of cream.

With the growth of yogurt fans in the 1980s, Americans have embraced soups with a yogurt base.

 
Garnishes or mix-ins for cucumber soup include avocado, feta, fresh herbs, garlic, red onion or shallots, and tomato.

Try this Gazpacho Verde recipe.
 
 
9. MARINATED CUCUMBERS

Leave the salad greens behind, and create salads with cucumbers and vinegar.

Israeli salad, a combination of cucumbers, tomatoes, onions, and parsley, is one of our favorites (here’s a recipe)

Asian cucumber salads are sweet-and-sour. Try this recipe for starters.

Our own recipe for Greek-style cucumber salad: thinly-sliced tomatoes, marinated in wine vinegar; thinly-sliced red onion; halved cherry tomatoes; drizzled with olive oil and topped with kalamata olives and diced feta.

We keep containers of it in the fridge all summer long. If you store it, hold the feta until you’re ready to serve.

And those of you with spiralizers: Make cucumber “zoodle” salad (photo #6).
 
 
CUCUMBER HISTORY

The cucumber originated in India and was cultivated more than 4000 years ago. Easy to cultivate, it spread to other parts of the Pacific.

By the first century B.C.E., it was traded to ancient Greece, Rome, the Middle East, and modern-day Bulgaria and Serbia.

The march of the cucumber was global. It is the fourth most widely cultivated vegetable in the world [source].

(The first practical greenhouse was invented by the French botanist Charles Lucien Bonaparte during the 1800s, to grow medicinal tropical plants.)

Because it is such a prolific grower (one vine grows many cukes), the vegetable was inexpensive and accessible to both the wealthy and peasants. In addition to eating, cucumbers were widely used as medicinal remedies.

After the fall of Rome, cucumbers receded for a long period, resurfacing in France at the court of Charlemagne in the late 8th and 9th centuries.

 
In 2010, worldwide cucumber production was 57.5 million tons, with the majority of the world’s production and export coming from China (40.7 million tons).
 
 

[2] DRY Sparkling, a cucumber soda low in sugar, is one of our favorites straight or as a mixer (photo courtesy DRY Sparkling).

[3] Spindrift’s Sparkling Water is flavored with real squeezed cucumber, no sweetness added (photo courtesy Spindrift).

[4] This garnish is at home in a cocktail or a glass of club soda (photo courtesy Dante | NYC).

[5] Make a curly cucumber cocktail garnish on a cocktail pick (photo courtesy AnQi | Costa Mesa) .

 
DRINKS FOR EVERYONE!

Cucumber Cocktails

We like to sip cucumber vodka straight or on the rocks. Brands like Effen, Ketel One, Prairie, Svedka, Rain and others sell it. Some are straight cucumber, some add lime.

You can make these cocktails with plain or cucumber vodka. Or, infuse your own cucumber vodka at home.

 
Non-Alcoholic Cucumber Drinks

 
Cucumber Appetizers

If you’d like a cucumber snack with your cucumber drink, try:

 
 
CUCUMBER TYPES

Growers define cucumbers in five categories: slicing, pickling, burpless, space savers and specialty.

 
 
SPECIALTY CUCUMBERS

You can eat, drink or garnish with any supermarket cucumber, but why not have fun and look for specialty varieties?

You know what conventional cucumbers look like. Check farmers markets for specialty varieties like these:

 
Your homework: Go to the farmers market and look for specialty cucumbers. If you have a garden, check out the options and plan to plant at least one variety next year.
 
 
* CUCUMBER TRIVIA

Cucumbers are fruits. They are members of the same botanical genus as cantaloupe, honeydew, Persian melon and other melons.

A giveaway: Fruits carry their seeds on the inside.

The exception is the strawberry: Technically, the strawberry is an aggregate accessory fruit, meaning that the fleshy part is derived not from the plant’s ovaries but from the receptacle that holds the ovaries.

The tiny “seeds” (called achenes) on the outside of the berry are actually teeny ovaries of the flower, with a teenier seed inside it.

June 10th is National Iced Tea Day. Here are some fun facts from Pure Leaf Tea.

Tea is the number-one-consumed beverage in the world, after water. While most of the world consumes iced tea, in the U.S., almost 80% of the tea consumed is iced.

1. Tea leaves and wine grapes share similarities.

Both tea leaves and grapes require certain environments and climatic conditions to thrive. Terroir (tur-WAH), the characteristics of a place (soil, water, altitude, latitude and climate) affect the taste of a final agricultural product and play a huge role in the growing of both tea leaves and grapes.

2. Tea regions create different flavor profiles.

Different environmental characteristics affect the flavors and aromas of tea. For example, in India, the low-altitude Assam region produces a black tea with a bold, malty flavor. In Indonesia, consistent temperatures and humidity make Java a perfect location to grow tea plants used for green tea.

3. Black tea, green tea and white tea come from the same plant.

A single plant, Camellia sinensis, provides all of the tea grown. For black and green tea, the difference lies in the oxidation of the leaf: green tea production stops the oxidation process to keep the leaves green. Quality teas like Pure Leaf process with the long leaf method, where the tea leaves are gently picked, rolled, dried, and blended to achieve a specific flavor.

4. Fruit and herbal teas are not real teas.

They do not come from the Camellia sinensis. They are properly called tisanes (tee-ZON) or infusions.

Fruit and herb teas (chamomile, peppermint, rooibos, etc.) have been used for medicinal purposes for thousands of years. Today, many people who drink them appreciate that they are 100% caffeine-free.

5. Iced Tea is quintessentially American.

No one can say at which point tea was first chilled with ice, but iced tea had its debut on the world stage at the 1904 St. Louis Exposition (today called the World’s Fair). On a very hot day, no one was trying the hot tea samples at one pavilion. Here’s the clever solution used to chill the tea.
 
 
MAKING ICED TEA

1. Use real tea leaves.

Boil the water and steep the tea. Iced tea made from powder is to brewed tea, what instant coffee is to brewed coffee.

We’ve tried every iced tea concentrate—brewed liquid tea to mix with iced water—and have never found one we’d buy again. (Note: Anyone who adds lots of sugar may not notice the difference.)

2. Check the water temperature.

When brewing your iced tea, it’s important to monitor the temperature of the water. With black tea, the water should come to a full boil; but when brewing the more delicate green tea leaves, the water should be just under boiling.

3. Tailor your tea.

You can brew it a little longer or shorter to adjust the flavor. Note that if you add ice cubes to your iced tea (even drunk straight from the fridge), the tea should be brewed stronger to allow for dilution by the ice.

Here’s how to add fruit flavors to home-brewed iced tea.
 
 
MORE ICED TEA TIPS

[2] Fan favorite: Pure Leaf bottled teas: there are 15 varieties (photo courtesy Pure Leaf).<
[3] Brew your own: 7 varieties of bagged teas (photo courtesy Pure Leaf).

Pure Leaf’s delicate tea leaves are kept long, then simply picked, rolled and expertly crafted with real fruit pieces, petals and herbs, allowing the natural tea essence to shine through. To ensure an exceptional and authentic taste experience, Pure Leaf offers single-source tea leaves from Rainforest Alliance Certified tea estates in India, Kenya, Indonesia and Sri Lanka. Pure Leaf’s uniquely transparent packaging reveals the masterful tea blends and lets the quality of the ingredients speak for themselves.

There are currently 15 varieties:

 
Bagged teas are available in 15-count jars, in seven varieties:

 
Pure Leaf loose teas are offered in three varieties—English Breakfast Black Tea and Iced Classic Black Tea, both available in 4.7-oz. jars, and Gunpowder Green Tea, available in 5.8-oz. jars.

We’re big fans of the Tea House Collection, elegant flavors in glass bottles.

For more information, visit PureLeaf.com.

[1] Stewed rhubarb. Call it strawberry-rhubarb sauce or make it a chilled soup with vanilla frozen yogurt or sorbet. The recipe is at right (photo courtesy Eat Well 101).

[2] Turn strawberry-rhubarb scones into a shortcake with whipped cream and strawberries. Here’s the recipe from Dessert First Girl.

[3] The main ingredients: rhubarb and strawberries (photo courtesy Dessert First Girl).

Today, how about a relative of pie: a shortcake (scones) with strawberry-rhubarb sauce (recipe, photo #2)?

Or, a very easy recipe, below (photo #1): stewed strawberries and rhubarb, which can be served as a sauce with scones, pound cake, etc.; a chilled soup; as a compote, layered with whipped cream; or with plain or flavored yogurt.

FOOD TRIVIA: Technically, rhubarb is a vegetable, a member of the sorrel family. Before it was sweetened by British cooks, it was added to soups (try it in lentil soup), sauces and stews—Moroccan tagines and Middle Eastern stews, for example.

Be sure to cook only the stems; the leaves are mildly toxic (they contain oxalic acid).
 
 
RECIPE: STEWED STRAWBERRIES & RHUBARB

This recipe came to us from from Nina Palmer of Eat Well 101.

If you want to make ice cream to go with it, consider lavender, peach, rhubarb or saffron ice cream.

Ingredients For 6 Servings

 
For Serving

 
Preparation

1. WASH and peel the rhubarb, and cut the stalks into 1/3 inch sections. Place them in a saucepan with the sugar and let sit for 20 minutes.

2. SPLIT the vanilla bean in half, and scraping the seeds out so they can more easily infuse the fruit. Add both the pod and the seeds to the pot.

3. WASH and hull the strawberries, and cut them into quarters. Cook the rhubarb over low heat for 10 minutes, stirring regularly. Add the strawberries and cook for another 10 minutes. Remove from the heat and stir in the orange juice.

4. REMOVE the pod and allow to cool before transferring to a covered bowl and storing in the fridge until ready to use (the scraped seeds remain as flecks in the compote). The sauce should be served cold with a scoop of vanilla ice cream.
 
 
RHUBARB HISTORY

Rhubarb is an ancient plant, cultivated in China since 2700 B.C.E. for medicinal purposes (it was a highly-valued laxative). Much later (at the end of the 12th century), Marco Polo wrote about it at length in the accounts of his travels in China, suggesting that the plant had not yet made it to southern Europe.

Different strains of rhubarb grew wild elsewhere, as well, including in Russia. Its genus name, Rheum, is said to be derived from Rha, the ancient name of the Volga River, on whose banks the plants grew.

It was added to soups (try it in lentil soup!) and sauces in the Himalayas and later arrived in the Middle East, where it was used in Moroccan tagines and Middle Eastern stews.

Records show that rhubarb was cultivated in Italy in 1608 and 20 to 30 years later in Europe. A 1778 record shows that rhubarb had become a food plant in Europe as a vegetable.

The earliest written record of rhubarb in the U.S. concerns a gardener in Maine who obtained seed or root stock from Europe, sometime between 1790-1800. He introduced it to growers in Massachusetts where its popularity spread. [source]

Here’s more about rhubarb, including why rhubarb is a vegetable and not a fruit.

HERE’S THE HISTORY OF STRAWBERRIES