To keep pesky bugs out of your drink at poolside or other outdoor leisure, poke a hole in a cupcake liner with a straw.

If you want to create a perfect opening, get out the three-hole-punch.

These multicolored cupcake liners from Wilton are well priced and ready to party.

They’re available in different colors and designs, including polka dots, damask/zebra and a very festive color wheel.

Don’t need a straw? Consider reusable plastic drink covers.

These plastic drink covers, shaped like flowers. They have a tight, spill-proof seal, and thus have no opening for a straw.

More subtle designs include these lily pads.

Shoo the blues: a summer salad with
blueberries and blue cheese. Photo courtesy
Driscoll’s.

The homemade blueberry vinegar will stay fresh for six months and can be gifted to your favorite cook(s).

Prep time is 10 minutes for the salad, 35 minutes for the vinegar.

RECIPE: BLUE SALAD WITH BLUE CHEESE & BLUEBERRIES

Ingredients For 4 Servings

Homemade Blueberry Vinegar

Preparation

1. MAKE the blueberry vinegar. Place blueberries and vinegar in a non-reactive saucepan. (Note that when heating vinegar or acidic foods, it’s important to use a non-reactive saucepan such as stainless steel, non-stick or enamel. Aluminum or cast-iron pans react with acid and can cause a metallic taste.)

2. ADD the sugar and orange zest; bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer, covered, for 20 minutes. Strain though a mesh sieve, pressing out as much liquid as possible. Pour into glass container. Refrigerate for up to 6 months.

3. MAKE the vinaigrette. Combine the blueberry vinegar, oil, salt and pepper in a screw-top jar or medium bowl. Shake or whisk well to blend.

4. TOSS the lettuces, blueberries, walnuts, cheese and chives in a large bowl with the desired amount of blueberry vinaigrette. Serve immediately.

Why a line of tea-flavored ice creams? Because there wasn’t one!

One day, the tea-loving founder of Tea-rrific Ice Cream made a batch of ice cream from Earl Grey teas, and saw the eyes of friends and family light up when they tasted the complex and unexpected flavors.

Soon, a line of special flavors emerged, and now, the biggest challenge is getting retail freezer space in the burgeoning category of artisan ice creams.

The all-natural premium ice cream line uses rBGH/rBST-free cream from local New England farms and is sweetened with either organic evaporated cane juice or locally sourced honey. The base is infused with top-quality blends of loose leaf teas. There are no stabilizers, gums, corn syrup, preservatives or artificial colors and flavors.

The taste is refreshingly light. The recipes err on the side of subtle, and perhaps that’s a good thing: You don’t have to be a tea fan to enjoy these flavors.

We’d have been willing to have more of a wallop of tea intensity, and one of these days, we may just try infusing our own.

 
There’s a store locator on the company website. Discover more at TearrificIceCream.com.
  

Summer means potato salad, and you can never have too many good potato salad recipes.

This one, from Tiffany Ludwig of Zabar’s, uses the stores famous smoked salmon to excellent effect.

“With capers, dill and smoked salmon,” says Tiffany, “this simple summer dish transforms brunch or lunch into a spectacular meal.”

Tiffany urges that the key to a great-tasting potato salad is to eat it right away, before refrigerating. Yes, refrigerate any leftovers, but enjoy it first as a fresh dish. You’ll appreciate it even more after you compare the refrigerated version.
 
 
RECIPE: SMOKED SALMON POTATO SALAD

Ingredients For 6 Servings

 
Preparation

1. BOIL a large pot of well salted water. While the water is boiling, wash and dice the potatoes. You can leave the skins on, since they add color and nutrition.

2. DICE the potatoes into ½ inch cubes, add to the boiling water and cook for about 15 minutes, until the potatoes are fully cooked through and are a little “fluffy” on the outside.

3. DRAIN the potatoes in a colander. Don’t rinse, or you’ll remove the starch coating that lets other ingredients adhere. Cool to room temperature; don’t refrigerate.

4. MIX in the mayonnaise to thoroughly coat the potatoes.

[1] Smoked salmon potato salad (both photos © Zabar’s).

[2] You don’t have to use a beautiful side of smoked salmon. Retailers often sell “ends,” which work perfectly in a potato salad.

Eat the Rubik’s Cube! Photo courtesy
Stasty.com.

Rubik, born July 13, 1944, is a Hungarian inventor, architect and professor of architecture. But his immortality lies in the 1974 invention of the Rubik’s Cube, one of the mechanical puzzles he loved to create.

Today he is focusing on video game development and architectural topics, and is still leading Rubik Stúdió in Hungary.

His Wikipedia bio says that “He is known to be an introvert, barely accessible and hard to contact or to get hold of for autographs.”

However, just two days after this recipe was posted (on his birthday in 2011) on Stasty.com, Vicky, the blog author and cake creator, received an email from Rubik himself saying that he liked her cake:

“Thanks for the nice birthday surprise which sweetens the bitterness of passing time.” “I guess the world is really a very small place,” Vicky notes.

The Battenberg cake was created to celebrate the 1884 marriage of Queen Victoria’s granddaughter, Princess Alice, to Prince Louis of Battenberg.

It is constructed of rectangular pieces of alternatively colored Victoria sponge cake, sandwiched together by jam and held together with walls of marzipan. The construction creates a checkerboard effect.

Vicky and her co-baker friend decided that different pieces of cake could by tinted the traditional six colors of the Rubik’s cube: blue, green, orange, red, yellow and white. They also used three different cake flavors, deciding that six would create too many conflicting tastes.

Then, to make the cake “work” like a Rubik’s Cube, they decided to have each slice of the cake reveal a different combination of colored squares. Read the original article to see how they engineered this.

If you’re as adventurous as Vicki (and Erno Rubik), bake the recipe. It will thrill on anyone’s birthday—not just Rubik’s.