Easy

A blend of rums, exotic juices, liqueurs, aromatic spices, absinthe, and trepidation. One from the Soulshakers' greatest hits collection, this drink has been honed to a lethal edge over the past eight years at Gaz's Rocking Blues at London's Notting Hill Carnival and the Glastonbury Festival in southwest England.

The name egg cream is misleading—in actuality, the soda fountain classic contains no eggs and no cream. The three winning elements are milk, flavored syrup, and seltzer. For an icy beverage like top soda jerks used to craft, it's best to frost glasses in the freezer.

This is a twist on the Margarita and uses Japanese matcha for a modern feel. The finely milled green tea brings a touch of Zen to the cocktail ceremony.

Legend has it that a bartender at Chasen's, the famous West Hollywood gathering place for entertainment luminaries, created the eponymous cocktail for "Little Curly Top," the star of Bright Eyes, Little Miss Marker, and The Littlest Rebel. Necessarily nonalcoholic, the drink's appeal to children may lie in the brightly colored, candy-sweet maraschino cherry garnish.

Pea shoots are the young, tender tips and vines of the snow pea or the sugar snap pea plant. Once your plants are established and producing an abundance of pods, clip off leaf and tendril sections about 4 inches (10 cm) long. If you don't have your own plants, look for these tender shoots at farmers' markets or Asian grocery stores. Sambal oelek is an Indonesian chile paste, and tart, citrusy makrut lime leaves are used in Southeast Asian cooking.

We had to include this fantastic recipe because the marriage of fresh ginger, garlic, mint, feta cheese, spinach, and freshly ground lamb with complementary spicy seasonings grilled over direct heat yields an outstanding flavor. Cover them with Spicy Afghan Green Sauce and you'll be serving one of the most remarkable backyard barbecues ever. Friends who think they don't like lamb will rave about these meatballs.

We can always count on Clint Cantwell to come up with flavor profiles that, at first glance, make us blink like we just got smoke in our eyes. Here he's done it again by rubbing steak with coffee, paprika, and coriander—some of the hottest seasonings out there now. It opens up some new flavors you might not have thought of, but they work!

If you want a real taste of Cuba, you have to start with a mojito. Rum, lime juice, mint…you've got the drink of Hemingway in your hands. For a delicious spin on the classic, try this version. Sweet, tart, and bursting with fruity flavor, blackberries are an outstanding addition.

Dripping with honey and sprinkled with fresh thyme, cracked pepper, and sea salt, these warm, crunchy toasts make a delicious breakfast, after-school treat, or lunch when matched with a handful of salad greens. I'm always amazed how something so simple, and a tad messy, can be so unbelievably good.

Wiśniówka "Life is dandy, cherry brandy!" So goes a line from a poem by Russian writer Osip Mandelstam—meant to be ironic, of course, as he lived in the darkest days of Stalinism and died in the Gulag. Cherry brandy, cherry vodka, cherry liqueurs: These are the obvious consequence of Eastern Europe's famous and abundant cherry orchards, of which there are just as many in Poland as there are in provincial Russia. Do note that this recipe works for any kind of fruit that is not too sweet. In particular it is worth trying with black currants or Polish jagody—wild blueberries—if you can find them. The quantities given here are for a 34-oz/1-L jar, but do reduce them (or increase them!) in proportion to the bottle you are using.

Miód Pitny na Ciepł Mead—fermented honey—is a Polish drink that goes back to the Middle Ages. In Polish sagas and epics, warriors drink mead before battles. Even now it has an indefinable, and probably undeserved, reputation as a healthier form of alcohol. In Poland you can buy bottled mead, the making of which grows more sophisticated every year. At a dinner organized in Warsaw not long ago by Slow Food Polska—the Polish branch of the international Slow Food movement—Anne was served several extraordinary organic meads, each made by a slightly different method. The company that produces them, Pasieka Jaros, has been researching and experimenting with ancient methods of mead production for more than thirty years. This recipe is something slightly different: It's a hot form of Honey and Ginger Spiced–Vodka, which you can make at home. Serve this as a winter cocktail—or after a day spent cross-country skiing—and drink it in front of a roaring fire.

Thai red curry paste typically has more than eight different ingredients, including hot red pepper and lemongrass, so buying it ready- made is certainly easier than making your own. Look for it in the ethnic foods section of your supermarket or at Asian grocers. You can add 1 pound large shrimp, peeled and deveined, to the curry during the last few minutes of cooking, if you wish.

Fast-track this recipe by tripling the dry ingredients and storing them in a jar. At breakfast time, scoop out 2 1/4 cups. All the other measurements stay the same.

When cooked just right, the potatoes will be tender but should still hold their shape.

Although it's reason alone to keep a rotisserie chicken on hand, this salad would also be great with shrimp or sliced leftover pork chops.

These scones are light, flaky, and airy—closer to a biscuit than the crumbly pastries you might have in mind.

Herbs in the dressing beg for herbs in the salad, too. We toss this vinaigrette with Bibb lettuce and lots of the tender green herbs— like mint, chervil, and parsley—that we grow in our window box.

"The only thing better than pimiento cheese dip? Melted pimiento cheese dip, laced with chopped pickles for a little zip." —Janet McCracken, deputy food editor

Don't use your best Champagne for this dessert—any affordable bottle of cava or Prosecco will do. The key ingredient in this machine-free sorbet is the apricots: Choose the ripest, most fragrant ones you can find.