Alcohol

Smashing (called muddling in the bartending biz) the raspberries with the vodka, sugar, and lime wedges brings out the berry flavor.

This smoky grilled meat will be a delicious addition to your barbecue repertoire. For a casual party, serve the lamb with grilled pita bread, grilled eggplant, and tzatziki so that guests can make their own Greek-inspired sandwiches. Timing note: The lamb needs to marinate overnight.

A fizzy summer cocktail.

Kathy Casey is one of Seattle's most talented chefs, and this cucumber sake-tini was inspired by her specialty drink, the Katana. We warn you that this martini is absolutely lethal, because the cooling cucumber masks the potency of the gin. The sake adds a little "je ne sais quoi" and the mint heightens the overall floral bouquet. The result is a drink that it is soooooooooo sippable that it's hard to stop. Due to popular demand, we often serve this at our Southern supper club.

Craig promises that if you follow this recipe, you can make dizzyingly delicious Chinatown char siu ribs at home in the oven or on the grill. That makes them a great choice for the winter, when you've got a hankering for ribs and the smoker is snowed in. Many Chinese restaurants use spareribs that are chopped into 3- to 4-inch riblets. If you want, your butcher can make you riblets with a band saw. Craig likes baby backs for this recipe because they are a bit meatier. You can also substitute 4 pounds of pork loin for the ribs if you wish. The booze is important for the marinade because it helps penetrate the meat, and even if you're a teetotaler, don't worry—there isn't any measurable alcohol in the ribs. If you must skip it, use apple juice or water. You can buy char siu sauce at Chinese specialty stores, and it makes a fine glaze, but it doesn't make ribs that taste like Chinese restaurant ribs. That's because you need to marinate the meat in a thin sauce first.

Not to be confused with the annual Gaelic Gourmet events in Boston since the year 2000, Marty Lynch and Kevin O'Grady's Gaelic Gourmet BBQ Team has been burning sticks and wowing barbeque judges since the early 1980s. When Marty gave Ardie [Davis] a taste of CAM Onions at the 2008 Great American Barbecue, Ardie said, "You've gotta give me your recipe for the next KCBS cookbook!" Marty gladly obliged. He adapted this from Rick Browne's Oz Onion Pudding in Rick's Grilling America book (2003). Rick gave us permission to share this version, tweaked by Carolyn Wells, Amy Winn, and Marty Lynch—hence the CAM acronym.

Floating islands are similar to snow eggs but are baked in the oven in a bain-marie (water bath). The dessert can be made in individual portions, as here, or in a large soufflé mold. The bottom of each mold is coated with a caramel finished with butter to keep it a bit softer. The filled molds are then cooked, surrounded by water, in a roasting pan. Some of the caramel adheres to the bottom of the dishes when the floating islands are unmolded, but some of it drips down over the desserts to mix with the custard sauce. The rum-custard sauce is made with fewer egg yolks than traditionally called for in a custard cream. The milk, cornstarch, and sugar mixture is brought to a rolling boil and poured directly on top of the yolks. Because of the small proportion of egg yolks to milk, the temperature of the mixture rises to 180 degrees, ensuring that the lecithin in the egg yolks wil thicken. The sauce doesn't need further cooking and is strained to eliminate any curdled pieces. Here the custard sauce is flavored with rum, but it could be flavored with cognac, bourbon or vanilla instead. Floating islands can be cooked a day or so ahead and kept, covered, in the refrigerator so the tops don't get rubbery. Covering also keeps the dessert moist, preventing the sugar from hardening around the edge of the molds, and thus making the floating islands easier to unmold.

If you're lucky enough to have a persimmon tree, you're guaranteed to have plenty of gorgeous persimmons come autumn. Or, if you have a neighbor with one, you're bound to find a bag of persimmons on your doorstep one fall day. The prolific trees are especially striking when the leaves drop and the traffic-stopping bright-orange orbs are still clinging to the bare, gnarled branches, silhouetted against a clear autumn sky. Even if you don't have a tree, or a neighboring one that you can benefit from, you might have seen persimmons at the market. Most likely they were Hachiya persimmons, the most common, elongated-shape variety. It's the one I recommend for this cake. They must be squishy soft before they can be used. If you buy them rock-hard, leave them at room temperature until they feel like water balloons ready to burst. When ready, yank off the stem, slice each persimmon in half, then scoop out the jellylike pulp and purée it in a blender or food processor.

If you don't believe the saying that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, this simple yet incredibly good sorbet is proof positive that it can be true. This is my all-time favorite sorbet.

Sweet crabmeat and sweet peas make a great match in this springlike risotto.

This festive bubbly white sangria comes with a snack: Each glass is filled with sweet, fresh fruit. The recipe calls for Licor43, a Spanish liqueur that's flavored with vanilla.

Adapted from Pichet Ong's P*ONG restaurant in New York. Aleppo pepper is a Syrian red pepper with a bit of smokiness and just a faint touch of heat.

The luscious purple color of this drink is a stunner! Taste a berry first to check for sweetness. If it's not supersweet, add a tablespoon of sugar when muddling the berries.

Flavored creams (rose cream, geranium cream) served with berries are common in Britain. This take on the classic is a mix of drained yogurt and fromage blanc (fresh cream cheese). The soft, not too-sweet creams taste like a cross between an American-style pudding and a panna cotta. Keep in mind that the desserts need to chill at least eight hours.

From piña coladas to rum and coconut water, the fruit of the coco palm seems a natural pairing with the elixir of the cane reed. Here is a different twist on the rum and coconut theme—one that can be made in a larger quantity and kept on the sideboard or the bar until ready to serve. It only gets better.

Soon after the invention of the home blender, the machines were whirring about turning out all manner of cocktails including a raft of fruit-infused daiquiris. It might seem that strawberries are not Caribbean fruit, but anyone who has traveled to Haiti knows that in Kenskoff in the hills above Port-au-Prince and Petionville, the climate is cool enough to support strawberries and they grow there—small, sweet, and delicious.

This savory, fresh, and colorful drink was inspired by Adam Seger of Nacional 27. It has its roots in the Bloody Mary but skips the vodka, subbing in cachaça, a distant cousin of rum. Raid the summer garden for cherry tomatoes and basil in season!

Carbonnade is the quintessential Belgian comfort food; this recipe’s caramelized onions, brown sugar, and brown beer make the sweet stew addictive. Chef Palombino also recommends making this carbonnade with any muscular cut of beef that's good for stewing, such as skirt and hanger steaks.