Throw an Italian Aperitivo That Will Put Summer Happy Hours to Shame

The tradition of Italian aperitivo is, by its very nature, a civilized affair. Drinks are light, lively, and low in alcohol. Snacks are simple, artful, and typically nibbly bites intended to be eaten with one’s hands. The equivalent of the U.S. happy hour, the aperitivo, or “opening,” is meant to provide stimulation, both socially and to one’s appetite, for the evening ahead. Many bars in Italy offer a modest buffet of snacks during aperitivo, where the purchase of a drink entitles you to a small plate of antipasti and the like. Contrary to the custom of happy hour in the States, however, where one might resourcefully make a gut-busting dinner out of discounted beers, free snack mix, and 50-cent wings, the point of aperitivo is restraint. Not filling up is the game. The main event is yet to come.

If you feel like you could go for a strong dose of civility right now, why not throw a supremely cool, low-commitment, early evening festa for a handful of friends in the Italian aperitivo style? Your kitchen, patio, or even conference room can provide a perfect setting, and since informality is the name of the game, you needn’t sweat too many details on this one.

Atmosfera (Ambiance)

The Italian language has a lovely way of saying “making something out of nothing,” which is “l’arte d’arrangiarsi.” The art of arranging oneself. Let this be your guide. Put the handful of Italian flags down and walk away. Run from the urge to acquire a red-checkered table cloth. Flee the scene if you had even a fleeting thought of googling “accordion player for hire.” We’re going here for classy and autentico. A set of wine glasses, either glass or plastic, stemmed or stemless, will serve for all beverages outlined below. Amass a set of mismatched appetizer plates from the nether regions of your cabinets, or get help from garage sales or resale stores for spunky charm. Try a contemporary Italian jazz artist on the sound system such as Piero Bittolo Bon’s album “Big Hell on Air.”

Bevande (Drinks)

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While it might go against everything we hold dear in this country regarding alcohol consumption, there is much to be cherished in a tradition that emphasizes fresh, lower-proof spirits to begin the evening. You need only a few key ingredients that, mostly in the vein of bubbles and bitters, will have a much larger impact on the impressed-ness of your guests than they will on your wallet. First, you’ll need a good amount of prosecco on hand, both as an easy option for those who fear you’re not trying hard enough to get them drunk, and as a mixer for option number two: spritzes. You might know them as Aperol Spritzes, but much in the same way buffalo wings are just “wings” in Buffalo, in Italy an Aperol Spritz is simply a spritz. Bubbly, lightly bitter, and beautiful in color, a spritz pairs as elegantly with light, salty snacks as it does with a setting sun. Finally, you might only think of vermouth as as that other ingredient that goes in your martini or Manhattan, but it is a lovely beverage in its own right—a fortified, aromatized wine that needs only some ice and perhaps a twist of citrus for it to sing for you. Cocchi di Torino with notes of absinthe and rhubarb is a good one to try.

Sputini (Snacks)

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Here’s where you can decide how hard you want to show off for this party. The beauty of aperitivo is that you can make an artful arrangement of olives, nuts, breadsticks, and an antipasto platter and call it a day—an approach which is both light enough to uphold the early evening spirit of the event, and hearty enough for anyone who wants to make a meal out of it. If you can’t fathom hosting an event where you don’t at least try to dazzle your guests with culinary prowess, prepare a few items that can be made ahead of time and served room temperature, such as Pickled Eggplant, Mini Frittatas, or Fava Bean and Pecorino Crostini. Finally, if you are struck with a rush of moxie that inspires you to toss civility to the curb, you can really crank it to undici (eleven) by setting up a fry station and putting out heavenly batches of Fried Chickpeas with Sage and Tomato-Basil Arancini.

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What Is the Difference Between AmazonFresh and Prime Now?

Amazon has completely changed the way the world shops, and yes, that includes how we buy groceries. The e-commerce juggernaut offers several food delivery services including Prime Now and AmazonFresh. In advance of Prime Day, which promises 36 hours of big sales on Monday, July 16, we break down the differences between these two programs and what they mean for consumers.

Prime Now is a service that is free for all Amazon Prime members. Prime Now offers free delivery within two hours for an array of groceries and household products, even toys, electronics, and pet supplies. And given their acquisition of Whole Foods, you can also get fresh produce, meat and dairy sent directly from those stores. For an additional fee, you can also have products delivered to your door within an hour. As amazing as this service may sound, it’s only available in a few select locations, however the list of areas that have access to this program is ever-changing. You can search for your zip code on their site to see whether or not you qualify.

While Prime Now is available to anyone with an Amazon Prime subscription, AmazonFresh is an add-on service that costs an additional fee (as of now it’s an extra $14.99 a month). AmazonFresh is exclusively focused on grocery delivery. The service allows you to schedule the delivery time that is most convenient to you. The groceries are also delivered in insulated packaging and reusable totes to help guarantee freshness. Unlike Prime Now, AmazonFresh deliveries are not free, unless your order exceeds a certain amount.

Amazon

Whether or not either of these services are ideal for you depends on a lot of factors, most notably your geographic location and your budget. But even if you’re not willing to shell out the extra bucks for door-to-door delivery, Amazon Prime members are also eligible for certain discounts at Whole Foods. So even if you’re doing your grocery shopping the old-fashioned way, you can still take advantage of Amazon’s price points.

There also rumors that the two services may merge or become more interconnected in the coming months. Given recent layoffs and staff consolidation, these changes may be imminent. It’s also worth noting that Amazon ended Amazon Fresh operations in parts of California, Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, and Virginia last November, as a result of a small user base. Considering all of these rapid changes, it’s hard to say what Amazon’s role in the grocery game will be in the long-term, but one thing’s for sure, the e-commerce giant is determined to be a part of it.

Related Video: Prices at Whole Foods Are Rising Despite Amazon Acquisition, According to New Report

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Lentil Salad with Summer Vegetables

As the weather warms, I spend a lot of time outside. My garden is flanked by the trailing tendrils of cantaloupe and watermelon on one side, and a uniform row of ten rhubarb plants on the other. The raised beds in between burst with any number of vegetables, including tomatoes, peppers, salad greens, and 200 sets of onions.

After weeks of tending, harvesting, and then cleaning the fruits of my labor, I’m ready to prepare them in the simplest of ways. I don’t want to worry about food; I want to enjoy a meal with the people I’m feeding.

Besides, more often than not, fresh produce needs little more than a vinaigrette and a good toss to turn it into something for the table.

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How to Make a Lighter, Brighter Bloody Mary Perfect for Summertime

Bloody Marys may be the ultimate brunch cocktail, and they’re good all year round, but some can be a little too rich and heavy for ideal hot weather sipping. Luckily, there are a lot of great ways to lighten and brighten the classic Bloody Mary to make it perfect for summer.

Use Fresh Tomatoes

The best way to make the Bloody Mary especially apropos for summer? Use the most beautifully fresh, in-season tomatoes you can find. They don’t have to be heirlooms, but those do tend to be more flavorful, so they make a good choice. Cherry tomatoes, grape tomatoes, beefsteaks—choose whatever has the richest, deepest, sweetest tomato taste you can find. You won’t have to individually juice them all, so don’t be daunted about picking the little guys. No matter what kind of tomatoes you choose, you’ll simply put them in a blender with a little lemon or lime juice and salt (or even pickle brine) to taste, and puree until smooth. Strain through a mesh sieve, pressing on the skins and seeds and smushing them around with a wooden spoon, so you’re left with just the juice, and combine it with your vodka and additional seasonings, from grated ginger and Worcestershire sauce to hot sauce, horseradish, celery salt, even a bit of kimchi brine for funkier heat. If tomatoes aren’t quite at their best yet, roast them to intensify their taste, or if you find the fresh tomato flavor of pure juice isn’t quite intense enough, blend in a dab of tomato paste to boost it.

Fresh Tomato Bloody Mary, Turnip the Oven

You can follow any basic Bloody Mary mix recipe and replace the bottled tomato juice with your own freshly extracted liquid, but you might want to start with a lighter hand on the spices, then taste and add more as you wish.

And you don’t have to stick to red tomatoes, either—try using orange or yellow for a lovely color (Sungold tomatoes are particularly perfect at the peak of the season, like nature’s candy with a rich orange hue). Just beware of mixing too many different shades together, or you may end up with a muddled cup—it should still taste great, though.

Heirloom Tomato Bloody Mary, Camille Styles

While using fresh tomatoes yields a lighter body and brighter taste, there are some other things you can do to further summerize the Bloody Mary.

Go Green

In addition to ripe red, orange, and yellow tomatoes, green tomatoes make for a more piquant twist on the traditional Bloody Mary. If you do go green, you can enhance the tart taste with tomatillos.

Tomatillo Bloody Mary, Salt & Wind

And whether you use green tomatoes or ripe red ones, you can blend a bit of cucumber right into the tomato mix to add a great fresh lift of clean green flavor that doesn’t stand out so much as elevate everything else. You can blend in a little celery for the same effect, and/or fresh green chiles for more of a grassy kick.

Garnish From the Garden

Emphasis on the garden part; since it’s usually hot and you have plenty of regular sweats, you may not want to add meat sweats on top of that. So forgo the heavy bacon and fried chicken garnishes that have become so common and stick to light, fresh veggies, maybe some pickled prawns for more protein, and herbs in abundance, like basil, parsley, dill, thyme, and cilantro.

Farm-to-Glass Bloody Mary Mix, Holly & Flora

Be sure to spear some perfect cherry tomatoes to top off the drink too—even better if they’ve already been booze-infused.

Try Another Alcohol

Vodka is a great blank canvas, but you can try swapping it out for aquavit, a Scandinavian spirit infused with dill and caraway, among other herbs and spices, which makes for a more complex cocktail. And gin, one half of the classic summertime G&T, also makes an interesting base for a Bloody Mary (which would then technically be called a red snapper).

Aquavit and Dill Bloody Mary, Stir and Strain

Of course, there’s also the Bloody Maria, made with tequila, and a plethora of other bloody variations, but more herbal and floral spirits that are light at heart are best for the warmer months.

Bubble Up

Since fizz is so refreshing, try adding a little bubbly to your bloody, in the form of seltzer, Champagne or Prosecco, or even beer—this IPA Bloody Mary dispenses with the vodka entirely, but you can still use it (or another base spirit) as usual and then top it off with a bit of beer or sparkling wine for a one-two punch of extra alcohol and effervescence.

Beer Bloody Mary, The Beeroness

Infuse Other Summer Flavors

If you have a lot of lead time (generally two or three weeks), you can make herb-infused vodka—cucumber basil vodka would be fantastic, but a bright lemon vodka would also work well. Ditto beet vodka, dill vodka, and a meta Bloody Mary vodka that includes fresh tomatoes and several other veggies.

No time for that? Try blending another summer favorite, watermelon, right into your Bloody Mary. It may sound odd at first, but tomatoes are a fruit anyway, and watermelons happen to be great with savory flavors.

Watermelon Habanero Bloody Mary, Salty Canary

Grill It

You’re grilling everything else right now, so why not grill your Bloody Mary ingredients too? This one calls for grilling tomatoes, poblano pepper, spring onions, and lemons to make the mix, and then tops it off with more grilled veggie garnishes, for a brilliant summer brunch option.

Grilled Bloody Mary, Honestly Yum

Freeze It

Conversely, ’tis the season for ice cream, frozen drinks, and all things slushy. So freezing your Bloody Mary makes sense!

If that doesn’t sound appealing, though, at least consider freezing fresh tomato juice (or your homemade mix) into ice cube trays so you can keep your drink icy cold without diluting it.

Frozen Bloody Mary, Cookie + Kate

Play around with these suggestions to concoct your own ideal summer Bloody Mary, and once you’ve perfected it, invite your friends over for a Bloody Mary bar brunch, preferably al fresco. Or mix one up for dinner, because it is practically a meal in a glass.

Related Video: Do This For the Best Bloody Mary Ever

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Blueberry Crumb Bars

Blueberries are such a popular snack in our house—my 3-year-old son eats them by the handful. But they also make their way into a lot of the baking and cooking I do.

He often requests them in pancakes and muffins, and more recently, in these blueberry crumb bars.

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Creative Ways to Add Fresh Summer Fruit to Your French Toast

French toast, no matter how you make it, is always amazing. In my humble opinion, there is nothing better than French toast with strawberries, bananas, and a TON of strawberry syrup and powdered sugar on top. Now that it’s summer, the French toast game is getting a lot more serious. So many delicious and sweet fruits are starting to come back into season, and that means more ways to get creative with the breakfast dish! Let me take you through some ways you can make sure you get your favorite summer fruits onto your next plate.

1. Right on Top

Like I said, my go-to is brioche French toast with strawberries, bananas, and powdered sugar on top. This is by far the easiest way to have fruit with your French toast, since you can throw anything in your fridge on your plate and it’ll be delicious. Our recipe for strawberry-orange French toast is amazing and so simple! Some other fruits I suggest mixing together are berries (strawberries, raspberries, blackberries, and blueberries), peaches and mangoes, and bananas and coconut flake. Powdered sugar on top is a must, and I’d also recommend a drizzle of honey.

2. Syrup

Tikkido

If you’ve ever been to IHOP (sorry, I’m refusing to call it ANYTHING else), you’ve seen that short little row of all different kinds of syrups. It’s the breakfast enthusiast’s beer flight. When I was younger, I was so grossed out by the thought of a syrup other than maple but, as I got less picky, I realized fruit syrup is probably the greatest thing that ever happened to me. If there’s already fruit on your French toast, the right syrup can heighten that flavor for you (hence why I put strawberry syrup on French toast I’ve already hidden underneath a pile of strawberries). Also, if you don’t have any fruit at your disposal, syrup will keep for a longer time, so you automatically have a flavor to add to any French toast dish.

My personal favorite fruit syrups are any of the berries (Pro tip: These go great with bananas!) and peach syrup. They’re all super easy to make, so delicious, and they make your French toast look colorful and beautiful.

• Blueberry Syrup (via tikkido.com)
• Strawberry Syrup (via tasteandtellblog.com)
• Raspberry Syrup (via realhousemoms.com)
• Blackberry Syrup (via sixfiguresunder.com)
• Peach Syrup (via createdby-diane.com)

3. Stuffed

Damn Delicious

While a stuffed French toast seems fancy and complex, it’s actually a really beautiful combination of the first two methods I’ve discussed. You can stuff a French toast with whatever fruit you want, and that leaves all the room in the world for syrup on top! I highly suggest adding cream cheese to any stuffed French toast to add both amazing flavor and texture to your dishes, like in this strawberry-stuffed French toast recipe. Feel free to take creative control! I’d personally die for a blackberry and cream cheese-stuffed French toast.

It’d be remiss to not include this recipe for banana-stuffed French toast. There’s no cream cheese since the banana-cream cheese combo has yet to really take off, but bananas are one of the best fruits to cook right into your French toast. They can be sliced small to keep your bread thinner if that’s what you prefer, or they can be totally mashed right into your batter. And let’s not forget, this would go great with any of those berry syrups you’re bound to try.

4. Whipped Cream

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So maybe you like your French toast a little on the drier side. You’ve never been one to douse your French toast in syrup or get overly fancy with your preparation. And that’s totally fine. One of the most simple (and fun!) ways to add flavor to French toast is to add a dollop or two of whipped cream on top. It adds a little extra flavor and sweetness without taking away from the flavor of the French toast itself. Luckily, a lot of summer fruits—berries especially—pair incredibly well with cream.

There are a couple ways you could go about making a fruity whipped cream. You could put the fruit inside your favorite homemade whipped cream, like in this banana-mango-berry whipped cream, or by mixing in your favorite fruit-flavored syrup or jam into whipped cream. Personally, I’d recommend going with the first choice. The fruit inside the whipped cream will make for a fresher flavor.

5. Roll-Ups

The Girl Who Ate Everything

This is a cute and fun way to get fruit right in the middle of your French toast. With a French toast roll-up, you can put your favorite fruit inside a rolled up piece of bread, and then make your French toast with the fruit right in! This roll-up is a great recipe to follow for a brunch where you may be entertaining tons of people. Plus, it’s a fun breakfast for kids.

Related Video: 5 of the Most Bizarre Fruit Hybrids

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What Is the Difference Between French Press and Pour-Over Coffee?

How can something with only two ingredients (coffee beans and water) have so many endless variations and possibilities? On the one hand, it’s fun to figure out the myriad differences between this and that type of coffee or this or that type of brew method, but on the other hand, it can frankly be a little maddening to weed through all the geekery in order to make just the right cup. (And good grief, there’s a lot of coffee-geekery out there, huh?)

If you’re wondering whether a French press or a pour-over brew method is the one for you, you might just want someone to come along and tell you the differences between them. Of course, it’s only a poor carpenter who blames the tool for shoddy work, and no matter which brewer you chose, you’ll want to make sure you get the best ingredients (water, coffee) and try, try again until you succeed in making a cup that hits the spot for you. It’s not always easy the first few times, but trust us, it’s always worth it.

Design

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While French press pots come in various sizes, colors, and materials, a press pot is a press pot is a press pot, for the most part. They almost always have a glass, stainless-steel, or plastic brew carafe, and a plunger top that’s got a moveable mesh screen to push the grounds down to the bottom of the pot and hold them back for serving. The design is so simple and straightforward that anybody could figure out how to use one—in fact, the only real instruction for brewing the coffee is in the name: Press it down! One negative, however, is that the coffee won’t hold well in the press pot, both because it will cool down quickly and because it will start to get bitter if it’s left sitting too long.

Pour-over devices, on the other hand, come in a kind of staggering array of variations, each one just slightly different from the others—so slightly, in fact, that it can be something of a rabbit hole to compare them. Some pour-over brewers are flat- or smooth-sided, like a Chemex, while others have ridges or ribs on the inside that are designed to prevent the filter from sitting totally flush against the brewer walls. Some pour-overs come to a cone-shape at the bottom; others are flat. Some have one big hole, some have one little hole, some have multiple holes—each one serves a purpose, usually related to speed of brewing (big hole = faster brew) or extraction rate (smaller, fewer holes = more potential for extraction). Sure you can get in deep with what type you prefer, or you can buy the one you like the most and just live your life, since, honestly, the only real instruction for brewing the coffee is also in the name: Pour the water over your coffee!

Speed

With the exception of espresso, which can be made in 30 seconds or less, most other forms of coffee brewing all take about the same amount of time, generally between 3–5 minutes. Both French press and pour-over coffee are no exception, but the main distinction between them, time-wise, is how much of the brew itself is active or passive.

Amazon

With a French press, the set-up is everything: Coffee beans are ground relatively coarse (a little chunkier than coarse sea salt) and dumped into the bottom of the press, with just-off-boil water added to them to the desired amount and a roughly four-minute timer set. Once the coffee and water are mingling together, all you have to do is wait and depress the plunger to stop the brewing process. It’s hard for many people to believe that pour-over brewing takes just about as much overall time—3–5 minutes—because the fact that it’s mostly active time can make it seem longer, starting with a “bloom,” or an initial saturation of the grounds with water, and followed by regular pulses of water throughout the brewing process. Time being relative, it naturally depends on how you prefer to approach the passing of time: standing still or in constant motion.

Cleanliness

If French press sounds like it has the advantage so far, this might be the category that turns the tables. While a pour-over brewer has an easy-to-clean filter situation (literally just remove the filter, complete with grounds, and toss or compost it), a French press pot will be full of loose grounds that need to be either scraped out, strained out, or otherwise magically removed from the bottom. Simply rinsing them out doesn’t always work, since the grounds are coarse and they can very easily clog a drain or make a mess in the sink, and yet they’re usually wet enough that they will sop all over a trash bag or can. A nearby compost bin is a good solution, but if you’re not the food scrap-saving type, this can become a pain pretty quickly.

Convenience

Okay, look, neither of these brewing methods are as convenient as, say, a single-serve machine or an order in to your favorite café, but neither one of them is particularly taxing in the investment or commitment department: They’re both pretty quick, they’re both easy once you get the hang of them, and you can stand around in your underwear (or, heck, your birthday suit) waiting for the last few seconds on the timer.

Some folks will argue that brewing a pour-over is more complicated, while others will say that a French press is a pain to clean up. You and I now know, however, that the ultimate deciding factor will come down to just one thing… 

Flavor

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The true difference between these two brewers is in the cup, which of course is the one place it really matters.

French press coffee, because of its long full-immersion brew and lack of a paper or cloth filter, will almost always have a heavier body, what some describe as being “rich” or creamy. Some coffee lovers find that thick mouthfeel to be distracting from the rest of what the coffee has to offer, and the brewing process can also create somewhat muddled flavors that erase some of the nuance of more delicate coffees, but for a big, bold, long-sipping brew, French press is the ideal.

On the flip side, the filters that most pour-over brewers call for are great at holding back sediment and even coffee oils, which means the resulting drink is usually noticeably lighter or silkier on the tongue—think of it more like a sheet than a blanket. The clarity these brewers can create also means that a coffee’s profile is able to shine—fruity flavors taste fruitier, sweet coffees taste sweeter—but they can also get lost in the mix if you’re prone to adding sugar or milk.

Now you have to ask yourself: Who takes the final point in the great brewing match of press pot versus pour-over? Tell us in the comments!

Related Video: How Fresh Is Your Coffee?

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