Cointreau

This mai tai stars two types of rum, with orange juice, lime juice, orgeat, and Cointreau for a fruity but balanced take on the original.

This is an especially refreshing take on the cosmopolitan cocktail. You can batch the cosmo mix up to 10 hours in advance to cut down on last-minute fuss at your next cocktail-worthy occasion. (If you’d like to mix it together earlier than that, add the lime juice at the last minute.) To retain maximum fizz, pour the chilled club soda and sparkling wine into each ice-filled glass first—then you don’t need to rigorously stir to mix the bubbles into the heavier cocktail base. This recipe makes eno.…

Coating blanched ducklings in orange liqueur makes them develop a crisp, deep mahogany skin as they roast on a bed of orange slices and other aromatics.

The most refreshing treat of summer is just a few ingredients away.

You'll never believe these buttery, crisp cookies with a soft chocolate filling are nut-and gluten-free!

My criteria when it comes to recipes are these: Is it tasty enough that I will crave it over and over? Is it easy? And does it look pretty? This recipe hits those marks. It is moistest, richest, most flavorful pound cake I have ever made.

Region: Emilia-Romagna and popular throughout nothern Italy This cake, which looks like a bouquet of mimosa flowers, is eaten on March 8th in celebration of International Women's Day—Festa della Donna—a sort of BFF day celebrating womanhood and female friendships. The cake is made from two basic recipes: sponge cake and pastry cream. Each is worth learning, as with them you can make myriad classic Italian desserts. This lovely cake is better if eaten a day or two after its made. It keeps nicely for up to a week and freezes perfectly.

The tequila sunrise and the margarita come together in this frozen drink recipe that's bursting with citrus notes and a refreshing tang.

White chocolate and apricot complement each other perfectly. The addition of apricot brandy or Cointreau gives these truffles a special zip.

On the curve of Palermo’s Via Papireto, just before the entrance to il mercato delle pulci—the flea market—there sits a watermelon stand and a hand-wrought sign: ICED, SWEET WATERMELON, DAY AND NIGHT. We passed the little place several times each day on our excursions through the great honkings and snarlings of the city traffic. Drawn by its promise, we meant always to stop but never found quite the right convergence of appetite, time, and space in which to park the car. But one Saturday evening, after a long, winy dinner and a dry search for a still-open gelateria, we thought to soothe ourselves with a visit to the watermelon man. Though it was well after midnight, he was there, waiting midst the walls of precisely laid, smooth-skinned fruit, his old Arab eyes illuminated by festoons of pink and green lights. He bid us sit at his one and only tiny, oilcloth-covered table, tucked in the corner farthest from the street. Speaking only in smiles—it was hardly necessary to tell him what we desired—we watched as he chose a melon from those he kept in a basin of iced water and then cleaved it open with a single heft of some ancient tool. Each half he stuck with fork and spoon and, resting the juice-dripping melons on wooden boards, he presented them. He brought a little tin plate in which we might deposit the seeds and two beautifully ironed kitchen-towel napkins. The red flesh was crisp under our spoons and each new excavation brought up a yet sweeter, colder mouthful of it. We ate slowly under the pink and green lights, finally resting our spoons against the great, hollowed shells, triumphant, certain we’d spent well that hour of our lives, certain, too, how perfect, how divine was that food. Lacking a faithful watermelon man, here follows a way to work with a well-ripened, even if not exquisitely fleshed, melon. Perfumed with cinnamon and studded with bitter chocolate and pistachios, it is the traditional ice of ferragosto—the official high summer Italian festival. The gelo is best eaten long after midnight.

This Prohibition-era cocktail is not very ladylike on the surface. On paper, it looks like a Sidecar made with gin, but nothing could be farther from the truth. We tasted this cocktail at the Savoy in London where it was invented, according to Harry Craddock, author of The Savoy Cocktail Book, which was published in 1930. Three high-quality ingredients and a master technique make this cocktail a high point of everyone’s evening. We suggest you pack your freezer full of large ice cubes, squeeze a lot of fresh lemon juice, and get going. Play some slapstick movies while you drink it—it is said that this cocktail was the favorite of Laurel and Hardy.

The Sidecar is another famous cocktail that came out of Paris in the Twenties, thanks to Prohibition driving the best bartenders out of the country. It is said to have been invented at the Ritz Hotel by American ex-pat Frank Meyer, the head bartender. It was a favorite of Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Henry Miller. The Sidecar is also an ideal after-dinner option or even a nightcap because of its “candied” nature. Cognac is rarely mixed with juices, as the subtle qualities in fine brandy are easily lost in cocktails. The Sidecar is one exception—it blends cognac and Cointreau beautifully and balances them out with fresh lemon juice. The key to this cocktail is its sugar rim on the glass. This dissolves on the tongue and mixes with the rest of the drink to create the perfect balance, leaving room for the brandy. For a simple variation on the Sidecar, add a splash of Benedictine and lose the sugar rim to create the Honeymoon.

If we had a family drink, this would be it. (Underage kids excepted, of course.) It’s my older daughter Louise’s favorite, and she makes this margarita perfectly for all of us on the weekends. I love the heat of the ginger balanced by aged tequila. Be sure to use high-quality aged tequila here. Otherwise, the drink will taste like spring break gone wild.

Ladies, this is my go-to drink on a warm summer day. And don’t you know, men love it, too (even though it’s pink!). It’ll satisfy any thirst you may have worked up, but go easy, because even though it may taste like Hawaiian punch, it packs a wallop!

GINA This always makes me think of that “Love Potion #9” song! And that’s exactly what your sweetie will be thinking when you make him this extra-special potion. When he asks you what’s in it, don’t tell him! He’ll probably think it’s a little girly, because it’s red and pretty. But what he won’t know is that this potion packs a wallop, thanks to the pomegranate’s aphrodisiac qualities. So potion up, ladies. You’ll thank me later.

When I first got Rick Bayless’s Mexican Kitchen, I was so inspired by the recipes that I invited people over and made brunch for the first time in years. It was a warm, sunny New Orleans winter day, and I picked satsumas from my backyard tree and made these margaritas to welcome everyone.

Just a few of us hung around the kitchen following a wonderful late-afternoon party at Sarah and Sam Bell Steves’s San Antonio home. Sam’s son, Tres, stopped by and we started talking margaritas. Tres broke out the family’s personalized sterling silver margarita shakers, a pretty good sign that we’d stumbled into in the hands of a margarita-making marvel. We politely asked for seconds—just to make sure. Then we asked for the recipe.

If you want to wow your guests at your next Mexican fiesta, make this dessert. Period. This lime confection is a cross between an ice cream and a pie, and the pretzel crust adds just the right amount of saltiness to make it fun and totally unforgettable.

All of the flavors of the tropics make an appearance in this sensational, lemon-hued punch-banana, rum, pineapple, and orange. Serve this at a BBQ featuring great pork ribs.