"Mad Men" news and stories

Caramelized balsamic figs & ricotta mousse. Photo: YumSugar.

Each Thursday, we round up a selection of scrumptious links from our friends over at YumSugar. Here's what they've got cooking this week:

Balsamic caramelized figs make a prime topping for ricotta mousse.

Warming soups that are perfect for the season.

Eight tasty libations straight from the set of "Mad Men."

Macaroni and cheese goes TexMex with chiles and cilantro.

Even if you don't live in wine country, have a harvest party full of fall flavor.

Mixed-mushroom pizza makes for a fast and easy dinner.

Would you say yes if your significant other proposed via cupcake?

'Sips and Apps: Classic and Contemporary Recipes for Cocktails and Appetizers'
By Kathy Casey
Photos by Angie Norwood Browne
Chronicle Books -- 2009
Buy it on Amazon

Kathy Casey isn't a mixologist, she's a "bar chef" -- a trained chef with mad cocktail skills. In "Sips and Apps," she ventures off the well-trod path of standard cocktail guides to explore cocktails with such seductive names as Black Feather and Clear Conscience.

But it's her appetizers that are sure to offer a new trick or two for your next cocktail soiree.

See what we tested and find out whether the book's worth buying after the jump.

Niagara's Lailey Vineyard. Photo: Monika Bartyzel

• Trekking across the Niagara Region for seasonal comfort food, pies and wines, and traveling through Muskoka for honey, coffee and family farming.
• "Mad Men," their love of cocktails, and a recipe for a Betty Draper-inspired gimlet.
• Sumac's sour, fruit-like flavor makes it a great substitute for a splash of lemon.
• Open's 2008 Riesling-Gewürtztraminer is a fine summer wine, plus the run-down on Beringer's 2007 Cabernet Sauvignon ("a steal") and Prospect's Pinot Noir.
• The porcine pleasures of prosciutto pioneers.
• Recipe: Wild Blueberry Lemon Jam

Photo: Heath Fradkoff

Been seduced by "Mad Men" yet? Have Frankie Valli on repeat on the Hi-Fi? Find yourself buying dusty vintage TV trays decorated with mallards? Drinking a gin martini, up, for dinner?

OK, we're projecting. Half the Slashfood staff is enamored with the show (see New York Magazine's handy primer) that is about to plunge into its third hard-drinking, heavy-philandering, Gotham-glamorizing season this Sunday. We are over the moon about the style, the cocktail culture, and those insane retro recipes.

It's the perfect excuse for a cocktail party (especially a costumed one), so bust out the pearls and heat up the curlers -- or grab the fedora and tiepin -- because it's totally OK to drink with friends on a Sunday night. No one batted a heavily lined eye at such a thing back in the day.

Our party primer, with tune selections, deviled eggs and LeNell's perfect martini, after the jump.

Photo: Muffet, Flickr

• On loving (but usually loathing) the underappreciated green bell pepper.
• Coming around to the flavor of the oft-oily bluefish with the help of a crunchy almond topping.
• Investigating Veggietrader.com, where people come together to trade excess home crops.
• The Minimalist makes agua fresca.
• The brunello inquiry in Tuscany almost over, with five wineries accused of using of using grapes other than Sangiovese.
  
• The Temporary Vegetarian makes Granny's Tomato Tart.
• Restaurants: The 32-year-old chef at Eleven Madison Park earns an astonishing four stars, and the Upper West Side's Bar Luna offers decent Italian.
• In the latest Cooking with Dexter, the young tyke is mesmerized by mixology.