"strawberry sorbet" news and stories

A rose is a rose, even when it's part of an intensely flavored sorbet with fresh strawberries. This time, it's in a syrup made from rose water, plain water and sugar that blogger Dayna McIssac incorporated into her frosty, fruity dessert. This Epicurious recipe for rose water syrup will help get you started.

Middle Eastern desserts are often flavored with the sweetly floral rose water. You can make your own, which involves simmering rose petals in a covered pot on the stove (I leave this to other, more industrious souls), or you can buy it premade (find a source here). Rose water is also featured in this Persian ice cream recipe from a fellow Slashfood contributors.

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'The Yellow Door: Our Story, Our Recipes'
By Simon Dougan
Photographs by Cliona O'Flaherty
Blackstaff Press -- 2008
Buy it on Amazon

After four years in London, "hungry young chef" Simon Dougan returned to his hometown of Gilford, Northern Ireland, and took what he considered a temporary position at pub-fare restaurant Sarah's Moon. At a time when local cuisine prized prawn cocktails as "one of the smartest dishes on any menu," and boiled eggs were a regular staple, Dougan preceded the gastropubs of today, seeking to serve more polished dishes, with an emphasis on heightened flavors, fresh ingredients and a cooked-to-order standard.

"The one thing we always remembered was only to use the freshest and best ingredients," Dougan writes. "This is still at the core of the business, and just as important now as it ever was." This notably warm cookbook imparts Dougan's heartfelt approach to refined home cooking with a fabulous collection of recipes.

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