By Troy Patterson, Slate

The big wet story of this incandescent summer concerns your ice-cold beer, America. Ask yourself: Has that pint in your hand been sugared or spiced or juiced up? Repurposed as a mixer? Elevated with a jigger of liquor?

All the papers are onto you. News flows from all corners about happy marriages of stout and bourbon and about elderflower liqueurs fragrantly flirting with pale ales. Last May, Frank Bruni reported on “the advance of beer cocktails” (called such “whether or not the drinks include hard liquor”); this May brought notice of the book Beer Cocktails: 50 Superbly Crafted Cocktails that Liven Up Your Lagers and Ales (including the Maru—a fruity booze-up inside your Sapporo). The mass-market gateway to the new frontier stands in St. Louis, where Anheuser-Busch HQ has launched Shock Top Lemon Shandy, a wheat beer “perfectly complemented by spices and natural lemonade flavor.” And meanwhile the kids on happening Hillhurst Avenue in Los Angeles are infusing gin with hops, mixing it to make “Gin & Chronic,” and telling LA Weekly that it evokes a cottonmouthed hint of pilsner.

America, you drink 20 gallons of beer per head per year, and you’re definitely adulterating some of it. Yet, despite the efforts of cunning commerce and supple craft, the beer cocktail has never taken off as a respectable beverage. This is uncharted territory, exciting and dangerous. I sense your keen thirst for helpful hints, pro tips, and historical context.

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By Kathryn Reed

Poor college students talk about the abundance of ramen noodles consumed. Poor recent college grads talk about the happy hour deals that make for a meal.

In a quest to relieve my 20s in Tahoe when happy hours were where I often found dinner, I thought I would see what things were like 20 years later. Disappointing would be the primary word of choice.

So many bars and restaurants no longer offer deals, and if they do, most are not substantial. And some only have winter bargains. In other words, it’s gouge the tourist and locals this time of year.

Happy hours in Lake Tahoe aren't what they were in the late 1980s -- but there are still fun drinks being made at some locations. Photo/Kathryn Reed

It seems like an odd business model. Don’t they realize if you reel people in with a deal, the majority will end up spending more money after the discount hour is over and that people are more likely to frequent the place that has a deal?

While we couldn’t hit every place, below is what we found this spring and early summer. Please share with Lake Tahoe News readers where you like to go for happy hour.

Drinking establishments

Thinking I would be nice and drive all the way to Meyers, I asked Kim to find out what Divided Sky had as a happy hour special. A buck off drinks, but wine is not included.

We thought we could do better.

Without checking on the deal, we headed to Steamers on this particular Friday. The deal – if you could call it that – was 75 cents off any drink. The deal ended at 6pm.

Those deals do beat the 50 cents off drinks at the Flight Deck at Lake Tahoe Airport.

MacDuff’s in South Lake seemed a bit put off when Roni asked about happy hour deals. The waiter said it was a dollar off beer – that’s it.

A different South Lake Tahoe restaurant — Fresh Ketch – has happy hour deals that are pretty substantive in that a regular glass of the house Cabernet is $9, but during happy hour the price drops to $4. The Ketch has happy hour Monday-Friday from 3-6pm. Another good deal is Sunday through Thursday there are special prices on one type of drink – which is different each of the five days.

Don’t bother going to Sunnyside for happy hour – this Tahoe City restaurant says it does not need to discount drinks.

Brooks’ Sports Bar in Stateline isn’t the place to go either – at least not now. The golf course restaurant only has specials in winter.

Another great lakeside setting is West Shore Café in Homewood, but when Sue and I were there they had yet to come up with a happy hour menu.

Drinking at lunch is the best deal at Las Panchitas in Kings Beach. As long as food is ordered, draft beers are $2.50 and Dos Equis are $3.

During what they call their early bird specials (4-6pm), margaritas are $3.50, a 16 ounce Dos Equis $3.50 and Bud $2.50. This compares to full price of $3.50 for domestic beer, $4.50 for Mexican beer and $6.50 for margaritas.

At Blue Angel Café in South Lake the daily happy hours are from 11am-noon and 3-6pm where the house wine is $3 – regularly it’s $5. Draft beers are $1 off the regular price that ranges from $4 to $6.

Traveling on to Stateline, at Sul Lago the draught beer, house wine and well drinks are two-for-one Sunday-Thursday from 4-5:30pm, and 4-5pm Friday and Saturdays. This deal is only in the bar area – not if you are sitting at one of the dining tables.

A few hours on a hot farm have me and Kim in search of liquid refreshments in Truckee. Sue meets us at Moody’s where the beer, wine and well drinks are $2 off. Regular prices for beer run $3.50 for Bud to $6 for Stella. Wines are normally $5 to $13 a glass.

Two days later and Sue and I need to cool off after mountain biking at Northstar. We stop by the Cabana Bar next to the roller skating rink. Max the bartender has created the Downhill Cruiser. It’s the perfect complement to downhill cycling – rum, tequila, citrus flavors, Sierra Mist and a lime wedge for $8.75.

PBR and Coors Light are always $3.75.

This bar has various specialty drinks throughout the summer, but unfortunately was not open the next Monday afternoon when I stopped by again.

Thinking Friday Station had a happy hour, Brenda and I went to the top of Harrah’s. No luck. Good views, pricy drinks, no deals.

It’s a Thursday at Après Wine on Ski Run in South Tahoe – this means happy hour all night for the women in the room. Featured whites, reds and roses are $4, featured Chardonnay $5, featured Pinot Noir $5 and beers are $3 and $4.

Hours for regular happy hour during the week are from 4-6pm and 9-10pm.

Food to absorb the drinks

A meal can be had at Blue Angel Café in South Tahoe during the daily 11am-noon and 3-6pm happy hours. House salads go from $6 to $3 and a cup of soup from $4 to $3. To add to those, a plate of fries is $3 during happy hour (regularly $5) and garlic bread is $3 (regularly $8).

Plus, this Ski Run Boulevard restaurant has specials throughout the week, like $4 tater tots on Mondays from 3-6pm and $2 tacos on Tuesdays during the same hours.

In Kings Beach, Las Panchitas has deals between 4-6pm. Small nachos are $3.50, small quesadilla $3.50 and they take 25 percent off Mexican combo dinners.

Back on the South Shore, at Sul Lago in Stateline the Italian bangers, appetizers and small pizzas are half price in the bar during happy hour. Those hours are Sunday-Thursday from 4-5:30 and Friday-Saturday from 4-5pm.

Fried zucchini at the Fresh Ketch is one of my favorite appetizers. I wink and call it health food. The portion has decreased substantially over the years, but the batter and size of the individual sticks have improved tremendously.

It’s best to go during the Monday-Friday 3-6pm happy hour because that’s when a plateful costs $5. Otherwise you will be paying twice that amount any other time.

Happy hour at Moody’s in Truckee starts at 3pm. The two food specials are the Pub Burger and Mozzarella, Basil, Tomato Pizza – each for $10. Regularly they are $14 and $13, respectively.

Nothing was left on the plates after Sue, Brenda and I tackled the strawberry bruschetta and Greek cucumbers at Après Wine. The former is a unique dish that we all recommend. Happy hour price is $4, regular $7.95. Cucs are good, but discount isn’t great – a savings of 95 cents.

Pints for Paws is a beer tasting featuring beers from Lagunitas Brewing Company with proceeds benefiting the El Dorado County Canine Association.

The event is July 19 from 7-9pm at Cork and More, 1032 Al Tahoe Blvd., South Lake Tahoe.

Cost is $15. Tickets are limited and may be purchased before that night at the store.

For more information, call (530) 544.5253.

By Laura Fenton, Food Network

When we think of summer desserts, our minds turn to grilled plums, peach cobblers, fruit-filled pies and bowls of fresh blueberries and raspberries. The fruits of summer are ripe, sweet and juicy. They’re also pesky stain makers. As Tre Mitchell Wright, a fabric-care expert at Whirlpool Institute of Fabric Science, points out, “Fruits were some of the original dyes; the longer they sit, especially on natural fabrics like cotton, the harder they’ll be to get out.”

Your best tactic for combating stains from fruits (both cooked and raw) is to first scrape any excess fruit off of the garment. If the garment is labeled “dry clean only,” don’t try to treat the stain. If washable, run the fabric under cold water to flush the stain out. Wring out the excess water and apply plain white vinegar to the stained area. Next work a laundry pretreatment or liquid detergent into the fabric with your hands and let it do its work for at least 10 minutes before laundering the piece using the warmest water the care label allows. If the discoloration remains after washing, try soaking the garment in a solution of color-safe bleach and then laundering it again.

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Huffington Post

We were sure that by this point, everybody knew what quinoa was. You can find it in most grocery stores and it has been written about again and again. But when we saw that The Bachelorette and her two contestants were not familiar with this popular ingredient, we realized that there might still people out there who are unaware of this amazing and cheap source of protein. (Because it’s a great source of protein, not “fiber” as the one contestant wrongly claims.)

And while we’re aware that the people on The Bachlorette may not be the best measure for the knowledge of the general public, we still thought it was safer to give a quick overview. So here it is, everything you should know about quinoa.

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By Melissa Clark, New York Times

People are usually sick of zucchini before summer even reaches its sticky height.

Not so the gorgeous, ethereal zucchini blossoms.

Up until a few years ago, unless you grew them yourself, you would rarely come across those golden flowers, which are far too fragile for most supermarkets to handle. These days you can find them at farmers’ markets, though they are not nearly as prevalent as the taut green and yellow fruit.

Whenever I see zucchini flowers, I buy them. They’re just too pretty to pass up.

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By Emily Horton, Washington Post

A couple of years ago, I worked at a greenmarket for a farmer who grows the most glorious chicories: frisee, radicchio, escarole, puntarelle. They are bitter greens whose underlying sweetness is checked by a bite that can surprise you.

One spring, we had a customer who would buy seven heads of curly endive at a time; one for each day of the week, he said. If his purchases seemed excessive, I understood his fervor. Leafy greens anchor my cooking, no matter the time of year. Summer’s offerings are a little harder to see for all the hysteria around the season’s heirloom tomatoes, but they are worth pursuing — even if your appreciation of leafy vegetables strikes a more moderate tone than my own.

Cooking with greens in the hottest months of the year takes some rethinking. If you have your palate trained on winter’s kale, collards, turnips and other cool-season leafy brassicas, summer’s holdouts can be disillusioning. Though such cold-hardy greens will produce leaves in the heat if given enough shade and water, they aren’t keen on it. You can taste their resistance in bitter, less-tender leaves that are no longer the center of the plant’s attention.

Longer, warmer days trigger plants to launch into bolting: the process of sending out flowers and producing seeds. This switch in gears, explains Gerald Brust, vegetable specialist for the University of Maryland Extension, diverts enzymes and nutrients — flavor — away from the leaves and into the immediate, more important task of reproduction.

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By Linda Fine Conaboy

A nearly perfect location at the site of the old Christiana Inn coupled with unique menu selections promises to be a winning combo for one of South Lake Tahoe’s newest restaurants.

Co-owner Zach Latzka and Megan Arneson, director of marketing and sustainable operations, work the bar during the preview party at Himmel Haus. Photos/Linda Fine Conaboy

A bevy of beers from Germany and Belgium, some with hard-to-pronounce names, flowed at the preview party thrown by co-owners Zach Latzka and Matt Eastling to introduce their new Himmel Haus restaurant located at 3819 Saddle Road, just across from Heavenly’s California Lodge. Partiers quaffed their frosty brews in the spacious bar and then drifted to the dining room where delicacies such as wild boar, rabbit and buffalo sausages awaited.

Besides the sausages, we feasted on chicken and pork schnitzel, dill shrimp salad and black forest cheese cake—and this was just a small sample available from the ample menu.

The Himmel Haus fun bus will soon become a familiar sight as it cruises around town advertising the new restaurant.

The fare, while simple, features traditional German recipes with, as Latzka said a modern California twist. “Himmel Haus aims to offer fresh, high quality, hearty comfort food at a reasonable price,” he said.

The restaurant is open Tuesday and Wednesday from 4:30pm-midnight, and Thursday, Friday and Saturday from 4:30pm-2am. A special after-dinner menu will be available in the bar from 10pm-2am on weekends. Regular hours start July 10.

By Sarah Kagan and Megan O. Steintrager, Epicurious

In the eyes of some hard-core backpackers, car camping is “camping lite.” But to car campers, that so-called wimp factor lies at the heart of what we love about our hobby. Because you don’t have to worry about dragging all your equipment to the site on your back, you can afford to bring along luxuries that make life a lot more pleasant. Think ice, a skillet, beer, and the makings of much better meals.

But even with a car to transport gear, you’ll still want to pack efficiently to keep your campsite uncluttered and your time free for enjoying the great outdoors. Here are some tips to help you cook up tasty and hassle-free camp meals.

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Imagine sipping a big, bold El Dorado County wine, perfectly paired with fare from the region’s best chefs, prepared with fresh seasonal produce grown within a 100 miles from where you stand. This is what Sample the Sierra is all about.

Now in its third year, this farm-to-fork festival celebrates food, wine, and art in the Sierra Nevada.

The event is Sept. 2 from 1-5pm on Ski Run Boulevard in South Lake Tahoe.

For more information, including ticket prices, call (775) 588.1728, ext. 303 or email Emily@TahoeChamber.org.