by Susannah Chen
Remember last year's big bottled-juice trend? Well, it appears to be moving beyond juice bars and into cocktail bars. At an increasing number of venues across the country, health junkies and boozehounds have a place to convene and enjoy their gin with fresh-pressed ginger.
At Soaked in Manhattan's Mondrian SoHo, guests can lounge on the rooftop with "orchard to bar" cocktails, such as the 100 Mile Margarita, made with apple, pear, pineapple, and wheatgrass juice. LA's Parisian-themed cocktail lounge Pour Vous offers a new take on carrot juice with pear eau de vie, and Verveine Velay Jaune.
We had a chance to sample the trend here in San Francisco at Nectar Wine Lounge, which has recently launched a juice-centric brunch with Thrive juicery. In lieu of mimosas and Bellinis, customers can choose between Day at the Spa (apple, cucumber, fennel, and mint), Pink Pearl (strawberry, pineapple, pear, mint), and True Blood (red beets and navel orange), all with Baron de Seillac sparkling wine. "It's a fun way to offer the benefits of fresh-pressed juices and the already well-known benefits of wine consumption," owner Chris Potter told us.
What do you think of the trend? Could you see yourself getting behind, say, a kale margarita anytime soon?
Throughout middle school, many after-school afternoons were spent at my grandparents' house. My grandpa was, and is, always up for a nibble of cheese, pesto, and crackers (Bremner wafer crackers or saltines were de rigueur) and a slightly-over-my-12-year-old-head discussion of a chapter from 
. 
While my grandpa schooled me in theories of economics and the disproportionate spread of resources (and power) throughout history, my step-grandmother Grenelle was likely concocting some delightful treat in the kitchen.
Summer months meant a bumper crop of basil and gallons upon gallons of zesty pesto; come Fall, apple-picking trips led to mammoth batches of applesauce, all stored away in a basement freezer for the months ahead. And while my appreciation for pesto-slathered everything was sadly delayed till we moved cross-country, a rare afternoon would pass without me dipping into her tempting applesauce supply.
We've all experienced the sadness of baking a sunken cake. While there's admittedly something beautiful about the cracked, imperfect center of a sunken cake, for layering and cosmetic purposes, you'll want to aim for a dessert that's fluffy and flat-topped every time. Here are five quick questions you can ask yourself the next time you bake a cake so you can avoid feeling the sunken-cake slumps.
