Occasional cooks: cold coffee, summer drinks and limes

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Share what you're cooking this week, ask for tips or recipes for a dish, tell us about your meals out.

Coffee soda float via The Takeout

You guys are still in the midst of Summer, meanwhile, there's a hint of Spring in the air here, and that's got me thinking of cold drinks.

The Takeout has a slideshow (*ptooey*) of summer drinks that look very enticing. 

The coffee soda float is particularly calling to me, as I love a cold coffee. This version uses a syrup made from sugar and instant coffee. I prefer a little less sugar; I usually do cold brew, then top it up with some tonic. If it needs more sugar, a spoonful of syrup from a jar of maraschino cherries is delightful.

In the on-going 'hey, Australia's a bit weird sometimes' story, a float here is called a spider. A lime spider is the classic version. I remember the first time I heard about spiders (but not the first time I had one). On a family camping trip, we'd gone into town for supplies and were having lunch at the roadhouse. My dad asked the waiter what a spider was, and she described it, playing it up for us kids - "it's a scoop of ice-cream in a fizzy drink, and it all foams up and flows over" (I presume this is how the name is derived?). My non-sweet-tooth-having dad was disgusted by this description, and so we didn't get to have one that day.

There was a local band called The Lime Spiders. According to the caption on the video, this was the first ever video played on our long-running music video show and MTV substitute Rage.

This post is becoming less and less about food! So here's some yummy looking recipes for limes.

This lime and coconut cake looks delish.

via vjcooks.com

And this lime chicken is calling my name.

via recipetineats.com

Is there a better taste for summer than lime?