5@5 is a daily, food-related list from chefs, writers, political pundits, musicians, actors, and all manner of opinionated people from around the globe. Iced tea is made for summer. It's there to quench your thirst in the heat, to tote to countless cookouts, and to leisurely sip on a front porch swing. Best of all, it's a breeze to make. All you need is tea and water, plus a little sugar if you're so inclined. Here to steep you in a little tea know-how is David De Candia, the Tea Director for The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf , a specialty coffee and tea retailer. Five Tips for Making the Perfect Pitcher of Iced Tea at Home: David De Candia 1. Use filtered water “While the type and cut of tea leaves is essential for ensuring a quality brew, many people don’t realize that the water is arguably equally important. Think of it like a canvas for a painting or the fabric for a dress. The type and temperature of water you use will greatly affect the flavor of your tea, just like the quality of silk will impact the way a piece of clothing hangs. It is important to always use filtered water – never distilled – when making iced tea, as well as filtered water in your ice. Temperature also makes a discernible difference. It’s ideal to use water that is just under boiling, around 190-195 degrees Fahrenheit. Although boiling water may remove some of the chemical flavors of tap water, it also removes many of its important elements and nutrients. I also recommend heating the water on the stove, not in the microwave, to ensure the temperature is consistent and even throughout.” 2. Keep it consistent “It is important to use a proportional amount of water and tea when preparing your beverage. A good standard to follow is one level teaspoon of loose leaf tea to every eight ounces of cold filtered water. If you are using a tea bag, one bag is proportional to 16 ounces of liquid. To ensure these proportions aren’t thrown off kilter when pouring the final product over ice, I like to use ice cubes made from the tea or with juice for a subtle tea infusion. This helps keep the tea from getting diluted. The rule of consistency also applies to temperature. Let the tea sit for 45 minutes at room temperature before chilling it, as abrupt changes can alter the delicate flavors.” 3. The tea isn’t always greener “Just because a tea has a higher price tag, doesn’t mean it will make the best iced tea. Stick with the basics and you’ll be pleased. High-end, specialty and delicate teas are meant to be consumed hot, which allows you to savor the special aspects and flavors of the tea leaves.” 4. Just say no to sun brews “Although sun-brewed iced tea may sound like the perfect summer treat, it is not the best way to get the full flavor of the tea leaves. The sun does not allow enough heat for full infusion. While the end product may look dark, it actually has very little flavor and will require sugar and lemon to brighten and sharpen whatever flavor is there. Properly brewed teas will have a clear, consistent color, lots of flavor and won’t need any add-ins. It should also be noted that sun brewing can also attract a lot of unnecessary bacteria in your beverage.” 5. Build up the flavor with broken tea “While many home brewers opt for the ease of using tea bags filled with 'dust' to make iced tea, it’s best to use loose leaf 'broken' tea for optimal flavor. Broken tea is hand-plucked and hand-processed directly from the grower and has a greater surface area to ensure a high quality, robust brew. In terms of the type of tea, I usually gravitate toward medium-bodied black teas. My general rule of thumb is to find a tea that has enough body and heft to it to stand up to the cool water. Because heat intensifies flavor, a tea when brewed hot that might come across as too strong on the palate might be the perfect choice for a refreshing pitcher of iced tea.” Take Our Poll Is there someone you'd like to see in the hot seat? Let us know in the comments below and if we agree, we'll do our best to chase 'em down. See all our best grilling advice at Grilling 101

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5@5 – Brew your way to iced tea perfection

YouTube users are now uploading three days’ worth of video to the site every second — a whole 24 hours more than the site had last year. To celebrate its 7th birthday, Google’s video-sharing site released all-new metrics about itself, including its new upload numbers as well as the fact that subscriptions increased 50 percent in the past year. Another cool fact? The site logs 3 billion hours of viewing time per month. Read full article > >

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YouTube uploads 72 hours of video a minute

The defending Super Bowl champion Packers extended their winning streak to 17 games because their star, Aaron Rodgers, kept his cool and the Lions’ best player, Ndamukong Suh, did not.

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Packers 27, Lions 15: Lions Lose Their Cool and Game Against Packers

David Sharpe finally hit bottom on the bedroom floor of his apartment in Yorktown, Va. That’s where he sat, legs folded, ready to finish the fight with the demons that had followed him back from the war zone: the sudden rages; the punched walls; the profanities tossed at anyone who tried to help. There was little in the room but dirty Air Force uniforms, some empty Jägermeister bottles and a crushing despair. He took a deep breath. Shut his eyes. Closed his lips a little tighter around the cool steel. Read full article > >

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Racked by PTSD, a veteran finds calm in a pound pup named Cheyenne

As you may have heard, Fandango’s now a ticketing partner for the most fantabulous theater chain in all the lands, the one-and-only Alamo Drafthouse headquartered in Austin, Texas (voted #1 by EW as the best theater in the US, and picked by our own editor on his 100 Days of Summer Movies adventure as the best all-around theatrical experience)…why all the love? Simply put, because no one’s programming movies and an ‘experience’ around movies quite like the fine folks at the Alamo. If you love cinema and fun, then this is your paradise. Here, in our new weekly blog post called ‘This Week at the Alamo,’ we’ll present all of their cool upcoming, signature Alamo programming, including the Sing-Alongs, Quote-Alongs, Big Screen Classics, Terror Tuesdays, Weird Wednesdays… Read More Read Comments

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This Week at the Alamo Drafthouse: Muppets, ‘Pride and Prejudice,’ ‘Manitou’ and The Queen Sing-Along

Behold Ubisoft’s new commercial for its randy new Wii game, We Dare . The game, which the company describes as “a sexy, quirky, party game that offers a large variety of hilarious, innovative and physical, sometimes kinky, challenges,” is embarrassing enough, but the commercial actualizes all the worst things you could imagine from that description. Here’s how it goes down: After a nice dinner in their business casual attire, the four gamers get up from the table and head to the couch. Next thing you know, they’re laughing uncomfortably and sort of making out with each other, or a Wii controller dangled between two of them, or both. Next up, the Wii is tucked into the back of one’s pants, then (of course) that person drapes themselves over a teammate, who proceeds to spank them on the Wii. It’s a flying game and you spank to acclerate! Finally, we get to the denouement. What could it be? No?! A striptease game! That is hilarious, innovative and physical. The guys dance and eventually take off their shirts after which we’re lead to believe that something NSFW or at least TV-M takes place, presumably a group sexual encounter. If this scenario sounds improbable to you, you may be sober and may want to consider doing a dozen shots of Jagermeister and reading this again. This commercial is so ridiculous that even YouTube’s notorious awful commenters are making all too much sense in talking about the clip. FergustheJustifier had a point when he noted, “It’s like an Orgy Starter Kit for … 6-year olds. Ubisoft your reputation will never recover from this after all of the pre-teen heavy-petting parties hits the news.” One can only imagine what might have happened at my middle school if this game had made its way into circulation among the cool kids. Yikes. Via Navneet Alang , Tim Carmody .

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Risque Wii Game Begets Most Embarrassing Videogame Ad Ever

We expect news to be kinda slow this week as we transition to 2011, so we thought it might be fun to talk about all the cool gifts you received this holiday season. Naturally we want to know about your movie-related gifts, like cool new DVDs and Blu-rays, or maybe something a tad more funky, like Star Wars-related pancake cut-outs. We’ll keep this one short in order to let you chime in. Coolest movie-related gift that I received would have to be How to Train Your Dragon on Blu-ray, which was one of my favorite films of 2010. What made the gift even better was that it came with the opportunity to watch it with my young daughter, who absolutely loved every minute of it.

Win our exclusive prize pack—a limited-edition chocolate bar, caramel sauce, and iPhone case In an effort to treat our loyal readers outside of NYC right, we’re giving away three items that are otherwise only available at our Cool Hunting for Gap shop to one lucky winner. The triple threat prize includes the insanely delicious Happy Goat caramel sauce infused with Macallan scotch, an equally mouthwatering chocolate bar by Mast Brothers and June Taylor and lastly the Cool Hunting iPhone case by Uncommon , boasting a Spirographic-style snowflake and created for either the iPhone 3 or 4. To win this giveaway, you must follow us on Twitter and Tweet @coolhunting with #chforgap in your reply. We will choose one person at random on Monday, 20 December 2010, at 10am.

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CH Exclusives Giveaway

Cool Hunting marries bean-to-bar chocolate and artisanally-processed fruit in a delicious collaborative bar We admit to a serious weakness for the mind-altering tastes of the artisinal chocolates crafted by the Mast Brothers . Intent on bringing out the heavenly natural flavor of cacao, primarily sourced from Venezuela and Ecuador, the brotherly duo of Rick and Michael Mast developed a process for producing the finest in small-batch, bean-to-bar chocolate. Their signature flavors, running the gamut from single origin Dominican and Madagascarian bars to chocolate sprinkled with roasted Stumptown coffee beans, range from the deliciously rich to the downright sublime. We’ve previously featured the Brooklyn-based Brothers in our Cool Hunting video series, so it seemed only natural that we would pair these chocolatiers with stem-to-fruit guru June Taylor , another video subject. Taylor, a longtime favorite of Cool Hunting, uses traditional preserving methods to make positively ambrosial jams, preserves, syrups and marmalades. Her creatively paired concoctions include Oro Blanco Grapefruit and Rose Geranium marmalade as well as Wild Fennel Syrup; everything she whips up in her Berkeley kitchen is yummy, natural and inventive. The Mast Brothers bar that utilizes June Taylor’s fruit combines the best of each purveyor’s specialties; the CH Edition 72% bar features sumptuous Madagascar chocolate as well as Taylor’s candied blood orange peels and candied oro blanco grapefruit peels. Of his collaborator, Rick Mast gushes, “June Taylor is the greatest woman on Earth who is pioneering amazing fruit confections. She is also a babe.” We can’t imagine a sweet treat (from two sweeter companies) that we’d rather find in our stocking than this delightful concoction. Find the Mast Brothers and June Taylor chocolate bar exclusively at our Cool Hunting for Gap holiday pop up shop.

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CH Editions: Mast Brothers and June Taylor

Our video on Coalesse’s lounge-inspired conference furniture with designer Scott Wilson In this Cool Hunting video we visit the industrial designer Scott Wilson, founder of the Chicago shop Minimal and former Global Creative Director for Nike Explore. Taking us behind the scenes of Coalesse’s new SW_1 furniture collection, he walks us through the concepts and design processes that it took to realize this fresh alternative to the generic conference room.

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Cool Hunting Video Presents: SW_1

See how fashion’s finest decorate their opulent abodes While most of the interiors-obsessed turn to The Selby these days to sneak glimpses of the intriguing abodes of creative types, Assouline’s new book ” American Fashion Designers at Home ” proves that nothing quite beats the appeal of thumbing through pages of full-bleed photos to see their sources of inspiration and an unbuttoned look at how they live. Presenting the residences of over 100 of the most revered fashion designers (all members of the book’s collaborator Council of Fashion Designers ), it includes Ralph Lauren’s Colorado ranch, Betsy Johnson’s NYC apartment, Oscar de la Renta’s Connecticut estate and more. Often, signature elements—particular colors, shapes, and especially attitude—are immediately identifiable in their private quarters. Take Carolina Herrera’s Louis XV-influenced New York apartment; the classic elegance of her fashion collections is immediately recognizable. Calvin Klein designer Francisco Costa’s two-bedroom, New York apartment embodies the cool minimalism and tranquil color schemes (including four shades of gray) that are undeniably part of the Calvin Klein aesthetic. An avid gardener, de la Renta brings his love of nature inside with living and dining rooms covered in several layers of floral fabrics. Not surprisingly Betsey Johnson painter her 1,800-square-foot loft in varying shades of pink, but her balanced mix of flea market finds and opulent antiques shows her more toned-down, sophisticated side. Johnson’s advice on interior design is to “Fill your house with stuff you love, because I believe they all go together if you personally love them.” Like on the runway, the book shows off plenty of unattainable yet covetable items and ideas. The Azria’s L.A. home (designed by architect Paul Williams who also created Frank Sinatra and Lucille Ball’s homes) once belonged to writer Sidney Sheldon—the creator of “I Dream of Jeanie”—and boasts a greenhouse and gardens, a 6,000-square-foot movie theater, an enclosed tennis court and a pool inlaid with 14-karat gold. Elie Tahari’s chocolate factory turned triplex penthouse (previously owned by Rupert Murdoch) is flanked with two decks, each offering 360-degree views of Lower Manhattan. The Zen-inspired, eco-friendly villa in the Turks and Caicos belonging to Donna Karen features a main house, yoga hut, two guesthouses, a pavilion, and a spa house with steam bath—all as gracefully confident as a Donna Karan collection. Ultimately, what shines through are the designers’ impressive aesthetic acumens. Johnson continues, “You want to be creative and courageous in your dress and the same is true of your home. When you’re designing clothing, you really only have one point of focus and that’s the body. But home is fabrics and furniture and floors and natural light. If fashion is a planet, home is more like a universe.” “American Fashion Designers at Home” sells from Assouline for $65.

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American Fashion Designers at Home