If there’s one thing that a bougie American tennis audience loves, it’s a kitschy themed cocktail. The U.S. Open has an “official drink,” and it’s not Gatorade—it’s the Honey Deuce. If you can’t make it over to see a match, or you simply want to save having to speak the awkward name in public, you can easily make this cocktail at home.

For a bit of background, the U.S. Open is one of the four Grand Slam tennis tournaments and it takes place in Queens, NY. Tens of thousands of fans head over to watch the matches, and selling at The Open, for $23 each, is this fruity cocktail. It’s expected to rake in about $10 million over the course of the nearly two week-long tennis event.

The “official” drink is made with Grey Goose vodka, lemonade, and raspberry liqueur. In order to properly make it a play on words, you must add honey dew melon masquerading as tennis balls as a garnish. Otherwise, it’s just a raspberry-tinged, spiked lemonade, and only tennis-haters drink that. (As you can see, I don’t have a melon baller but I did use honeydew melon chunks, so you can decide how I feel about tennis.)

How to make the Honey Deuce (or fake it)

The recipe and method are dead simple. Grey Goose doesn’t even ask that you make the lemonade yourself, it just indicates that it should be “fresh.” So I believe that a freshly opened bottle of Simply Lemonade will work if you don’t have lemons and sugar around. 

To the same point, you can make this cocktail with the exact ingredients listed on Grey Goose’s website, or do what I did—work with what you can get. The biggest issue I had with this recipe was finding raspberry liqueur. Oddly, raspberry is not popular in the small liquor stores near me, but cherry is, so that’s what I went with. If you can’t find raspberry liqueur, but you must have the Honey Deuce flavor experience, you can either make your own and have it in two weeks, or you can heat raspberry jam with a bit of water in a pot, then pour the hot liquid through a sieve and use that. 

There is very little not to like about a fruity lemonade, especially in summer. I enjoyed every sip of my cherry “honey deuce” (the melon snack is a huge bonus). It’s bright, not aggressively alcoholic tasting, and not too sweet. When the day comes that I run into a bottle of raspberry liqueur, I’ll go ahead and try it again. If nothing else, this cocktail is a great excuse to buy the last of summer’s honeydew before late September whisks it away. 

Honey Deuce(ish) Recipe

Ingredients:

• 3 ounces lemonade

• 1 ¼ ounce vodka

• ½ ounce raspberry (or cherry) liqueur 

• Honey dew melon hunks for garnish

1. Fill a highball glass with ice and pour the vodka and lemonade into it. 

2. Add the fruity liqueur and stir. Drop in a couple chunks of honeydew melon or skewer a few melon balls as a garnish. 

Sony’s WH-1000XM4 wireless headphones are a perpetual favorite, earning strong reviews from users (our friends at PCMag gave them a 4.5/5 “outstanding” rating). If you need new over-the-ear cans, it’s a great time to pick these babies up: You can get a pair on sale for $199.99 right now (down from the $349.99 list price and $50 off the current Amazon sale price).

The 42% discount is great, but you’ll need to be OK with getting them “open box”—that is, in new condition, but not sealed in the packaging, as these are customer-returned devices that are guaranteed to look and work like new, but aren’t factory sealed.

You can get an open-box pair of Sony premium noise-canceling headphones on sale for $199.99 right now, though prices can change at any time.

StackSocial prices subject to change.

WASHINGTON, Sept. 4, 2024 – Today, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Economic Research Service published its annual Household Food Security Report in the United States. The report shows that in 2023, while 86.5 percent of U.S. households were food secure throughout the entire year, the remaining 13.5 percent (18.0 million households) struggled with food availability, quality or variety at least some time during the year.

If you’re looking for the Wordle answer for September 4, 2024 read on. We’ll share some clues, tips, and strategies, and finally the solution. Today’s puzzle is easier; I got it in three. Beware, there are spoilers below for September 4, Wordle #1,173! Keep scrolling if you want some hints (and then the answer) to today’s Wordle game.

How to play Wordle

Wordle lives here on the New York Times website. A new puzzle goes live every day at midnight, your local time.

Start by guessing a five-letter word. The letters of the word will turn green if they’re correct, yellow if you have the right letter in the wrong place, or gray if the letter isn’t in the day’s secret word at all. For more, check out our guide to playing Wordle here, and my strategy guide here for more advanced tips. (We also have more information at the bottom of this post, after the hints and answers.)

Ready for the hints? Let’s go!

Does today’s Wordle have any unusual letters?

We’ll define common letters as those that appear in the old typesetters’ phrase ETAOIN SHRDLU. (Memorize this! Pronounce it “Edwin Shirdloo,” like a name, and pretend he’s a friend of yours.)

They’re all letters from our mnemonic today!

Can you give me a hint for today’s Wordle?

Serious, like a talking-to.

Does today’s Wordle have any double or repeated letters?

There are no repeated letters today. 

How many vowels are in today’s Wordle?

There is one vowel.

What letter does today’s Wordle start with?

Today’s word starts with S. 

What letter does today’s Wordle end with?

Today’s word ends with N. 

What is the solution to today’s Wordle?

Ready? Today’s word is STERN.

How I solved today’s Wordle

I started with RAISE and TOUCH, which yielded four of five letters. There were a number of solutions with these letters that started with R and T, which had been ruled out, so STERN was the most likely answer.

Wordle 1,173 3/6

🟨⬛⬛🟨🟨
🟨⬛⬛⬛⬛
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

Yesterday’s Wordle answer

Yesterday’s Wordle was easier. The hint was “weak or barely perceptible” and the answer contained four common letters and one fairly common letter.

The answer to yesterday’s Wordle was FAINT.

A primer on Wordle basics

The idea of Wordle is to guess the day’s secret word. When you first open the Wordle game, you’ll see an empty grid of letters. It’s up to you to make the first move: type in any five-letter word. 

Now, you can use the colors that are revealed to get clues about the word: Green means you correctly guessed a letter, and it’s in the correct position. (For example, if you guess PARTY, and the word is actually PURSE, the P and R will be green.)

• Yellow means the letter is somewhere in the word, but not in the position you guessed it. (For example, if you guessed PARTY, but the word is actually ROAST, the R, A and T will all be yellow.)

• Gray means the letter is not in the solution word at all. (If you guessed PARTY and everything is gray, then the solution cannot be PURSE or ROAST.)

With all that in mind, guess another word, and then another, trying to land on the correct word before you run out of chances. You get six guesses, and then it’s game over.

The best starter words for Wordle

What should you play for that first guess? The best starters tend to contain common letters, to increase the chances of getting yellow and green squares to guide your guessing. (And if you get all grays when guessing common letters, that’s still excellent information to help you rule out possibilities.) There isn’t a single “best” starting word, but the New York Times’s Wordle analysis bot has suggested starting with one of these:

• CRANE

• TRACE

• SLANT

• CRATE

• CARTE

Meanwhile, an MIT analysis found that you’ll eliminate the most possibilities in the first round by starting with one of these:

• SALET

• REAST

• TRACE

• CRATE

• SLATE

Other good picks might be ARISE or ROUND. Words like ADIEU and AUDIO get more vowels in play, but you could argue that it’s better to start with an emphasis on consonants, using a starter like RENTS or CLAMP. Choose your strategy, and see how it plays out.

How to win at Wordle

We have a few guides to Wordle strategy, which you might like to read over if you’re a serious student of the game. This one covers how to use consonants to your advantage, while this one focuses on a strategy that uses the most common letters. In this advanced guide, we detail a three-pronged approach for fishing for hints while maximizing your chances of winning quickly.

The biggest thing that separates Wordle winners from Wordle losers is that winners use their guesses to gather information about what letters are in the word. If you know that the word must end in -OUND, don’t waste four guesses on MOUND, ROUND, SOUND, and HOUND; combine those consonants and guess MARSH. If the H lights up in yellow, you know the solution.

One more note on strategy: the original Wordle used a list of about 2,300 solution words, but after the game was bought by the NYT, the game now has an editor who hand-picks the solutions. Sometimes they are slightly tricky words that wouldn’t have made the original list, and sometimes they are topical. For example, FEAST was the solution one Thanksgiving. So keep in mind that there may be a theme.

Wordle alternatives

If you can’t get enough of five-letter guessing games and their kin, the best Wordle alternatives, ranked by difficulty, include:

• Wheeldle, which lets you play one puzzle after another

• Dordle and Quordle, which ask you to play two (Dordle) or four (Quordle) puzzles at the same time, with the same guesses. There is also Octordle, with eight puzzles, and Sedecordle, with 16.

• Waffle, which shows you several five-letter words, scrambled in a grid; you play by swapping the letters around until you solve.

• Absurdle, which changes the solution after each guess, but needs to stay consistent with its previous feedback. You have to strategically back it into a corner until there is only one possible word left; then you guess it, and win.

• Squabble, in which you play Wordle against other people with a timer running. You take damage if you spend too much time between guesses; winner is the last one standing.

• Antiwordle, in which you are trying not to guess the day’s solution. You’re required to reuse any letters that you (oops) guessed correctly, so the longer it takes you, the better you are at the game.

Adding fish sauce to your fruit salad might seem dramatic, or incongruous. You might even think it sounds “gross”—but please, suspend judgment for a moment. Consider how some folks swear by adding a cup of mayonnaise to chocolate cake batter. Mayonnaise isn’t just for sandwiches, and fish sauce isn’t just for stir fry. It happens to be the perfect dressing for summer fruit. 

Fish sauce adds complexity

Fish sauce isn’t typically paired with fruit in the U.S.; rather it is used to accent savory foods. Which is great! Honestly, I’m glad fish sauce is becoming more of a household ingredient these days. It’s widely acknowledged for bringing a healthy dose of umami and complexity to dishes like chili and sautéed veggies. While the tawny condiment has a powerful fermented fish smell straight out of the bottle, it can be quite subtle when used with other ingredients. 

Even still, it might seem like a wild and new idea to add it to fruit, but rest assured, fish sauce and fruit belong together. Sliced fruits are often enjoyed with a sweet, tangy, savory, and sometimes spicy dipping sauce in Thailand, Laos, and other neighboring Asian countries. It’s a common way to snack on green mango or other young, sour fruits. Salty, umami-packed fish sauce is usually mixed with sugar and chilis to contrast the sour fruit and deliver a flavorful, well-balanced bite.

How to make a fish sauce dressing for fruit

Although peak summer fruits—like peaches, plums, strawberries, blueberries, and tomatoes—are associated mostly with sweetness, they also exhibit a decent hit of acidity. That’s perfect for this fish sauce use case, and you can make a fish sauce-based dressing pretty easily.

In a glass measuring cup, I stir together equal parts (by volume) fish sauce, fresh lime juice, and granulated sugar (either white or brown is fine). Stir the mixture until the granules of sugar have dissolved completely. In a mixing bowl, Drizzle over a couple cups of cubed or sliced fruit. Gently toss all until all of the fruit has been dressed in the “fishagrette.”

I think this sauce is especially good over cut melon and peaches, but I recommend trying it with any of your favorites. Feel free to add more fish sauce, or bump up the sugar or lime juice, depending on the ripeness of your fruit. If you are excited for a flavor adventure but worried you might not love it, serve the sauce on the side, dip a cube of fruit, and taste it before deciding if you want to pour it over the whole bowl. 

Sweet and Savory Fish Sauce Fruit Salad

Ingredients:

• 1 cup cubed watermelon

• 1 peach, sliced

• 1 campari tomato, chopped

• 1 ½ teaspoon fish sauce

• 1 ½ teaspoon fresh lime juice

• 1 ½ teaspoon sugar

• A few leaves of torn fresh mint or basil

1. Add the fish sauce, lime juice, and sugar to a glass measuring cup. Stir until the sugar dissolves completely.

2. Add the cut fruit to a mixing bowl. Pour the fish sauce dressing over the fruit and add the herbs. Toss gently until all of the fruit is coated. Enjoy.

More and more people are taking in roommates or moving in with other people, and more older folks who might have considered themselves past the roommate stage in another era are living with roommates. The reasons for this shift are pretty obvious: Housing costs and inflation are up, wages are flat, and everyone is making do with less—including less space.

Living with roommates isn’t always a descent into hell, of course, but it does present challenges. People have different ideas about everything from cleanliness to courtesy, so sharing private space with other people inevitably causes friction. Luckily, we live in a consumer paradise and you can buy solutions to many of life’s problems. If you’re going to have roommates, buy these nine essentials immediately and you’ll have a (slightly) better time sharing that space.

Power strip

An unofficial rule of modern life is that you’re not going to have fewer devices any time soon. Even if you get along with your roomies and have the run of a shared space, having a power strip with USB ports is essential. Many apartments just don’t have enough power outlets to begin with, for one thing, and you don’t want to be forced to charge up your devices out in a common area. Outlets often get hidden behind heavy furniture, too, making them inconvenient to use. And if you have your own bedroom or private area in the apartment or house, you’ll want to set it up for everything you need, whether that’s just a relaxing place to binge Netflix on your own or a home office where you can do your Zoom meetings without your roommate wandering into the frame.

Noise management

People have different sleep cycles—and different definitions of the phrase “inside voice.” That makes noise management absolutely crucial to your roommate experience. If your roommates are going to sit up talking right outside your door all night, or play video games at full volume into the wee hours, you’ll be very excited to have the following:

• White noise maker. For general zen and calming, being able to block out the maddening sound of your roommate on the phone with their significant other will be a godsend. You can install apps on your phone, of course, but nothing beats the ambient sound of an actual white noise machine.

• Noise-cancelling headphones. Sometimes you need more silencing power, so headphones are a must. And sometimes you want to crank up your music or your own games and media and you don’t want to be rude about it.

• Earplugs. Since sleeping with headphones on can be difficult (and music may keep you awake), having some good squishy earplugs to jam in your ears might enable you to sleep even when your roomies have guests over late into the evening.

Shower bag

Even if your roommates aren’t the sort to steal your soap, shampoo, and expensive skincare regimen, it’s a good idea to have all your shower supplies in a portable bag. This way, there’s never any confusion about what belongs to who.

Label maker

Yes, it’s passive-aggressive and kind of annoying, but better to have a label maker in case your roommate turns out to have a loose concept of private property. A label maker has a lot of uses beyond preventing food theft, of course. Over time, possessions get shared and mixed together, so marking stuff now will save you a lot of headaches a year or two from now when one of you moves out and you can’t remember who originally owned the spatula.

Mini fridge

Food is always a point of stress in roommate situations. People sometimes innocently “steal” food, especially if you buy many of the same items as your roommate. And groceries bought in a communal spirit aren’t always shared out in an equitable fashion. A small fridge you can keep in your bedroom will allow you to have supplies that your roommates can’t access with the bonus of giving you access to snacks and drinks without having to emerge from your room when you don’t want to interact with anyone.

If you find that your roommates are not as anti-food-theft as you’d like, an alternative is to buy a food locker. As bleak as it might seem, being able to keep your expensive produce in the communal fridge without worrying about it mysteriously vanishing (into the stomachs of your roommates) is well worth it.

Robot vacuum

People have wildly different concepts of what “clean” means. Some people aren’t bothered by layers of dust as long as the place is neat, while some people break out the industrial solvents three times a week and complain bitterly about a single crumb left on the kitchen counters. A solid robot vacuum can find that middle ground—a shared space that isn’t absolutely filthy but also doesn’t require the neat freak of the group to go on the warpath. (Here is our list of the best robot vacuums to buy in 2024.)

A bathrobe

A bathrobe is an essential item not because you should be ashamed of your body, but because it respects a baseline of privacy. If you’re not used to throwing one on any time you’re not fully dressed, it’s a good practice to get into, at least until you and your roommate come to an understanding that involves tolerance of various states of nudity.