Eggnog History: Know Your Eggnog!

Eggnog or egg nog is a descendant of milk-and-wine punches that had long been part of European celebrations when colonists arrived in the Americas. Rum, a New World distillation, enabled a spirited substitution for the wine. And eggnog history? Eggnog became a popular wintertime drink throughout Colonial America. Then as now, people loved the rich,…
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TIP OF THE DAY: Buying Champagne For New Year’s Eve

If you’re headed to the store to buy Champagne for New Year’s Eve, there are a lot of choices. Where should you start? We’ve written a lot about lower-cost sparkling wines like Asti Spumante, Cava, Crémant and Prosecco. Our Top Pick Of The Week is Yellow Tail from Australia. All are delicious bubblies, worthy of…
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TIP OF THE DAY: Black-Eyed Peas For New Year’s Day

It’s a Southern tradition to eat black-eyed peas on New Year’s Day for prosperity in the new year. It may actually stem from an ancient Sephardic Jewish custom of eating them on Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish new year. This “good luck” tradition is recorded in the Babylonian Talmud, compiled circa 500 C.E., and includes other…
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TIP OF THE DAY: Berries In Champagne

For an easy, light dessert to cap off your New Year’s Eve dinner, we nominate berries marinated in Champagne or other sparkling wine. Some sparkling wines are vinified to be sweet (see below). But if you can’t find one, or have dry sparkling wine on hand, you can mix it with a bit of agave…
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TIP OF THE DAY: Make Preserved Meyer Lemons

In addition to other splendid winter citrus, it’s Meyer Lemon season, through March. Meyer lemons are much sweeter and more flavorful than the Bearss and Lisbon varieties commonly found in American grocery stores (here are the different types of lemons). They have much less acid, making the juice sweeter and brighter. Here’s the history of…
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