RECIPE: Clear Pumpkin Pie

[1] Alinea’s clear pumpkin pie (photo Alinea | Chicago). [2] Hannah Kaminsky’s version, recipe below (photo Hannah Kaminsky | Bittersweet Blog).   Perhaps the most innovative restaurant in the country, Chicago’s Alinea set the internet on fire once again with another avant-garde culinary masterpiece, propelling pumpkin pie it into a viral video hit. It’s a…
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THANKSGIVING: 10 Gift Ideas For Hosts & Hostesses

You may traditionally bring your Thanksgiving hostess/host a bottle of wine; and that’s a traditionally acceptable hostess gift. But unless you’re bringing something memorable (if it’s a Mouton Rothschild, please come to our house for Thanksgiving!), your bottle will be grouped with all the other bottles of wine. After the cards are removed and the…
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TIP OF THE DAY: Make Sugar Plums

“Visions of sugar-plums danced in their heads.” So goes a line from the immortal poem, “A Visit from St. Nicholas,” more commonly known as “The Night Before Christmas.”* Yet how many of us have recited or sung that line without knowing exactly what a sugar plum was? No matter what today’s confectioners sell as sugar…
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TIP OF THE DAY: Try A Servings Planner

If you’re like us, you never know exactly how much food to make, so you make—much too much. In our family, one of the greatest social sins is to run out of food. This year, we’re using this servings planner from Whole Foods Markets. Just enter the number of guests, and the tool will calculate…
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TIP OF THE DAY: Ways To Use Cranberry Relish

Thanksgiving is our favorite cultural holiday, because foods appear on the table that we don’t see much of for the rest of the year. Like cranberry-orange relish, one of our faves. We have no one to blame but ourself; and last year we stuck half a dozen bags of fresh cranberries into the freezer, to…
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