Like the annual grape harvest, each year brings a crop of provocative, entertaining and educational wine books. Here are four of the year’s best, along with a couple more well worth noting. Credit…Murdoch Books “How to Drink Australian” by Jane Lopes & Jonathan Ross (Murdoch Books, $60) This book from the American sommeliers Jane Lopes…
Holiday party drinks can take many forms: punch bowls, batched cocktails, a bathtub of bubbles, a tray of shots. What unifies them is a festal shared experience for guests to gather around. This year, keep the communal theme, but drop the one-drink-fits-all approach. “To me, hosting parties is really about making everyone happy,” said Estelle…
It’s always good to have low-work, high-payoff recipes up your sleeve for dinners that feel like little luxuries (which is more or less the ethos of our Five Weeknight Dishes newsletter). But they’re especially handy this time of year, when the snow is falling and friends are calling, yoo-hoo. Go ahead, invite them over for…
By Fiona Kerr The line for croissants forms early outside Lannan Bakery in the Edinburgh neighborhood of Stockbridge, where the self-taught baker Darcie Maher has been whipping up intricate pastries since the end of July. The name Lannan comes from a Gaelic word meaning “house,” and Maher’s choice of baked goods is intentionally nostalgic. Staples…
Mathew writes: Please order my wife to stop hoarding takeout sauce packets. They get scattered through our pantry in case someone wants to use them someday. No one ever does. But I get in trouble if she catches me throwing them out. These packets are trash at their inception, so there is something extra unseemly…
Red Lobster’s “irresistible” all-you-can-eat shrimp promotion has indeed proved hard to resist. The Ultimate Endless Shrimp deal has been so popular that it helped cause a drop in third-quarter profit for the restaurant chain, which had to raise the price to $25 from $20. Thai Union Group, which owns a large stake in the chain,…
Despite what the Hallmark Channel tells us at this time of year, fairy-tale endings don’t always stick. Brian Smith and Jackie Cuscuna, the Brooklyn couple who founded Ample Hills Creamery, have been fired by the same investors who came to the rescue of the popular ice cream brand in June. Norm Brodsky, the angel investor…
You won’t find a silver bullet in a single food, experts say, but there are some that may help you build the best defense.
The Yiddish word tsimmes, or tzimmes, means to make a big fuss over something. It’s also the name of an Ashkenazi dish of sweet potatoes, carrots, dried fruit and sometimes flanken or brisket, traditionally served at Jewish holidays. You’d think, with a name like tsimmes, it must be a fussy dish, needing chopping, peeling and…
This year I’ve designated the week after Thanksgiving as my between-feasts reset. The last of the turkey leftovers have been devoured, but all that December cookie making has yet to begin, so it’s a fine time to clean out the fridge, reorganize the pantry and focus on lighter meals loaded with wholesome vegetables. My lemony…