Scrounging for a last-minute Halloween costume? Get inspiration from some of our favorite chefs’ ensembles in F&W's "Dress Like a Chef" slideshow, like Mario Batali's now-iconic look: red wig pulled in a low ponytail, baggy shorts and his signature orange clogs from Crocs.

Forget ham: The real reason to be excited for Sunday is that the Washington Post will announce the winners of their third annual Peeps diorama contest. Last year, they got more than 800 submissions. That means more than 800 people took time out of their busy, harried lives to construct elaborate, awe-inspiring tableaux of chick- and rabbit-shaped sugared marshmallows. The winner, 22-year-old Lauren Sillers of Potomac, Maryland, constructed her Tomb of King Peepankhamun with Peeps, Christmas lights and acrylic-paint Peeps hieroglyphics. If you ever need reminding of the wonders of humanity, if you ever need your faith in our collective ingenuity restored, flip through the Peeps Shows
of 2007 and 2008.

But, because ham really is the main reason to look forward to Sunday (and because we have no recipe for Peeps—yet), check out our own inspiring slide show of 15 delicious Easter dishes to serve with yours, including Mario Batali's clever asparagus with pancetta and Daniel Boulud's creamy pea soup.

My mom lives by the mantra that all-natural is always better. So last weekend when I went to visit, I found her in the kitchen ranting about Paas, the popular Easter-egg dye. After many years of Paas-stained fingers and perfectly colored Paas eggs, my mom was having an all-natural Easter-egg-dyeing epiphany. "Think of all the chemicals," she exclaimed. "Maybe we should make our own food-based dyes." And so our experiment began. We tried blackberries, beets, red onions, saffron, turmeric, each mixed with some water and vinegar. The eggs needed to soak much longer for the color to adhere, but the end result actually looked pretty good. We even blotted the blackberries directly onto the eggs to get a sponge-painted look.

"What about wine,” my mom asked? “Merlot, Cab, Syrah?" I had to laugh. F&W's Kristin Donnelly has been brainstorming ideas for what to do with a bottle of wine you don't like for an upcoming story. I don't think Easter-egg coloring will make Kristin's short list, but we decided to try it anyway. I went back to NYC and poured a bad Cab I'd left sitting out into a cup with vinegar and let a hard-boiled egg soak for about an hour. The result: A horribly ugly, grayish-brown hue. My mom texted me the next morning to say that her Merlot-dyed egg was a failure as well. We'll just have to stash the bad wine until Kristin tells us what to do with it and stick to fruit and vegetables for egg dyeing.

If retweeting is re-posting a twitter feed, what's the word for re-blogging a Facebook status update? Retatting? This is a retat. Last night I got so excited I mentioned this on my Facebook page. A vegan friend is coming for Passover, and while concocting vegan main courses and a dessert is fairly brainless (see these excellent vegan main courses from F&W and desserts from Babycakes vegan bakery), I got kind of addled at the idea that anyone might feel left out during the requisite courses of gefilte fish and matzo ball soup. The soup was easy: I made my vegetable broth look like chicken stock by browning the onions in a little olive oil before simmering them in water. Then I added big florets of cauliflower, which look a lot like matzo balls, and simmered them until soft.

Vegan gefilte fish was the stumper. Gefilte fish, for me, is mostly just an excuse to clear my sinuses: The bland quenelles of whitefish taste best swirled in peppery beet horseradish. (They're also a fun way to paint your plate purple.) So what's bland, holds together in quenelle form without eggs, and goes well with a peppery beet-colored condiment? It only came to me at about 11 pm: chickpea cakes! My recipe: Sauté a finely minced quarter of a white onion (or 2 large shallots) in 2 tablespoons of olive oil with a pinch of dried thyme and a pinch of crushed red pepper flakes. Add the rinsed chickpeas from one 15-oz can, cover and simmer until just heated through. Remove the pan from the heat and let cool. Add 1/4 teaspoon freshly grated lemon zest and season with salt and pepper. Mash the heck out of the peas with a potato masher and form into 1/4-cup mini-footballs. Cover and refrigerate before serving. We'll see how they go over at this evening's seder. But three of them made for a lovely midnight snack last night.

Easter is this Sunday. This means that my mother has started baking her annual batch of pizza rustica using a recipe from her aunt, a stubborn woman who, because of a lamp, did not speak to her sister (my grandmother) for six years. Per this aunt's instructions, my mother will whisk six eggs and some flat-leaf parsley with half a pound each of fontina and Parmesan cheeses before adding six pounds of ricotta and half a pound each of cubed salami, soppressata, prosciutto and ham. This will make three to four double-crust pies. Clearly, we’re not light eaters.

Curious about its origins, I discovered that pizza rustica is an Easter staple in Naples. Nancy Harmon Jenkins, author of Cucina del Sole, has heard of it among the Pugliese and the Abruzzi and confirmed that it’s pretty widely eaten in the whole southern Italian boot. In my house we actually call it “pizza gain”, a phrase that’s an Italian-American corruption derived from pizza ripiena or piena, meaning “stuffed” or “full” in Italian. In short, piena, or chiena in certain dialects, became chien', then “gain” as it got passed down across generations (and an ocean). These pies, most made from some combination of cheese, meats and eggs in a sweet crust, are meant to break the Lenten fast by offering many of the rich treats given up as a sacrifice.

And break the fast it does. David Greco, who runs the Arthur Avenue Café and Mike’s Deli in the Bronx, makes a Neapolitan-style rustica based on his maternal grandmother’s recipe that’s very similar to my mother’s – and one that weighs in at a little over three pounds a pie. He’s been selling 200 a day for the past week. His secret is a touch of lemon zest in the crust. He also makes a Calabrian version from his father’s family with chunks of soppressata and thinly-sliced prosciutto baked into an eggy focaccia. Frank Generoso of the Royal Crown Pastry Shop in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn says the key to his rustica is using the best quality ricotta that’s firm but still creamy. A thick ricotta, he says, will hold up and not run all over the place.

My mother's is still the best, especially a couple of hours out of the oven. I should start fasting now to heighten the enjoyment of that first bite.

I have a disproportionate amount of guy friends, which means I usually start getting distraught calls around this time of year (i.e., two days before Valentine’s Day) asking for gift suggestions. Case in point: Over the weekend, I asked my newlywed friend Adam what he was doing for his wife on Valentine’s Day. His response: “I didn't know you still have to do Valentine's Day after getting married!” For any other guys out there who may have forgotten, or waited until the last minute, here are a few ideas for the food-and-wine-loving woman that will fit every budget.

* The newly introduced Pulpe Vitaminée facial ($235) at the Caudalie wine spa in New York City’s Plaza Hotel is an hour and 20 minutes of pure bliss. The grapeseed-based vitamin-E serum used in the treatment is superhydrating and left my skin glowing. After the treatment you get to relax even more in the spa’s glamorous wine lounge, where a sommelier will serve you a complimentary glass of the house wine, Chateau Smith Haut Lafitte.

* Cult beauty brand Fresh recently launched a new collection, Citron de Vigne, inspired by Veuve Clicquot’s vintage La Grande Dame Champagne. The perfume is $75, but I also love the soap, which comes hand-wrapped in kimono-inspired paper and costs $14.

* I eat out for work all the time, so I’m always more impressed when a man offers to cook me dinner. It’s much more intimate and thoughtful (and usually less expensive!) For inspiration, check out Food & Wine's most sexy recipes and irresistible milk-chocolate desserts.

 

                

My friends must have been inspired by F&W’s list of 20 spectacular holiday parties in the December issue because this month has turned into one nonstop party – cocktail parties, cookie swap parties, Mad Men–themed parties, Monday Night Football parties, dinner parties. I can barely keep up with finding enough cute party dresses, let alone finding the perfect hostess gifts. You can never go wrong with bubbly or booze. Here, some more personalized gift ideas that I’ve found to be a hit on the party circuit:
 
*Mixology Tools
Roost’s Elixir bar straw set is a great addition to any home bartender’s collection. The platinum-tipped stirrers come in a wooden holder so they won’t ever get lost.  

* Utilitarian Vases
Fashion designer Reem Acra told me about Hope Forever’s blossoming “plastivases”. They take form when filled up with water and fold flat for easy storage when not being used.

*Hoppy Complements
Vosges Haut Chocolat’s Beer and Bacon gift box pairs Oregon’s Rogue Shakespeare, a deliciously hoppy oatmeal stout, with Vosges’s salty, sweet applewood smoked bacon milk chocolate bars.

*Eco Beauty Bonus
Pangea Organics’ holiday gift sets are filled with exceptional eco-friendly bar soaps, body lotions, face scrubs and hand gels. Even more exciting, the seeds of a spruce tree are embedded in the molded fiber box. Plant it now and you’ll have a Christmas tree by next season.

*Farm Fresh Cheese
Support New England family farms by leasing a Jersey cow in a friend’s name through Rent Mother Nature. Your friend gets three supercreamy 8-ounce wheels of Brie or cheddar cheese, plus regular updates on the cow from its pasture in Vermont.

*Global Dining
Map out your next trip to London, Tokyo, New York City or Paris over dinner with a set of easy-to-clean world map place mats.

 

 

Since it's just two days until Christmas, we all decided it would be nice to start the festivities a little early. When F&W wine guru Ray Isle asked how we in the Test Kitchen were, I replied, "We'd be better if we were drinking a little wine." No sooner had Test Kitchen goddess Melissa Rubel suggested something pink and bubbly than Ray returned with a bottle of Pierre Sparr, sparkling rosé. It accompanied the steamed fish I am testing (for April's Tasting & Testing column) brilliantly, not to mention lifted all our spirits. God bless us, every one!

Recently, writer Jonathan Miles pondered that traditional holiday drink: mulled wine. It's fragrant, it's soothing and it’s the official beverage of Charles Dickens's “A Christmas Carol.” The only problem? No one actually craves it. "Mulled wine, like roast goose, is one of those holiday confections that often sounds better than it tastes," Miles writes. Fortunately, he offers some lust-worthy permutations, including a cold punch by former F&W staffer and current Tasting Table editor Nick Fauchald, made primarily with Zinfandel, Becherovka (a cinnamon-and-anise-flavored liqueur from the Czech Republic) and homemade spiced plum syrup.

Personally, I don't have anything against mulled wine. It's eggnog that I've never been able to get around. I've always found it too gloppy, like cloyingly sweet dead weight in the mouth. My modest proposal? Switch to coquito, a Latin take on eggnog with serious coconut flavor, rum and hints of cinnamon and vanilla. Now that's what I consider crave-worthy.

When oil prices went through the roof this summer and airlines started charging all sorts of never-before-seen fees, a lot of my friends were hunkering down, forgoing any air travel, and for the first time, using that odd blend of words: staycation. But now that we're officially in a recession and discretionary spending is being, well, regarded with heavier discretion, airlines have begun slashing their prices to entice travelers. (Airfarewatchdog.com is a particularly great aggregator of airfare deals.)

For those of you about to travel, check out our "Where to Eat Out During the Holidays" guide, showcasing five great restaurants in 10 cities around the country and what special offerings they'll have for the Christmas week. (If I were going to San Francisco, I'd put in an advance order for A16's holiday dishes, like porchetta and whole roasted duck. And according to a quick search on Travelocity.com, I could get to San Francisco next week for a bargain $288 roundtrip.)