December 2007

Features

• Ode to the One-Pot Dinner Party

  Just after World War II, Cecil Virgilia Cole proudly served her cheap and easy chili to guests. Here, her granddaughter Sara Dickerman considers the demise of the one-pot dinner party.

• Gifts We Love to Give

  F&W editors share their favorite recipes for irresistible homemade holiday gifts— and promise these presents won’t sit untouched on the shelf until next year.

• Houseguest Recipe Handbook

  Guests at breakfast. Guests at lunch. Guests at dinner. Repeat. For holiday hosts who love to feed family and friends morning, noon and night, chef Tom Valenti suggests a way to do it with aplomb: by preparing dishes that can be made well in advance.

• How to Experience Sonoma like an Ultra-VIP

  Ten friends hang out with Screaming Eagle’s winemaker, indulge in a blowout private lunch at Chalk Hill Estate and otherwise live the Sonoma fantasy, courtesy of bespoke travel planner Beautiful Places.

• Champagne for the Holidays

  Food & Wine's Ray Isle picks five of the best brut Champagnes on the market and gives tips for holiday entertaining.

• Cookbooks for the Food Cognoscenti

  More highbrow than how-to, these 10 chefs’ books from Italy, Spain, France, England and beyond are the current must-reads for the food-obsessed.

• Editor’s Letter

• A Cooking Adventure at a Mexico Spa

  Novelist Vendela Vida liked eating healthy but had no idea how to cook that way—or any way, for that matter. But a visit to the new cooking school at Mexico’s celebrated Rancho La Puerta spa turned into a culinary epiphany.

• Best Southern-Style Food Gifts

  Georgia chef Hugh Acheson shares his secret sources for down-home holiday gifts.

• Stores with Class

  Three new tableware shops are not only importing unusual objects from around the world, they’re also offering cooking demonstrations, tea tastings and more.

• The Big, Easy Christmas

  Even with four sons under the age of 12, two new restaurants and a singular commitment to revitalizing his home city of New Orleans, star chef John Besh finds time to create a fantastic Christmas dinner of semitraditional Southern dishes for family and friends.

• The Chef, the Blogger and Their Great Tahoe Weekend

  When food blogger Pim Techamuanvivit goes to Lake Tahoe with her boyfriend, the wildly talented chef David Kinch, the cooking is as much fun as the skiing—and distinctly less likely to result in a wipeout.