December 2009

Features

• Holiday Wine Problem Solver

  After gathering lots of holiday wine questions via Twitter, Facebook and old-fashioned letters, F&W's Ray Isle supplies the answers—including the best wine to pair with latkes.

• How to Throw a Great Wine & Cheese Party

  Two friends who are obsessed with cheese and wine transformed themselves into the Cheesewhizzes, the duo behind some of Napa's best parties. Here, their pairing ideas.

• How You Eat Reveals Who You Are

  Writer Alberto Manguel connects his lifelong passions for food and books and describes some legendary novelists who expressed their world views in their appetites, rapturously devouring everything or taking careful little bites.

• Lesson in French Cookies with Francois Payard and Jason Wu

  Jason Wu succeeded in designing a gown for the First Lady. His next goal: learn to make macarons.

• Editor's Letter

• A Chef's Incredible Winter Picnic

  When Boston chef Ken Oringer cuts down his Christmas tree, he turns the outing into a party, bringing along a caravan of friends, lots of great wine and cider and a portable grill for making warm Cuban sandwiches.

• A Sweet Holiday Potluck

  No one at Baked can take time off at Christmas: The brilliant little Brooklyn, New York, bakery is too busy. So the owners and their staff have a fantastic holiday potluck.

• Best Gifts of the Year

  Here are six of our favorite new cookbooks and the gifts they inspire, from a snouted Italian "Piggy" glass pitcher to Southern-style biscuits.

• The Carnivore's Dilemma

  The country's top butchers share their finest recipes, and F&W reveals the best gifts for any serious carnivore—including lessons on how to carve a cow.