November 2004

Features

• Pork and Wine: A Pairing Guide

  All pork has an underlying sweetness and lightness that pairs best with light-to-medium-bodied wines with lots of fruit and low tannins.

• Pork Futures | Artisanal Pork Producers

  American cooks are becoming pork obsessed. Writer Pete Wells celebrates artisanal producers, heirloom breeds and talented chefs doing amazing things with sausages, ribs, roasts, chops, hams and bacon—as in the eight recipes here.

• Holiday: Thanksgiving Planner

  Three menus for three types of cooks: those who get started five days, two days and (oops) no days ahead.

• Holiday Wine: The Chardonnay Advantage

  Skip the Pinot Noir and hold the Zinfandel. For Thanksgiving, one writer mounts a defense of the wine America loves best—Chardonnay.

• Batali the Home Boy

  TV chef Mario Batali invites F&W into his big, new, kid-friendly kitchen, where he makes teddy bear pancakes for his sons and cooks the family-style Italian recipes that will appear in his next book.

• Drinks: Sake | The New Brew

  Great sake lists keep turning up, and even Benihana's founder has started a sake club. This ancient drink seems to be the next big thing. Here, the trends and experts' tips.

• '04 Tastemaker Awards

  F&W names the 35 most fearsome talents in wine and food, all 35 years old or under: maverick artisans, renegade importers, ingenious activists, visionary entrepreneurs and one brilliant guy who knows more than anyone about Chinese restaurants in L.A.

• Interview: Tom's Big Dinners | Tom Douglas

• Sources: Ham, Bacon and Sausages

• Spago Family Thanksgiving

  Spago Beverly Hills is the quintessential West Coast restaurant. But when chef Lee Hefter invites his colleagues to Thanksgiving, the menu celebrates his East Coast roots—from the squash soup to the maple-syrup gravy.

• Speaking Out: Confessions of an Atkins Slacker

  On Atkins, you may give thanks for many things, but stuffng and pie are not among them. A dieter reports from the Thanksgiving battlefield.

• The Cake Crusader

  Greg Patent, the author of Baking in America, who was a prizewinner at the Pillsbury Bake-Off Contest at age 19, is remarkably precise and exacting in his recipes— no surprise, given his career as a scientist and university professor. Writers Matt Lee and Ted Lee visit him at his Montana home to learn his secrets.

• Trends: Food: All in Good Taste | Manhattan's Fancy Food Show

  It's like the world's biggest market—times a hundred. F&W checks out Manhattan's Fancy Food Show.