KatieLoeb

Mmmmm...the pretzels looks just like the ones from Fisher's at Reading Terminal. Aren't those just the best!

Jonathan: Thanks for the updates! It's always nice to get the scoop straight from the head honcho! And of course now that I realize we have similar taste I always love to hear your opinions on the individual wines. It's going to be a nice holiday season with so much good wine floating around!

Melissa: Let me know what you thought of the Mousseux once you've tried it. I just think it's awesome stuff. Definitely tastes like it's meant for grownups. Not too sweet. I buy some every time I visit the Sugarloaf Craft Fair, which comes around my way twice annually. La Provencale Cellars, the producer of Le Mousseux, always has a booth set up with their products at the craft show.

Le Mousseux is my favorite sparkling cider, hands down. It's delicious and very dry, almost akin to an apple Champagne. No added sugar and no alcohol. Best I've ever tried and makes Martinelli's taste like Gerber's apple juice for babies. Those Navarro non-alcoholic juices are fabulous. I've recommended them many times. They're great for expectant moms because they actually taste like wine but are completely non-alcoholic, so mom-to-be doesn't have to feel left out of toasts at the dinner table or special events.

Rome: Sant Eustacio - I still dream about that cup of coffee so many years later. Philly: La Colombe is the perennial fave, but Double Shots at 2nd and Chestnut makes really good coffee too. They use these delicious all natural flavored syrups. I was drinking their Vanilla iced lattes all summer.

There's a bar here in Philly's Chestnut Hill section called McNally's Tavern that serves the "Dicken's" sandwich. Grilled fresh sliced turkey and grilled stuffing with cranberry sauce on a toasted bun. They're delicious, I'm told, although I've never had the pleasure. "Tastes just like Thanksgiving" is what everyone says when they have one. McNally's is also home to the infamous "Schmitter" sandwich - basically a cheesesteak with the addition of grilled salami and tomato on a Kaiser roll instead of a long hoagie roll.

Just curious what others had with their dinner. My hosts served Prosecco before dinner (which I made into Pomegranate Mimosas with a splash of Pom Wonderful juice) and a lovely Pouilly-Fuisse with dinner. How 'bout you? What were you drinking with your turkey on Thursday? Any pleasant surprises or marvelous pairings? Come on. Dish.

I've not had that specific wine before, but I've had the Pares Balta "Mas Elena" and thought it was one of the tastiest wines I've had. I've experienced that "burnt rubber" smell with certain South American Malbecs or South African Pinotage before, but never in a Spanish wine. StephenC is correct when he says sometime aeration helps. Sometimes those funky aromas (not just this one, but many) sort of "blow off" the wine after a few minutes in the glass and some swirling.

Nicely done, eGulleteers! YAY us! There are so many brilliant cooks on this site (read the blogs if you don't believe me or if you're new here) that I'm not at all surprised that we got some recognition in a nationally reknowned publication. Heck - this is the first place I look for inspiration, so it follows that others would start to see this site for the incredible resource that it is. I remain awed and humbled daily by the genious that comes here to play.

Hi Katie, which Aussies are you thinking of? Are they working in the US? Or are they part of the bunch that haven't left Australia... yet... ← I'm buddies with Mohammed Ansaar at Fonthill and Wayne Keoghan at Annvers Wines. They're both still there. Both make very delicious wines. Ansaar is a particularly interesting fellow who moved to Oz from Fiji and whose background is in sugar cane farming originally. He bought some acreage and planted grapes and is applying his viticultural knowlege that way now.

I would be. I know the folks at Unti Vineyards too. Might be an interesting guest to talk about viticulture. Or I have a couple of Aussie winemakers that might guest if I asked nicely. What do you think?

Luct: Thank you so much for doing this again. Your blogs are a thing of such great beauty, both in the writing and the photos. And you set such a lovely table! I love your table top linens and napkin rings and proper linen serviettes. They're just gorgeous and so civilized. I'm so looking forward to the rest of your blog. If you find the cranberries, my recipe for Cranberry-Orange sauce with Grand Marnier is in RecipeGullet HERE. Blog on, oh wondrous mistress of all delicious things...

Susan: Congrats on finding all that you were seeking! That always feels good. The R.H. Phillips EXP Viognier is quite tasty, although it will be a bit more fruity and lush (in a more New World style) than a French viognier would be, I'm certain you'll enjoy it and it should go quite well with your turkey dinner. It's very "peachy" and floral. I'm quite fond of it. Loimer is a great producer of Gruner Veltliner. Should be a fine introduction to the grape for you. I believe "Lois" (like voice, not like Superman's girlfriend) is an abbreviation of Langenlois, the region of Austria where this wine is produced. This might not be as drinkable on its own as the viognier might be, but it really comes alive with food. Lots of minerality and white pepper flavors. Delicious. Enjoy your feast!

Cranberry Orange Sauce with Grand Marnier Serves 8 as Side. I make this for Thanksgiving every year. It's always a crowd pleaser. It's OK to use Gran Gala instead of Grand Marnie for this recipe. But I wouldn't use Triple Sec or the lovely flavor would be compromised. 1 12 oz. bag fresh cranberries 1 pkg unflavored gelatin 1/2 c water 1 c sugar 1 whole orange 1 tsp Pumpkin Pie Spice 1/4 c Grand Marnier or Gran Gala Rinse and pick over cranberries to remove any defective ones. Add gelatin, water and sugar to pot. Add cranberries and microplaned zest from the orange and heat over medium heat stirring well to dissolve gelatin. Meanwhile, remove pith from the orange, check for seeds and puree orange flesh in blender or processor. Add pureed orange to the sauce and continue heating until boiling. Allow sauce to boil for about 6-8 minutes until berries have all popped or are soft enough to crush against the side of the pot with a spoon. Remove from heat. Add pumpkin pie spice and Grand Marnier and allow to cool, then refrigerate. Serve on the side of Thanksgiving turkey or roast chicken. Keywords: Condiment, Fruit, American ( RG1505 )

Miniature Mascarpone cheesecakes with a layer of pesto and sundried tomatoes. Served with crackers or flatbread. I use THIS recipe from Epicurious and there's never any left. She could make them in muffin tin size. Just enough for a snack with something to spread it on, or she could make it full sized and serve slivers.

Spiritchild: Thanks for the excellent suggestion! My mind now reels with possibilities for infusions from dried fruits like apricot, pineapple, papaya, etc. This could revive the infused vodka thread single-handedly. The cranberry infused sake sounds wonderful! How do you serve it?

Basic chemistry 101 with food and wine pairing: 1) Acid and salt are at opposite ends of the Ph scale. Hence they tend to cancel each other out. Try this experiment. Get a rather high acid tart white wine (Sancerre or Aligote are good expamples) and taste it by itself. Then lick the space between your thumb and forefinger and salt it like you were getting ready to do a shot of tequila. This is similar. Taste the wine by itself one more time so you can recall how screechingly sour it seems. Now lick the salt and taste the wine again. Suddenly it's fruity and delicious. New dimensions that were hidden beneath those jagged edged flavors will reveal themselves. 2) Fat and tannin cancel each other out. Have a sip of a tannic red wine like a big paint stripping California Cabernet. Then have a bite of well buttered bread and taste it again. Fat, specifically ANIMAL fat (butter, a well marbled steak, salami, fatty fish) will make the tannin less "puckering". 3) Counterintuitively, one + one does NOT equal two when pairing food and wine. One + one generally equals zero, in that similar flavors mellow each other out. Acidic food with acidic wine makes each taste less so. Same goes for sweet. A wine with a little residual sugar will make the sweet sauce less cloying. The only other thing I'd add to TongoRad's excellent comments is that Hot spicy needs sweet AND low alcohol. There's a reason we tend to drink 6% alcohol beer with Buffalo wings. A huge 15% alcohol wine will set your mouth aflame with any kind of chile peppers. Like throwing gasoline on a fire!

Mano: Where is Pesto? What are the prices like? In addition to being happy with the flavors, did you feel it was a good value? Good choices on the wine! Something for everyone...

More or less. The recipe called for 16 oz of roughly pureed cranberries, 1 1/2 cups of vodka, lime zest, and a cinnamon stick. I added 1/2 cup of sugar and no water and stored it for a month in a cool dark place, shaking it every day or so, until the sugar dissolved. When I strained it, I found I had around a liter of very alcoholic cranberry stuff, so perhaps I did not entirely follow the recipe. A problem I have. I think it seemed thick, so I added more vodka. I can't believe there is that much juice in cranberries. Unfortunately, I didn't write down my procedure that day. In any case, I have now added another cup of sugar (in 1/2 cup water), and it seems quite nice. ← Interesting. When you're adding your sugar and water are you boiling it and making actual syrup first, or are you just dissolving the sugar in the water and adding it. The boiling definitely gives the sugar/water mixture the viscosity of a syrup and not just the sweetness. Didn't everybody do that experiment in Chemistry class where you see how heat, stirring/shaking the water, etc. effected how fast the sugar dissolved and how much sugar the solution could hold? I'm going to have to try this again and maybe see if chopping the berries first leads to a better result than I got. Makes sense with more surface area exposed you'd get a better infusion. Perhaps I'll try this as a variation on my limoncello procedure and see if that works. I also have a liqueur cookbook. I'll look in there and see if they have any good ideas. I seem to recall there being a cranberry liqueur recipe in there. I'll check and let you know if their procedure/recipe seems any better.

Erik: Did you make your cranberry liqueur in a fashion similar to limoncello? I made a great bottle of home made cranberry vodka last winter by taking about 2/3 cup of fresh cranberries and bruising them then stuffing them into a vodka bottle for about two weeks. It was quite tart though and needed to be mixed with a sweeter juice mixer (it was tasty in pineapple juice - kind of a self contained Bay Breeze) for consumption. I like the idea of a cranberry liqueur for cocktails. Last Thanksgiving I also tried to make a Cranberry reduction for a variation on a Cranberry Champagne cocktail. I boiled up fresh cranberries, water, sugar and Angostura bitters. I pushed it through a strainer. It had so much pectin and sugar it gelled solid and was too heavy textured (read: gloppy) for the application I wanted it for. It tasted great. It just wasn't functional. If anyone has an idea how to make that work I'd be grateful.

So true! Chinese food and the movies has always been "Jewish Christmas" for me, if I didn't have an invite someplace. Glad you liked the spa day idea. And the pot of mulled wine or cider makes the whole house smell festive and wonderful too. Then you can curl up with your mug and your fuzzy bunny slippers and watch a favorite flick. I personally always enjoy It's a Beautiful Life, even though most folks consider that a Christmas movie. Other old classics (anything with Katherine Hepburn is great!) are the perfect balm for the soul on a day like that. You might want to consider picking up your Thanksgiving dinner at Boston Market the night before, and then simply reheating it, so you can really enjoy puttering around in your bathrobe or PJs and not have to go out on Thanksgiving proper. Of course, if you're feeling up to it, the volunteering suggestion is a wonderful one and could be a very empowering thing to do as well.

Here are some other wines that generally get recommended: Sparkling wines, which is what I usually serve. ← Okay, so i have some Roderer (sp?) Estate sparkling wine, can it be served throughout the meal then? It sounds tasty. I just found out my mom is bringing brussels sprouts and asparagus, so if it will work with that, I guess it will work with the baked sweet potatoes and the turkey. Also, can I still add some sherry to my gravy without causing a bad match? Enquiring minds and all that, Lauren ← I posted in another thread about Thanksgiving wine that I tend to prefer white wines with different flavor profiles with the traditional T-day feast. Savenierres, Gruner Veltliner and Scheurebe all come to mind. The problem with hard and fast rules about wine pairing is that the wine that matches the delicate Dover Sole with a light buttery cream sauce is NOT going to taste good with Cajun Blackened flounder, is it? I try to think of the wine as an additional sauce or a condiment and try to match it that way. Find the dominant flavor in the saucing of the dish and try match that both with the body or texture of the wine and the underlying flavors in the wine. Since you're having those Brussel Sprouts and Asparagus on the side, I'd suggest a Gruner Veltliner, as it's one of the few wines I can think of that isn't completely discordant with those very "vegetal" flavors. Artichokes are hard to pair with too! This is why I make two flavors of Cranberry sauce for Thanksgiving. Cranberry-Orange with Grand Marnier for the roast bird, and a Cranberry-Jalapeno sauce to go with the deep fried bird. I'd have a white wine with the roasted bird and probably a Cabernet Franc or Dolcetto to go with the fried bird. But that's just me...

I liked your drink. So did my friend that was with me. Sadly, I think the unionized "rent-a-tenders" that were doing the mixing that evening couldn't have given a rat's hynie whether the drinks were properly mixed from the recipes (that they'd never seen until that afternoon, I'm certain) or whether they would have known if they were even if they tasted them. So sadly, I don't think the drinks were a fair representation of their creator's good intentions and fine palates. Kinda made me glad my drinks didn't make the finals though. I have every confidence that the fine folks behind this festival will remedy this situation for the next cocktail contest they sponsor. The selection of spirits available for tasting was extensive and brilliantly put together, the venue was great, the silent auction was awesome and some truly astonishing bargains were to be had if you were paying attention. The event was a HUGE success in every way except for the drinks being mixed for the public to judge. One small miscalculation that I'm certain will never be repeated.

I might also suggest staying at Penns View Hotel, home of one of my favorite bars in the city, Il Bar at Ristorante Panorama. The most awesome selection of wines by the glass you'll ever encounter. The food at Panorama is also delicious, particularly the house made pastas. Check out one of the fabulous BYOB restaurants in our fair city while you're here. There's plenty to choose from. Some of my favorites include Dmitri's, Matyson, Rx, Django, and L'Angolo. And in a shameless bit of self-promotion I'll recommend Amada if you're fond of authentic Spanish tapas and or Spanish wines. Call for a reservation though. It's been pretty busy lately, I'm told. Dinner only for the moment.

It's a shame you didn't post earlier. You could have ordered a pie from MANNA's(Metropolitan Aids Neighborhood Nutrition Alliance) annual "Pie in the Sky" fundraiser that provides a mojority of the annual funding for this wonderful organization. MANNA delivers over 40,000 nutritious, freshly-prepared meals each month into the homes of individuals and families living with HIV/AIDS. Barring that, the suggestions of Reading Terminal Market and DiBruno's are good ones. Mummer likes Isgro's pastries but I have a soft spot for anything from Termini Brothers Bakery, a Philadelphia institution. Their Amaretti cookies are the absolute best I've ever had. Not sure what day and time you're arriving, but remember that many of these places will close up shop on Wednesday and not be around again until Friday. Reading Terminal may provide the most choices in one spot, but as mentioned, it's certain to be a madhouse. Get the kids some Fisher's pretzels while you're there. The best soft pretzel known to man. Hand twisted before their saucer-like eyes by Amish ladies and girls, brushed with real melted butter while they're still warm and lovingly sprinkled with crunchy coarse salt before being handed into eager hands. There's nothing like it. The Italian Market could be interesting to explore and there's a smaller (the original) DiBruno's shop as well as Claudio King of Cheese and their "mozzarella factory" right next door. D'Angelo Brothers butcher shop is also a great find as their homemade sausages are the best I've ever had. Might be a place to stock up and take some interesting things home from if you bring a cooler (which you should!).