the winter issue of sweet paul magazine is out, so i suppose it’s official – the holidays are upon us! i can hardly believe that’s true, and that thanksgiving feasts will be prepared in a few weeks time, but this issue of sweet paul is here to guide you beautifully through the holidays. the photography is gorgeous, and the decorating ideas quite sublime.... 
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No doubt, hands down, my favorite thing to toast the new year with is good champagne. Sometimes budget or inclination precludes the “good” part of that declaration, however, and I find myself turning to champagne-based cocktails instead. They’re delicious, festive, easy, and let you doctor up the cheap stuff to great effect. On a whim last week I mixed... 
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Last week it was a cake, this week it is a pie. I am a little walnut crazy. I like them under normal circumstances – something about that bitter edge they have delights my taste buds and the fact that they really are quite good for you as well (can you say “essential fatty acid”?) is a lovely bonus prize – but some walnut growers sent me a giant box of... 
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Do I date myself too much by confessing that mussels always make be think of Squeeze and the song “Pulling Mussels (From the Shell)”? They do this despite being one of my big-time food memory foods, you know, those foods that food folks remember vividly form childhood, those eating moments on which we look back and realize that our lives in food were, perhaps,... 
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I will not be watching the Superbowl on Sunday. Not even for the ads. I’ll be out enjoying the relative calm and quiet of the wide variety of public entertainments that are empty because everyone is home eating snack treats and watching a screen and cheering. The snacky treats and beer, however, do sound good. I’ve pulled together a list of beer-friendly homemade... 
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