Category: Food and Drink

For the restaurant industry, this week marks the final push of the year: Sell those gift cards! Book the holiday parties! Throw open the new doors and get some butts in chairs (welcome Otho and finally Red Stag)! Last week was different. Before all the hubbub there was time for a moment of reflection. Last…

"Be not angry or sour at table; whatever may happen put on the cheeful mien for good humor makes one dish a feast." from the Shaker manual Gentle Manners.   THE FEAST INDEX Estimated number of turkeys rasied in Minnesota in 2007: 46 million Rank of Minnesota in the top six turkey producing states: 1…

Tradition hasn’t rooted so firmly in my kitchen that I cook the Thanksgiving meal every year. Sometimes I am a guest at the feast, like the mjority of people, an eater. It’s a beautiful thing, for a cook to be cooked for, and I never take that invitation lightly. It should be one of the…

The bird is the word. We used to go to my aunt’s house in North Oaks for Thanksgiving. I clearly remember her perched on a chair next to the oven, heater and scotch in one hand, turkey baster in the other as she dutifully doused the bird every five minutes. From that chair she barked orders…

It’s go time. It’s the opening of Feast Season, are you ready? This is the week that my head starts spinning with potato options and I rip through the internet trying to find the cranberry recipe that will outshine last year’s. Thank goodness one of my kitchen walls is made of slate, because it is now chalked over with lists…