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Hanukkah starts tomorrow at sundown and with it brings an assortment of yummy seasonal foods. It is traditional to eat food that are fried during Hanukkah because the cooking fat symbolizes the oil that burned for eight days instead of one in the temple. My favorite Hanukkah food is the humble latke, because really, there's very little that's better than the fried potato.

The first time I made potato latkes was my junior year of college, when I was an RA. I decided that I wanted to do a Hanukkah-themed study break and so determined to make latkes. For 75 people. Thankfully, someone in my hall had a salad spinner, so I didn't have to do all the shredding by hand. But let me tell you, it was worth the three hours of shredding, mixing, draining and frying (we kept them warm and mostly crisp on a sheet pan in the oven). They were delicious.

If you're searching for latke recipes, look no further. I've searched far and wide for an assortment of links to good recipes, from the basic to the more unique. Happy frying!

1. Last year, Deb stayed fairly traditional with a latke recipe adapted from Food and Wine. These puppies are what I think of when someone says the word latke to me.
2. If you want to start getting a little fancier, check out these Potato-Turnip Duck-Fat Latkes over at Chow. Even just thinking about them makes me start to salivate ever so slightly.
3. Epicurious offers five variations on the latke theme. I am particularly intrigued by the New England-Style Cod and Potato Cakes with Tartar Sauce latkes.
4. Over at That's Fit, one of our sister sites, they have taken the greasy latke and made it low fat. It's a good recipe, if you want to go that direction (although it does sort of defeat the purpose. I'm just sayin').
5. For those of you who aren't fans of potato, you might be thinking about how to turn other veggies into latkes. Look no further than Elana's Butternut Squash Latkes.
6. Another variation on the theme, Eat Like a Girl does it with beets. They look a little disconcerting, but I'm sure they taste wonderful and earthy.
7. From the archives at the Amateur Gourmet, Adam makes latkes with apples and celeriac. Yum, yum!
8. And for the visual learners, check the episode of Fork You that Scott and I filmed last year in which we made latkes. Or as Scott calls them, kosher hashbrowns.

Get More Hanukkah Recipes and Tips from KitchenDaily:
Latke Recipes for Hanukkah
How to Make Latkes Video
A Festive Hanukkah Menu

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I never actually could quite understand the fascination with re-creating certain store-bought candies and chocolates at home. Snickers bar. Twix. Even Marshmallow Peeps. I'm pretty sure that if you're trying to re-create it, it's going to taste exactly the same (that's the point of re-creating, right?), and yet it's so much easier to just spend $1.99 on a whole bag at the store.

Still, the folks over at CHOW have taken the time to put together recipes for making their own versions of Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, Almond Joy, Twix, and Snickers, even including instructions for how to wrap them. II guess the point is that their versions also use higher-end ingredients, making their Snickles, Almond Jay, and Twixt, oh-so-ooh-la-la.

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A french fry is much easier to eat than a lobster, and for many other foods it is simply a fact that some are easier to eat than others. Some, like the aforementioned lobster, are simply difficult to get into. Others are difficult to maneuver into your mouth gracefully (giant burritos, salads with huge lettuce leaves ) and still others are messy to the point where many diners simply avoid them (ribs) unless they have a very high comfort level with their dining partners.

Chow took on the task of identifying some of these foods are offering readers some tips on how to eat them without the food getting the upper hand. Their suggestions include angling tacos over a plate and pinching the edges of the tortilla together to prevent/direct drips, aiming to eat sushi in two neat bites, spear peas with a fork instead of scooping them and deboning a fish using a banana leaf (or a fork).

I would also suggest a few more food-fighting tips to get your through dinner. First, keep a napkin handy to deal with messes and try to eat sloppy foods either very slowly or very fast to minimize the chances of contact with clothing. When possible, cut your food into bite-sized pieces, even if you think that the piece on your plate will probably fit into your mouth. Finally, try to get you dinner companion to order the same type of food that you did, so that in the event you get messy or eat awkwardly, you won't be the only one.

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It is difficult, if not impossible, to recount all the great food moments of an entire year, but Chow set out to do just that with their Year in Food feature. Divided up into nine individual themes, their picks cover the top trends. Cookbooks and books about cooks were big. Huge, in fact. The Omnivore's Dilemma got people thinking and the 75th-anniversary edition Joy of Cooking got them back in the kitchen. Food went high tech with the continuing popularity of molecular gastronomy and the ever-expanding realm of food blogs. And everyone was drinking, whether his or her beverage of choice was an energy drink, wine (possibly in a box) or a luxe new liqueur. Breeze through the rest of Chow's year-end picks for a cheat sheet on the last 12 months of food, but if you happen to have a lot of time on your hands, you can always browse through our own archives for news, recipes and lots and lots of food porn.

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I'm not the most regular reader of Chow, so it took me some time to notice that they have been interviewing all of the contestants from this season of Top Chef as they get eliminated from the competition. So far, they have spoken to Chef Tom, who chats about the previous season's cast and Suyai, who was eliminated in the first episode; Otto, who was eliminated after an infamous lychee incident; Emily, whose food didn't wow the firemen in episode three; Marissa and Josie who were eliminated after their trio of palate cleansers failed to impress; and Carlos, the contestant who left after the most recent episode.

It is definitely interesting to hear the perspectives of the different competitors and to hear what their experiences were like. Some seem like genuinely nice people, while others seem to have a bit of resentment over the way their time on the show went. Type-A personalities working in cramped quarters in record-breaking Los Angeles heat is a recipe for conflict, to say the least. It is also interesting to get another perspective on the chefs and their personalities without Bravo's editing and to see if you still think that the judges made the right decisions.