Freshly cooked brats. Photo: Three if by Bike, Flickr.

• An ode to fresh sausage, plus recipes to get you started.
• Golfer Greg Norman brings his daughter Morgan-Leigh into the world of winemaking.
• Digging into dumplings from across the world, with tips for making them at home.
• The Creole rice fritter also known as calas gives cooks another way to prep that pantry staple.
• Alexandra Guarnaschelli -- judge on "Chopped" and "Iron Chef" -- gets her own Food Network cooking show.

• There's nothing like a good dumpling to warm you up in winter. Here are a few to try: Spinach and Ricotta Dumplings With Roasted Garlic Cream, Austrian Bacon and Chive Bread Dumplings and Chicken and Parsley Dumplings.
  
• Portland's Stumptown coffee is heading east, to open a roasting facility in Brooklyn.
• We are firmly in the midst of citrus season and lemons are the star attraction in many a grocery store display.
• Make yourself a more virtuous steak sandwich by using lean beef and omitting the cheese.
• Need help picking out a wine? Check out those tech sheets on the counter.
• Wine classes, apple juice for memory and a contest from Green and Black's chocolate are all In the Mix this week.
• Want a foreign experience without leaving home? Check out this recipe for Moroccan Spinach and Garbanzo Soup.
  
• For a quick weeknight dinner, spice up a grocery store tub of Alfredo Sauce with extra veggies and a couple chicken sausages.

• The classic food mag gets a makeover. Here's a letter from Editor-in-Chief Barbara Fairchild explaining the new look.
• The magazine picks the best dishes of the year, including the Indulgence of the Year, the Cuisine of the Year, the Ingredient of the Year, and the Dish of the Year.
• A slideshow on how to throw the best cocktail party this holiday season.
• Radicchio is not your average green.
• The top 20 recipes of 2007.
• They also pick the best puddings.
• If you haven't seen it, check out the Bon Appetit blog.
• More recipes: Baked Apple, Raisin, and Brown Sugar Dumplings, Fried Egg and Sausage Ciabatta Breakfast Pizzas, and lots of holidays desserts.

Since the time I read that the growth hormones given to  cows seeped into their milk and meat, I have been a little more particular about the food I put in my shopping basket. When I later learned that children are reportedly entering puberty earlier and earlier, due in part to their diets, I made a solemn vow to buy as much organic food as possible. This is a somewhat selfish act on my part, I have an overbearing, precocious 8 year-old daughter and the longer I can stave off her pubescent years, the safer my sanity .

That said, it is quite expensive to buy organic. Our weekly food tab for a family of five is astronomical, due in no small part to all the products without additives. So in an effort to eat healthily and impart a good work ethic on my kids, we are purchasing a flock of chicks from a nearby ranch family. We will feed them, clean their cages, watch them live a happy eight or ten weeks in the mountain air and then we will chop off their heads, pluck their feathers and make them into soup and cordon blu. I am looking forward to seeing the little peepers, feeding them and eating fresh chicken dinners, but I am somewhat hesitant about that middle death-by-beheading part. My mother and my daughter, Cassidy, had a practice outing several weeks ago where they caught up a rooster and a couple of old hens. The owner did the chopping deed and my mother and daughter plucked the beasts. The next day we enjoyed fabulous chicken soup and dumplings, made all the better by my daughter's blow by blow account of the previous day's efforts.

Sarah J. Gim already mentioned that one of the food traditions for Chinese New Year is to have dumplings, which are meant to bring good fortune in the next year. She didn't mention that they also make a delicious snack or a quick lunch and, with some rice and vegetables, can make an exceptionally tasty dinner. Soft, fluffy "bao" are steamed buns that are typically served as dim sum or yum cha in Chinese restaurants and they'll be on my Chinese New Year menu. You can make them yourself, using any filling you wish, or pick up a few at your local asian market. Good luck and a good lunch? How can you go wrong!

[Photo by Nicole Weston]

My only complaint about the service is the lack of carts. The quintessential dim sum meal will include the hustle and bustle of a multitude of carts carrying bounties of bites to eat. At Hang Ah, you have to order off the menu. But, I overlooked this after I had a chance to taste the food. The dim sum at Hang Ah is among the best I have had. The fillingsare flavorful and very fresh, and the dumplings are nice and crispy on the outside. The char siu baos are extremely big, and filled with a glisteningly delicious pork filling.

In addition, they have bunny-shaped shrimp dumplings (pictured above), which are very amusing.

1 Pagoda Pl, off Sacramento St. between Stockton and Grant Sts.
San Francisco, CA

One of the best things about my Inner Richmond San Francisco nabe is its proximity to the real Chinatown in the city. Not the touristic place where dollar store owners hawk fake jade and shot glasses to tourists, but the bustling, neighborhoody area where Chinese and non-Chinese alike do their shopping.

One of my favorite establishments in the Inner Richmond is Wing Lee Bakery on Clement and 5th. Not a bakery like you are thinking (although they do offer up sweet treats), "bakery" is the traditional name for shops that sell dim sum, too. The best thing about Wing Lee is that they serve fresh dim sum and other savory tasties for cheap. An order (3 pieces) will cost you no more than $1.30, and if you just want a bite, they also sell their dim sum by the piece.

Today I shoved $5 in my pocket and headed off in search of lunch. I selected coriander dumplings, both boiled and pan-fried leek dumplings (my fave), pork siu mai, a spring roll and a couple of baked char siu bao (pork buns). Then I took it all home, brewed some chrysanthemum tea, and my daughters and I had a feast for lunch.

[Photo Stefania Butler]