"fall" news and stories

I've been a bit in my own isolated world lately trying to unpack into a new home in a foreign land. When a friend in New York told me on the phone that he's busy making plans to serve 18 people for Thanksgiving this week, I gasped. How could I forget that this week is Thanksgiving?

Casa Cóctel's kitchen is still a work in progress, so we won't have a full-on Thanksgiving dinner in Mexico this year. We are still waiting for the arrival of the wine and spirit collection and the newly restored vintage Faema espresso machine. With all that in my mind, I decided to just make it all easier with a Kentucky Joe, a tasty dessert drink made with bourbon and coffee liqueur.

We're now in the last push before Thanksgiving. There's no time to carefully make marzipan treats or tasty maple concoctions. But there is still the possibility of sweetness without resorting to the old-school pie baking. Simply put down the pie shell, find a pumpkin-shaped pan and whip up a delicious, show-stopping cake.

The orange squash is one of the most undervalued delicacies in the world of food. By adding it to a cake, you get all the rich and spicy flavor contrasted with vanilla or chocolate. Since this is a cake, it can be made ahead of time -- freeing up the oven for the last-minute fare -- and adds some three-dimensional whimsy to your holiday table.

• Mark Bittman's advice for Thanksgiving: "Just chill."
• Since 1999, residents of Jamestown, R.I., have held a Thanksgiving leftovers potluck deemed the "Save the Best for Last" dinner the Saturday after Turkey Day.
• Taking a clue from the Butterball Turkey talk-line, Sam Sifton will be answering reader questions until 3 p.m. Thursday.
• How to carve that bird. No hacking allowed.
• Urban food lovers learn how to hunt, butcher and cook their own meat to reduce the food miles between producer and consumer.
• President Obama hosted the first state dinner for Prime Minister Manmohan Singh of India, with a vegetarian menu prepared by Chef Marcus Samuelsson.

Hold the jokes about foil-wrapped potatoes and GORP-topped pie: Kentucky's state parks last year hosted more than 11,000 celebrants for Thanksgiving dinner.

"It's a longtime tradition, and a very convenient option," parks spokesman Gil Lawson says.

Kentucky, Georgia, Alabama and Arkansas will all keep at least one of their state park restaurants open this Thanksgiving for a holiday buffet. Insiders say the low price of in-park dining will likely enhance the appeal of an already popular program this year.

Kentucky, which operates all 17 of its park restaurants on Thanksgiving Day, charges $16.95 for a meal including turkey and dressing, baked ham, candied yams, green beans, mashed potatoes with giblet gravy and pumpkin pie.

"Not everyone wants to cook," explains Tennessee State Parks' Meg Lockhart. "This is a really simple thing to do in a beautiful setting."

Whether your Thanksgiving celebration errs on the Puritanical side, with extended family and tykes on the loose, or functions as more of a boozy bacchanal, this "Southern Comfort Barn Burner" cocktail should provide ample comfort to imbibers of all sorts.

If our Thanksgiving wine pairings didn't quite satisfy your thirst, Ezra Pound Cake's simple Southern Comfort and cider concoction will certainly fit the bill. In what she dubs "the official drink of Thanksgiving 2009," Ezra spikes some classic apple cider with some Southern Comfort, seasons it with cinnamon and brightens it with fresh lemon. She summarized the elegant drink best in her blog: "The combination works because the flavors in Southern Comfort -- especially the peach, orange and cinnamon -- dance with the apple in the cider, giving you a drink that's sweet and fruity, with an undercurrent of trouble. Just like Thanksgiving." We'll drink to that!

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