The Philadelphia Daily News recently ran a column by beer reporter Don Russell, a.k.a. Joe Sixpack, about the growing number of restaurants that employ beer sommeliers. As the name suggests, these are folks that orchestrate a restaurant's beer selection, from consulting with the kitchen to helping diners pair beer and food. Russell has no problem with the existence of such a position, but he takes issue with the title, saying that the French term (and its connotations) has no business being paired with the word beer. His answer? Cellarman (or cellarwoman), an old British term for the person charged with the upkeep of a pub's beer supply and equipment. Personally, I'm just excited by the prospect of more restaurants having such a person. I don't much care what they're called. Still, Russell's piece is fun and definitely worth a read.

[Via Fark]

Perhaps some of you are just going to run out to the supermarket and pick up the first turkey that you see on the shelves of the meat section a few days before Thanksgiving. While this strategy will get you a bird, it will not necessarily get you the best bird, as evidenced by the NYT's cook-off of different types of turkey. The first step in turkey shopping is to find out what kind of turkey you actually want and how much it is going to cost you.

• Heritage turkeys are the types of birds that were served more than, say, 50 years ago when a turkey with breasts larger than the rest of the body was not necessarily desirable. Most of the breeds of bird are not commercially bred and some may even be endangered, so a limited number of them are available at a premium price.
• Free Range turkeys are ones that, like free range chickens, have the option of going outdoors instead of being completely confined, although some free range birds are actually raised completely in the open, so you might want to ask your meat provider about the origin of a free-ranger.
• Organic turkeys are raised on organic feed and without antibiotics and "natural" turkeys make similar claims. Whether you want an organic bird is a personal preference, but Bill Mattos, president of the California Poultry Federation, is quick to point out that "growth hormones and preservatives are not used in California chickens or turkeys, so you just don't have to worry about [that aspect]."
• Conventional turkeys are the least expensive and easiest to find. Some say that they have somewhat less flavor than other birds and, because they have such a large amount of breast meat, they have the potential to be drier than the meat from other birds.

Once you have the turkey, all you have to do is defrost it (unless you've found a local source for frozen turkeys), cook it to perfection and enjoy. You might also want to mention to your dinner guests the amount of time you put into the turkey-finding process so they, too, can appreciate it a bit more.

A younger exposure to wine is likely to foster an increase in appreciation of the beverage, so consumers will be looking not only for more wines, but for better wines. The problem is that you have to start somewhere and it can be difficult to know what you're getting by looking at the bottle. One strategy is to only take recommendations from friends and gradually branch out from there. Another is to extensively research each wine before you buy it, consulting the experts and the internet. If you are at the store and want to buy a bottle at that moment, however, you might face an impressive selection without a clue as to what to buy. Which bottle will you reach for?

An article in the New York Times Magazine reported that the sales of a specific sort of wine have reached over $600 million annually. It’s not burgundy, chardonnay or merlot - not specifically, anyway -  that’s selling, but it just might be the wine that you reach for when confronted with too many same-looking options: wines with animals on their labels.

It might seem like a label design would be an unreliable way to select a wine, but a great logo can help cement a good reputation in the mind of the buyer. And things besides wine are selected on their looks every day: book covers, clothing and potential dates. Why should wines stick to plain labels with scripted fonts when a bold design will jump out and grab a consumer's attention? My only question is why an animal label might attract a buyer more than a flashy, non-animal label, all other things being equal.