Dining

By Meredith Napolitano
Novice Pesto, Intermediate Arugula, Advanced Mushroom and Master Tofu: At a popular new restaurant on New York’s Upper East Side, these are some of the stages of personal growth to a new dimension of healthy pizza. Slice: The Perfect Food sells an all-natural, organic piece of the pie that goes into the body without causing bloat and counters its oil-slathered counterparts with fresh ingredients.

By Ron Kapon
Canada has been making wine since the 1800’s and today there are over 400 wineries throughout our northern neighbor. The region is small with most of the wineries classified as “boutique”. Several American & Australian wineries produce more wine than the entire BC region. The areas I visited are at the northernmost tip of wine making and vine growing (Germany is in the same latitude) where the vines struggle to grow ripe fruit with a shorter growing season. The summers are hot and most grapes are harvested in a long, cool and sunny autumn; sometimes even in winter. Here we find the grapes left to freeze on the vine in order to produce Ice wine, the tip of the iceberg.

By Lee Cabot Walker

Most Americans would agree that cookies are to Christmas as hydrogen is to water: essential. But what cookbook do you need? Whether you’re hosting a cookie swap and insist that your cookies be the best, or your mother-in-law is hosting a cookie swap and you must attend (and yes, with cookies), here are some cookbooks that may fit your needs.

By Dana Lerner

It’s Tuesday night on the Upper West Side and seven young Jewish women have left their briefcases and Blackberries behind and are elbows deep in flour, mixing, kneading and braiding.

By Sylvie Bigar and Pauline M. Millard

If spending a week cooking for Thanksgiving doesn’t appeal here are some of the best places in the city to eat out.

1.) Café Gray
10 Columbus Circle

By Meaghan Dolan

Turkey is the centerpiece of the traditional Thanksgiving dinner, and the nemesis of many a Thanksgiving chef. If you’re already breaking out in a sweat trying to figure out what to do with 20 pounds of poultry, relax. Assistance is available.

Megu Midtown
845 United Nations Plaza
(at 47th Street and First Avenue)
(212) 964-7777
megunyc.com

By Jeanine Zelkas
Megu, which translates to “blessings” in Japanese, has enjoyed a huge success in TriBeCa, and recently added its new second home in the Trump World Tower across the street from the United Nations. Megu Midtown is smaller and has a slightly different menu but it is most certainly a force to be reckoned with in its own right. Founder and chief executive chef, Koji Imai, in pursuit of the ultimate food experience and gifted with artistic style, has created a sophisticated restaurant with flair, featuring memorable modern Japanese cuisine.

By Jennifer Mascia

When Manhattan restaurateur Rene Pujol decided to sell his eponymous 35-year-old French establishment in the theater district, chef Vincent Purdy couldn’t bear to see his close-knit staff scattered to the winds. So Purdy sat down with the waiters, line cooks and busboys and asked them if they were ready to stop thinking like employees and start thinking like owners. Together they bought the restaurant and retained the Rene Pujol name.

By Lauren Mack
Like most holiday fare, the peculiar concoction called turducken comes with its own lore.

In one story that explains how turducken came to be, an old farmer walked into Hebert’s Specialty Meats in Maurice, La., clutching a turkey, a duck and a chicken. He asked the butcher to bone out each carcass and put the three birds together: the chicken inside the duck, and the duck inside the turkey.

By Hugh Spencer

The Upper East Side finally gets the French Brasserie it deserves. No, Keith McNally is not going uptown yet, but no fear, Brittany-born veteran Philippe Roussel is at the helm and is doing it right. Café D’Alsace on the corner of 88th and Second is a refreshing breath of accessible fine dining in an otherwise gastronomic void.