There's always a lot of interest in what's on the menu Thanksgiving Day. Turkey or some facsimile. Dressing with pecans or cranberries or chestnuts. Sweet potato casserole with marshmallows. Or without. And we all know what we'll be eating the day after Thanksgiving. But what I want to know: What you are eating for dinner tonight?I'm so geared up for turkey, I was tempted to stop by our local hangout for a hot turkey sandwich. But instead I'm eating Korean food, the antithesis of turkey and ... Read Full Story

I know we're still thinking about turkey, turkey, stuffing, and pie. Still, long before the leftovers are gone, we'll be ready for something tangy, fresh, and alive with flavor. That's partly why I've pre-emptively had Christina Arokiasamy's Green Papaya Salad on my mind. I'm a fan of her book, The Spice Merchant's Daughter, and I made papaya salad in the cooking class I took at her home a few months back. At the hands-on class, I was wowed by how neatly perfect papaya shreds fell... Read Full Story

Before you get started on making the stuffing and sweet potatoes, check out some of our awesome toy deals that you can enjoy NOW and not wait till Black Friday.  But hurry, the deals are changing all the time...* Buy one Terrain Titan and get one Free* Buy a Bakugan Bakurak and get a Bakugan Booster Pack for free* Amazon-Exclusive Twilight Jewlery Box for only $14.99* Spend $30 on select Melissa and Doug and save 10%* Save up to 40% on Select Star Wars toys.* Save 50% on Watchmen toys.* ... Read Full Story

No question: Look-alikes make for really cheap humor. But after ten years of enduring an almost daily barrage of strangers telling me I'm a dead ringer for a certain fictional British wizard, I like to think I've earned it. So here we go with a few favorites from the world of music... Vicente Fernández ("The King of Ranchera") and Burt Reynolds Enya and Winona Ryder Meatloaf and operatic bass-baritone Bryn Terfel Leonard Cohen and Leonard Nimoy Bett... Read Full Story

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday--and no wonder...it centers around food! Like most people, I have Thanksgiving recipes I cherish and look forward to 364 days of the year. I also have a tradition I look forward to each year--devouring the Thanksgiving issue of Gourmet magazine and dreaming up my ultimate Thanksgiving dinner from the menus they recommend (see: 2007, 2008). This year is bittersweet, of course. With the demise of Gourmet, I nearly cried when I opened my mailbox and pulled ou... Read Full Story

Here's Danny: During an onstage interview in Toronto with fellow dark-side auteur David Cronenberg, Stephen King reveals that his next project may be a sequel to The Shining, following the childhood survivor Danny Torrance into adulthood, where he uses his paranormal powers in a hospice to guide patients to the other side (and plays the horses too). (Via the Guardian) Dissertations of My Mother: Duke University Press is publishing this month Surviving Against the Odds: Village Indu... Read Full Story

With Thanksgiving on the horizon, many (most!) of us are in planning mode for the biggest meal of the year. And along with the turkey and the trimmings comes another important part of the meal: what to drink.Instead of the usual suspects--Pinot Noir, Beaujolais, or Chardonnay--I’d like to propose something quick, easy, and economical that serves a crowd and looks lovely on the buffet table to boot: warm wine punch. In their enticing book Hot Drinks: Cider, Coffee, Tea, Hot Chocolate, S... Read Full Story

The holidays are upon us and it's time to start planning those holiday dinners for friends and family. Everyone has their favorites--from old-school marshmallow-topped sweet potatoes, to the classic green bean casserole. But for me it’s all about the turkey! Juicy and golden, it graces most of our holiday dinner tables. But, alas, there can be many turkey tragedies, “turkey sins” I call them. From the overcooked and dried out, to the not-fully-defrosted-and-then-baked-raw t... Read Full Story

Amazon is celebrating its tenth Anniversary of Wish Lists with ten amazing sweepstakes. This week is the High-Def Wish List featuring an LG 55-inch LCD HDTV and an LG 1000-Watt Blu-ray Disc Home Theater in a Box, plus tons of great Blu-Ray DVDs from Warner Home Video. Customers can enter weekly at www.amazon.com/wishlist10th by creating, adding an item to, or sharing an Amazon.com Wish List. As the holidays get closer, Amazon Wish Lists are a great way for customers to let friends and family ... Read Full Story

If you think Peter Mendelsund went through a lot to get to the final version of the cover for The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, just imagine what Michael J. Windsor's work life was like past year. Windsor was the designer of one of the most iconic and ubiquitous book covers of the decade, Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code, which not only seemed to be held in front of the face of every third person on my bus in the mid-'00s, but which set off a small industry of speculation with its clues about the... Read Full Story