In 1972, the Maloney family moved from Northern California to the Northern Berkshires in Massachusetts, and applied their wine-making techniques to local apples. The result: West County Ciders. Today, West County produces about ten varieties of hard cider, from bone-dry to sweet. Baldwin cider is their most popular variety. It’s made from now-rare Baldwin apples, native to Massachusetts and first cultivated there in the eighteenth century. It sparkles softly and has a bright, crisp fruit flavor that strikes a nice balance between sweet and tart. It was equally delicious with a picnic lunch of bread and soft cheeses, and a supper of spicy squid. It might also be just the thing to keep us all happy and lucid (at 5.3% alcohol by volume) during our Thanksgiving dinner preparations, and throughout the meal as well.

Best of all, the only ingredients you’ll find in West County cider are fruit, yeast, and a minimal amount of sulfite. Considering this, it’s a wonderful thing to sip a glass and appreciate the lively, complex flavors that all come from the apple itself.

Visit West County Cider for more varieties and for some poetically composed food pairing suggestions. The site lists buying information for Massachusetts only, but also gives contact information for enquiries. My bottles came from Pasanella and Son Vintners in New York City ($10 a bottle).

Every year, come Halloween, I vow to cook up something fancifully macabre, and every year the spirit eludes me. Instead of phyllo ghosts, tombstone cookies, and dirt dessert, I choose the sofa and a big bag of chocolates from the drugstore. This year, seeking some old-school inspiration, I picked up a copy of The Wicca Cookbook: Recipes, Ritual, and Lore, by Jamie Wood and Tara Seefeldt. Wicca–also known as Witchcraft, Old Religion, and Neopaganism–is a nature-based religion with roots in pre-Christian Europe. Within the Wiccan year are eight major festivals, called Sabbats, and the most important of these is Samhain (pronounced sow-en), which begins on October 31. In Wiccan tradition, Samhain is the first day of winter, marking the end of the harvest season. Wiccans believe that during Samhain, the veil between the physical and spirit worlds is so thin that the souls of the dead may temporarily enter the world of the living. Many of the secular traditions associated with Halloween, such as offering treats at the door to soothe mischievous spirits, are rooted in Pagan practice.
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On Saturday, October 21, fifty-five restaurants, bakeries, tea houses, and specialty food shops served $1 and $2 tasting portions of Chinese, Malaysian, Vietnamese, Indonesian, Thai, Singaporean, Japanese, and Asian Fusion cuisines on the streets of Chinatown in New York City.

Who could resist a fifty-five course meal for $55?

I, personally, can’t resist a pork bun at almost any price.

View my photos of Taste of Chinatown.

You may have a bottle of vermouth languishing in your liquor cabinet right now. (Incidentally, if you do, and it’s an open bottle from last New Year’s, throw it away and pay close attention.) It’s the other liquid component of a Martini–now often (wrongly) reduced to a few drops swilled in the cocktail glass and flung out–and a key player in the Manhattan, the Negroni, and other classic cocktails. But it’s worthy of consideration on its own, and makes for a lovely soothing sip, neat or on the rocks, with a twist of lemon or orange.
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