If I could toss another idea out I'd like to suggest another beverage that is all too often overlooked at the communal table: beer. There are a host of fantastic, seasonal, micro-brewed ales that go a treat with traditional Thanksgiving meals. When I was buying some homebrew supplies the other day I noticed that Zymurgy magine's latest issue has a series of terrific articles about pairing up some interesting craft ales with your meal. Worth considering.

The laws regarding the importation and sale of alcoholic beverages in these supposedly United States of ours are byzantine and positively disenfranchising.  Is it any wonder that the palatial parallel taxless liquor stores on either side of I-95, running through the narrow neck of New Hampshire where it droops down into the water, are that state's most frequently visited "tourist destinations"?  And don't get me started on that Christian nonsense about preserving the sanctity of the Lord's Day.

We in NY have it a lot better than do the folks back in old PA, to be sure; perhaps better than my friends in NJ, though I am not up on practices there these days.  But even here, we cannot get wines that we want, or at least it is very difficult.  E.g., in our travels, we have tasted great stuff from Washington and British Columbia, but our local wine purveyor, whose stock is among the best in the City, and who took our advice in laying in a good amount of Portuguese wines, has not been able to help us with them.

Anyway, thanks, Tom, for your suggestions.  Cin cin!

Chickens are our cousins! So are other sensitive animals! Enough is enough! No more factory farms!

really convenient granted, but think about the packaging...

cork farms are havens of biodiversity and are disappearing fast owing to boxed wine, screw tops and plastic corks.  Where possible we should try to buy wine in glass bottles with cork closure.