Hey, I'm Bruce Weinstein, and this is the podcast Cooking with Bruce and Mark.

And I'm Mark Scarborough. And together with Bruce, my husband, we've written lots of cookbooks, we've published tons of recipes. Oh, God, 12, 000, 13, 000 copywritten recipes, something like that. And of course, this is our food and cooking podcast, and we are delighted that you're a part of it. on this journey with us. As is typical, we've got a one minute cooking tip. We're all about holiday meals. So our one minute cooking tip is going to be about prepping for a holiday meal. We're gonna talk about, uh, first thing about holiday meals, at least in my opinion, that is what you serve to drink with that Thanksgiving dinner. So we're talking to the U. S. audience where Thanksgiving is coming up in Canada. You can roast a turkey and take our drink, uh, recommendations as they come. And then we'll tell you what's making us happy in food this week. So let's get started.

Our one minute cooking tip. It is never too early. early to start planning holiday meal menus.

Oh God, it makes me so nervous. Okay, here's the thing. Just saying that.

But you may need to order something special from your butcher department. It might take them a week or two to get it. It's true. Or like us, this Thanksgiving, we're not doing turkey. We're doing prime rib. So what I'm doing Prime rib

and salmon.

And salmon. And I am watching the store specials. We've talked about this before too on Cooking With Bruce DeMarc. I watch the flyers and the store specials because sometime between now and Thanksgiving, Rib roasts are going to go on sale, and if I wait to the last minute, they'll be really expensive. And if I could save 20 or 30 bucks on a roast, I'm going to do it.

Right. Yeah, exactly. I, I think that the reason I shudder when Bruce said this is because there used to be this old thing, Ah, God, from Martha Stewart, about, about rehearsing your your Thanksgiving dinner and people would actually back in the day and this is Particularly popular in the late 90s early 2000s. They would do planning rehearsal dinner So they would cook to the entire dinner before Thanksgiving day to rehearse it and and I I'm telling you, that made me so insane that I just thought, I'm going to a restaurant. I am not making a meal that I have to rehearse. There is just no way. So you should know that a Thanksgiving is easier than you think it is. We'll talk about this on down the road, but you can throw a frozen turkey in an oven and come out with Thanksgiving dinner. So it's easier than you think it is. And as Bruce says, start watching the sales now, get that. Turkey in the freezer get if you're going to do a roast beef or a pork tenderloin or a pork loin or whatever You're going to serve a rack of pork We've certainly served racked of porks at both of our families houses for the holidays Whatever you're going to do make sure that you start now One stuck up on pumpkin and stuck up on things when it's on sale. You're gonna need in the summer Sales in the weeks ahead so that Thanksgiving doesn't break the bank.

And also one other point. Remember to ask who's ever coming to your house for Thanksgiving if they have any food allergies or intolerances or even things they don't like because there's nothing worse than putting out a big holiday spread that you worked all day on to find that a couple of your guests can't eat anything you made.

Right. That's part of pre planning. Okay. Before we get to the next segment of this podcast, let us say that we have a Facebook group cooking with Bruce and Mark. You can join that group and join the conversation with us at any time. And we'd love to know what's going to be on your holiday table. We'll talk more about that there. But now as we're heading into the holidays here in the U S let's talk about what to serve. on Thanksgiving to drink.

Since we're ramping up for Thanksgiving, Mark says we're going to talk about what to drink. Absolutely. Turkey is notoriously hard to pair with wine. It is like asparagus. It's just one of those foods that Doesn't really go with anything, but that's not why we're serving prime rib.

Well, no, we're not.

We just love prime rib and we will be splurging on a ridge geyserville for my family who's coming for the first ever Thanksgiving in our house.

Yeah. Okay. All the above. No, we're not not having turkey because of wine problems. It's ridiculous. I don't actually believe that turkey is hard to pair. I think that that's a myth that has been perpetuated by food writers because I think there's a lot of things you can drink. Of course, the standard answer is Pinot

Noir. And

people always turn to Pinot Noir. And that's because it's light. And that's because it's a red wine with a bit of substance to it. But it's still light. It's not going for a cab Sauvignon. It's not going for a Merlot. It's not going for a big Bordeaux wine. It's going for a lighter taste, but you should know that Pinot Noirs are a bit expensive. They've become very popular. It used to be kind of a not popular wine in the United States, in Canada too, but they've gotten expensive. So you should think about other wines as well, like Gamay's. There's a G A M A wine. There's a great Pinot Noir. Red wine that you could serve with turkey.

I mean, often you'll find it served as a Beaujolais Nouveau. And I find those a little too light and a little too watery, but you can go to your wine store and look for a 100 percent Gamay based Cru Beaujolais. It'll be a few more dollars, but it's going to be a wine that has a little more body. It'll go beautifully with the turkey because it is high in acid to cut through the fat of the meal. Yeah. But low in tannins is still soft going down.

So just as a general rule, if you just want to think this out and you want a lighter red, let me encourage you to stay away from, uh, uh, Spain and France and Italy. Just in terms of when you walk. inside a liquor store and head to a couple other places, head to Greece and look at what kind of Greek red wines are available, ask the staff for help. And also, and this is easier to do north of our border, but head for the Canadian wines, particularly the wines from the Okanagan Valley out in British Columbia. Head for those wines and they're a lighter choice to make for that Thanksgiving turkey if you're intent on red. But remember. The sun does not set and rise, or rise and set, on red wine. Um, Bruce and I are grand fans, as you probably know from this podcast, of effervescent wines, of sparkling wines, of bubbles. We love champagne, and champagne is our first choice. And it is a great choice with turkey.

We used to think that champagne was just for celebrations, and yes, the holiday is a celebration, but we mean, you know, toasting before dinner, or like, but now, we love to drink it with a meal. Of course. Because it seems So obvious. But we were writing for Wine Spectator years ago, and we did an article that included a stop in champagne. And we were tasting all these champagnes. We were in this restaurant. We were handed the champagne menu, which was, oh, I don't know, 12, 14 pages long. And we both looked at each other like, wait a second. Champagne is wine, and it seems so obvious, but it is, and you get the subtle differences from every champagne maker. And a lot of

champagne is made from Pinot Noir, so there's your Pinot Noir connection. Not all, but a lot. We would encourage you to skip, in your wine choice, the Chardonnays. They're just too big and heavy. Instead, think about lighter and more floral white wines like Viogniers. Oh, gosh, yes. Um, we tend to love The True Shard Vineyards Roussan, R O U S S A N E, something like that, or R O U S S A N N E. Something like that. Something like that. The Roussan from True Shard Vineyards is a delicious, light, floral, honeyed white wine.

So good with turkey.

It's so good with turkey. We even think that dry Rieslings are a great choice.

I know, you're going to have people at your table that are going to think blue nun, sugary filled bottle.

Uh, and all that, those really, really sweet wines. We're talking

about dry Rieslings and you want them because they will have a lot of minerality and a lot of acidity. And we were up in the Finger Lakes, uh, last year visiting a friend of ours and we went to one specific winery because I wanted to try a Petnat. Now Petnat is a sparkling wine, a naturally fermented

wine.

It's something Marc and I have talked about many times on the podcast. And so we went into this. We sat down at the table. She brought us over the pet net, which wasn't on their regular tasting menu, and it was disgusting. None of us liked it. It tasted like

bad grapefruit juice. It tasted like carbonated grapefruit juice. It was really awful. It was disgusting, but we should say that the Finger Lake region of New York is Rieslings.

So we tried theirs. And we bought a case because it was so good.

So if you're heading into the liquor store and you're thinking about Riesling, think about, for example, the New York Finger Lake region. Think about not so much German Rieslings, but Austrian Rieslings. Think about ways that the other places, besides kind of the cliched Riesling, there's a lot of great Rieslings going on. currently being made in Oregon, in the US, you kind of head for those regions. Um, and again, I would say for white wines, head to Greece one more time. I say for white wines to go into your liquor store and head for Greece and see what they have. Ask the help there. They are always knowledgeable and you know, listen, they don't, they don't. underwriters, and they have nothing to do with us. But for our money, shout out to Total Wine, the giant chain across the U. S., because the staff in Total Wine are super knowledgeable about their ginormous selections.

And let me say about one third category of drinks that you should consider serving at your Thanksgiving table, whether you're making turkey or prime rib or fish, and that is hard ciders. Because hard ciders are something that Mark and I are becoming very familiar with. We went on a big cider tasting quest all through Quebec. The ciders there are a national drink, they're a national treasure. They are dry, they are interesting, they're complex. We had one that was made with sea salt and one that was made with quince. And if you can find a dry, dry cider, try serving that. That

one made with sea salt. sea salt with sea salt and kelp. And it was a it was a cider, a hard cider, an alcoholized apple cider with sea salt and kelp in it. And it we had it for we brought our own bottle to a really nice restaurant. And it It was so fantastic. Even the staff had to taste our bottle of sea salt and kelp cider. Fortunately, we had a second bottle. So, uh, cider is a great choice. And also let me say on our way out here that please don't forget the mocktails. There are a lot of people, including yours truly, who don't drink much anymore. I might drink occasionally and I'll certainly drink at Thanksgiving, but I don't drink very much anymore. And, um, mocktails are Always appreciate it.

So let me tell you how to make my favorite, a non alcoholic Moscow Mule. Now Moscow Mule is normally vodka and ginger beer. So the way I do it is I make a simple syrup which is equal parts sugar and water by volume.

By volume. So in other words, for US residents, a cup. Or if you don't live in the US and you work in metric, just pull a glass out of your cabinet and fill it with sugar and then fill that same glass with water.

And bring that to a boil with a fresh rosemary sprig. Let it boil for about 10 seconds. Turn it off and let it cool. Then use two tablespoons of that syrup with one tablespoon of fresh lime juice. Mix that in the glass at ice and top with non alcoholic ginger beer. That is An amazing mocktail. And

very refreshing, very open. We love this stuff, these mocktails. Uh, I like a lot of the new non alcoholic liquors. Not all of them do I like, but some of the ones that don't try to be. Like, I tend not to like non alcoholic bourbon, but I like the ones that are just their own craft creation of, you know, rhubarb and gentian. Mm hmm. various flavors, and they're not actually trying to mimic any distilled spirit. And I tend to like those a lot. I mix them with tonic. It's a non alcoholic alternative. Yeah, exactly. And I think that that's a really important thing at Thanksgiving is to have something to drink for people like me who don't drink every day and don't want to drink every day. I know I grew up in the South and there was always iced tea. I mean, Thanksgiving was the best. with the giant icy glasses on the table. The only time my mother ever used her crystal iced tea glasses. But, you know, there are, there are drinks beyond iced tea, let's say.

Yeah, we always had cream soda and ginger ale.

Oh, wow.

Okay. We had beverages by Hoffman's.

Oh, wow. Okay, no. Um, No. So, uh, before we get to the last part of this podcast, let me say that we have a newsletter. Uh, it comes out about once or twice a month. You can unsubscribe at any time. I will not capture and cannot sell your name or your email. You can find a way to sign up for that on our website, cookingwithbruceandmark. com or just bruceandmark. com. You scroll down the page. It says, subscribe to our newsletter. newsletter. You fill that in the service provider MailChimp then captures it, but doesn't show it to me. And also then they cannot capture it. I've set it up so they cannot hold your email and they cannot sell you as part of a mailing list. So there you go. Try that at our newsletter and we'll continue with what's traditional. What's making us happy in food this week.

Chocolate almond horns. Mark made these amazing almond paste based chocolate cookies for me. We actually made a video of them, which is on our TikTok channel. You can go check it out. And also go to our website, bruceandmark. com, and you actually see the recipe and a picture of it there. They are dairy free. They're delicious. And it overcame

my fear of the pastry bag. It was

so much fun to watch Mark use the pastry bag. And he did it great. I'm terrified of pastry bags. You did it beautifully. I'm the writer and I

do not, I do not pretend to be able to operate a pastry bag. Tomorrow I'm making

him do black and white cookies. Oh

no. I feel doomed as the writer. These things are too hard for me. I'd rather just do an old chocolate chip cookie and be done with it. Okay, so, What's making me happy in food this week is a new ice cream store, at least new to me. It's Tall Meadow Farms, and it's near my house, and I'm telling you this not because I think you should drive to New England and go to Tall Meadow Farms, although you can. It's near my house, and that's lovely. But um, I, what I'm saying this for is to say to you that there are new small ice cream places all around you. This is one of the things that entrepreneurial 20 and 30 year olds are very interested in opening. They're happening, they're happening all around you, and you should stop in and help them. And there's another big ice cream store that's open north of us in Massachusetts. Uh, you know, it's nice to stop in and give them a little business. And besides, you can find some ice cream that you like. And I'll have to say, Tall Meadow Farms blew me away with their salt caramels. So look around you as you drive to work. There's an ice cream store around. You treat yourself to an ice cream store and help a 20 year old out with their new business venture where they're trying to make decent ice cream, uh, and make a business out of it. Okay. That's the podcast for this week. Thanks for joining in and being a part of our food journey. We certainly appreciate your being with us

every week. We tell you what's making us happy in food, so please tell us what's making you happy in food this week. I will pose that question every week on our Facebook group, cooking with Bruce and Mark. So check it out, see what other people are eating and let us all know what's making you happy in food this week here on cooking with Bruce and Mark.