For many, the Thanksgiving meal is the culinary apex of the year. Rolling pins find their way out of dusty corners, choice ingredients are stockpiled over the preceding week, the flesh of freshly picked pumpkins is scooped out with tiny bare hands; heck, most ovens see more action on the fourth Thursday of November than they do all year. Two or three or even four generations preparing a meal together is a celebration indeed.

Thankfully, someone usually remembers to bring a nice bottle of wine or Champagne to kick off the festivities. But these days, a growing number of conscientious eaters are committed to locally sourcing the makings of their holiday meals. So why not celebrate the most American of holidays with the original local American beverage: hard cider. (OK, maybe the fourth of July is the most American holiday, but save the local beer for that one!) Hard cider is a true treat for fall, when apple harvests are at their peak.

Cider makers are bobbing up all over this country once again, and rededicating themselves to that pre-Prohibition pursuit of balanced acidity and sweetness. Unlike wine and grapes, you can usually still taste apple when you sip cider. And not just any apple: If you’re lucky, you’ll enjoy the specific combination of apple varieties whose tasty tongue-dance has been carefully choreographed by a real artisan. And this is where you really get to enjoy regional variation. Steve Wood up at Farnum Hill Ciders in New Hampshire simply cannot grow the heat-loving ‘Virginia Hewe's’ crabapples that Diane Flynt enjoys so well down at Foggy Ridge Cider in the blue ridge mountains of Virginia. But Steve grows numerous apple varieties well-suited to the New England climate, such as a tasty ‘Kingston Black,’ which makes a remarkable still cider but refuses to grow in the South. He shares these well-adjusted apples of French, English and American descent with other cider makers in the region, too, like West County Cider in Massachusetts.

Hard ciders range from dry and very tart with nary a bubble in sight, to supersweet and Champagne-bubbly. Last night, I got to try a wonderful dessert cider fortified with apple brandy (Pippin Gold), and a spectacular semi-dry cider from Slyboro Ciderhouse, which at the foothills of the Adirondacks, is in my neck of the woods. Slyboro Hidden Star is made from a blend of ‘Northern Spy’ and ‘Liberty’ apples grown on the fertile soil of New York state’s oldest U-pick orchard, and it definitely deserves the Double Gold Medal it won at last year’s International Eastern Wine Competition. (The raw sheep's milk cheese I relished it with — Hidden Springs Ocooch Mountain — deserves the awards it has won, too!)

So this Thanksgiving, why not pair that roasted turkey leg with a well-made local hard cider? Or a nonalcoholic sweet cider — they make those too! Try a few. Experiment to see what you like. But most importantly, find a good cider maker near you and make that artist your friend.

RESOURCES

* To locate artisan cider makers near you, search by ZIP code at Local Harvest. And don’t forget to ask the wine merchants in your closest shop if they carry any local ciders. Consumer interest is a key ingredient to the success of this old-new American industry.

* To learn more about the how-to and history of cider making, look for these wonderful books:

  Cider, Hard and Sweet by Ben Watson
  Cider: Making, Using and Enjoying Sweet & Hard Cider by Annie Proulx
  Making the Best Apple Cider by Annie Proulx (an e-book available from our online store)
  The Botany of Desire: A Plant's Eye View of the World (Part I of IV) by Michael Pollan

* And, oh yeah, you can also learn more in the many articles on cider we’ve published over the years:

  Enjoy Delicious Apple Cider, Sweet and Hard by Megan Phelps
  Fall’s Sweetest Harvest by John Stuart
  Make Your Own Hard Cider by Nathan Poell
  Falling for Apples by Noel Perrin
  Get Ready for Cider Pressin’ by Judy White
  Juice of the Apple by Michael Phillips
  Pouring Apple Cider by Richard Varr (from Grit, our sister magazine)

* Want to recommend a great local cider to our readers? You’re in luck — that’s what our comments section is for!

Two items that we seem to buy every week from the grocery store are cream cheese and sour cream. Why I haven't already started making these myself sooner is beyond me. Most likely because I didn't realize how extremely easy it was to do both. For the cream cheese, I've read several recipes that call for fancy equipment or hard-to-find ingredients, but there are other ways of making it that won't make your throw your hands up in frustration. And, considering the amount of plastic packaging involved with both items, making them at home will also limit the amount of waste involved (although we do recycle both kinds of containers). These recipes are so easy, you'll wonder why you never tried them before.

Homemade Cream Cheese

1 quart homemade or store-bought plain yogurt (whole milk or low-fat, depending on your preference)

Instructions

Place a clean kitchen towel or clean muslin in a colander. Place the colander in a bowl that is large enough to hold it. Add the yogurt to the lined colander and wrap the towel over the top to cover (or use a plate). Leave this to drain for about 5 hours in the refrigerator. If you want a thicker consistency, leave it longer, making sure to empty what is draining so it doesn't reach the bottom of the colander and get reabsorbed. Store your finished cream cheese in a resealable container in the fridge. Better yet, use one of your old packaged cream cheese containers to do the job!

Your cream cheese will last as long as your yogurt would, so if you used purchased yogurt (rather than making it yourself), check the expiration date and use that as your guide. (I highly recommend trying to make the yogurt yourself since this will cut down on additional waste especially if you can get your milk in returnable glass bottles.) If you want to get fancy, you can add flavorings to your cream cheese. Try adding homemade strawberry jam for strawberry-flavored cream cheese. If you spent time dehydrating onions, then adding those (or fresh green onions) and chives from your garden will make a tasty chive-and-onion cream cheese spread.

Homemade Sour Cream

1 cup heavy cream
1/4 cup sour cream or buttermilk (or even white vinegar will work)

Instructions

In a screw-top jar or mason jar with lid, combine the heavy cream and sour cream (or buttermilk). Shake the ingredients up a bit to thoroughly mix and let stand, covered, at room temperature for about 24 hours or until it becomes very thick. You can store your sour cream in the refrigerator in the original jar you mixed it in (or use some other resealable container) for up to one week. Make sure that your sour cream is well chilled before using.

If you want to make a lighter sour cream, substitute whole milk for 1/2 cup of the heavy cream. 

Looking for homemade cheese recipes made with easy-to-find ingredients? You can find homemade ricotta and the like in my Easy Cheese Series.

See also: Easy Cheesy: 4 Super-Simple Recipes, You Can Make Yogurt at Home and How to Make Your Own Yogurt, Kefir, Chevre 

Several months ago, I participated in a honey-and-cheese pairing at Murray’s Cheese in Greenwich Village. Among the many miraculous marriages tickling my palate that evening, the great standout was Swiss Hoch Ybrig cheese drizzled with Connecticut buckwheat honey. On the tongue, the two blended together into an almost-dead-ringer for an old-fashioned butterscotch candy: butterscotchey, carameley, toasty and supersilky, but without any aftertaste of candy preservatives or too much sugar. So basically, something perfect. That was eight months ago and I can almost taste it still, if that tells you anything.

The cheese itself is in the Gruyere family so it’s dense and a little elastic to the bite but creamy as it melts, and it has the nutty, farm-ey flavors that come from aging (affinage). But this raw cow’s milk beauty is washed in white wine many times over the course of many months by a rock star. The rock star … I mean affineur … responsible for Hoch Ybrig is none other than Rolf Beeler. Google “Rolf Beeler” if you’re looking for a new hero.

The complement of buckwheat honey from Red Bee Apiary in Weston, Conn., was rich, velvety, nutty, molasses-dark and positively luscious. (If you’ve never had honey like this, then you probably have no idea what honey is capable of. Go out and get you some!)

The two different treats, each so unique, blended together into this incredible and oh-so-welcome new flavor. It was completely distinct from either the honey or the cheese, and stood alone as a new kind of yummy for me. What a perfect pairing!

What’s this about honey? I thought you said cheese and BEER.

Indeed. This weekend I attended another Murray’s pairing — a “standoff” actually. We tasted several cheeses, each with both a wine and a beer, then voted on the winning pairs. When I realized Hoch Ybrig cheese was on our plates again, I could barely wait to find out what we’d be tasting it with.

Amanda Crawford*, wine specialist at Christie’s Auction House, picked two stellar complements: Donnas Cuvee de Donnas and Arbois Savagnin Jacques Puffeney 2006. The Donnas, a red wine from the Alpine vineyards in the Val d'Aoste region of Italy was pleasantly crisp and light with a very clean grassy-fruity smell. It worked well with the cheese, but the flavors of the cheese lingered longer. The Savagnin, a white wine from the Jura, was impressive. We all thought it was sherry, because its aroma was superstrong and distinctly sherrylike, but its flavors turned out to be far less sweet and far less alcohol-ey. It’s a wine I’d definitely like to have again, even by itself. But it, too, made a great pair for Hoch Ybrig. (At least half the tasters voted the combo their fave.)

I was starting to think that anything could stand up to this fantabulous cheese, but then … sweet lord … then came the beer. The amazing beer. The combo of Hoch Ybrig and Ayinger Celebrator Doppelbock doppelknocked my socks off!! Chris Munsey, the beer specialist at Murray’s said he chose it because, like the cheese, it comes from Bavaria and is aged for several months before we get to devour it. Of course, aging beer is a little uncommon, but this lager-style brew simply takes longer to develop its full, dark, smoky-sweet intensity. It didn’t turn the cheese into butterscotch candy, but it did turn it into a little bit of Bavarian heaven.

RESOURCES:

- Look for Hoch Ybrig cheese in stores with a great cheese selection, or order directly from Murray’s through their online shop.

- Look for the beer and wines in specialty shops. (Warning: The wines will not be easy to find.)

- Discover more awesome pairing ideas in The Pairing Zone.

- Watch great beers being made and tasted at Beer America TV.

- Rate your favorite beers and find new ones to try at RateBeer.com.

- From our archives: Brew Your Own Beer, Good Libations, You Can Brew Your Own Beer 

*Amanda Crawford is a passionate advocate of wines that connote a sense of place and tell a story. She has worked as a wine buyer in retail, a wine director in restaurants and vineyard hand during the harvest in both Italy and Croatia. She holds an advanced certificate from the Wine Spirits and Education Trust out of London and is currently engrossed in studies to achieve a Diploma certification. A frequent instructor of wine appreciation in New York, Amanda also writes frequently about wine for several local publications. She is currently a specialist at Christie's where she sources consignments and authenticates bottles of fine and rare wine for auction. She is a graduate of Wellesley College.