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!

Happy All Hallow's Eve, folks. Tis the season to celebrate pumpkin beer, and here are some ideas to get your mouth a-waterin'.

From the crew over at Beer America TV:
Pumpkin love continues, but this time with a twist, it's not an ale but a lager, the only one of its kind in the world! Lakefront Brewing gets a look and a taste with their Lakefront Pumpkin Lager. We also drop some knowledge about one of America's Founding Fathers.

* Some intrepid brewers make their pumpkin beer ... imagine this! ... INSIDE A PUMPKIN. Check out this slideshow: Brewing in a Pumpkin.

* Read about that "experiment" in more detail in Pumpkin to Tunkin: Last Call 

* One of those intrepid brewers is a contributing writer for Mother Earth News. Read his latest article: Brew Your Own Beer 

Also of seasonal interest:

* Make Your Own Hard Cider 

* Those Beer America guys also took a look at Sam Adams Octoberfest.

Now what?

Now, I drink pumpkin beer! Here are the brews from my neck of the woods that I'm planning to try this weekend:

* Brooklyn Brewery Post Road Pumpkin Ale (New York)

* Greenpoint Beer Works/Heartland Brewery Smiling Pumpkin Ale (New York)

* Smuttynose Pumpkin Ale (New Hampshire)

But what about you??? 

Yes, you should try some pumpkin brew too. Drop a note about your favorites in the comments section below.

Ready ... Set ... Go!

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.

We’re trying it before you buy it.

Company: Organic Valley
Product: Pasture Butter
Editor’s score: 5/5

Ingredients: pasteurized organic sweet cream, salt, microbial cultures
Price: $3.69 (Search Organic Valley coupons.)
Where to Buy: available at most grocery stores, or find a retailer near you

Why we liked it : rich, smooth, seasonal, high-quality, nutritious, unique, animal-friendly, farmer-friendly

“If you're afraid of butter, as many people are nowadays, just put in cream!” — Julia Child

Fact: Butter is one of nature’s simplest and most perfect foods. This is something Julia Child knew well — she sang butter’s praises until the end of her life, which turned out to be a not-too-shabby 91 years. And from the looks of it, Organic Valley knows it, too. That brand you likely recognize from the organic section of your grocery store has a fabulous new offering, Pasture Butter, and I give it two big ole thumbs up!

Like all of Organic Valley’s products, Pasture Butter is produced without any harmful and unnecessary pesticides, antibiotics or synthetic hormones, and the animals involved in its production are humanely raised. But that’s not what’s so unique about Pasture Butter, so let’s move on.

Pasture Butter is only produced during the summer (May to September) from the certified organic milk of cows raised on pasture. (You can find out the specifics of the cooperative’s pasture-grazing standards here.) Grass-fed animals have their most abundant buffet of nutritious greens precisely during this time, and that translates into some supremely healthy dairy products.

Ever heard of CLA? The benefits of conjugated linoleic acid have been in the news a lot lately. CLA is a naturally occurring trans fatty acid (this is not the man-made bad guy you’ve also heard so much about) manufactured in the gut of animals that graze. CLA research is new, but early studies have found that it may be a really great cancer-fighter and immune-booster. If milk-producing animals aren’t allowed to graze — as is their wont — their milk simply won’t be high in this nutrient, so you can’t expect to get it from non-pastured dairy products. In fact, grass-fed animal products are the richest natural source of CLA.

CLA is just one of the omega fatty acids that have been found to be richer in grass-fed animals. The potentially important ratio of Omega-3 to Omega-6 fatty acids has also been in the news a lot, and Pasture Butter has a naturally occurring, heart-healthy optimal ratio. See the rest of the Nutrition Facts for yourself.

How is Pasture Butter different?

1. REAL FLAVOR. It’s rich, complex, a little nutty, a little grassy, and … well … buttery. Like it should be. Organic Valley produces Pasture Butter in small batches, and churns it longer than standard butter, which has the result of reducing moisture and increasing yummy butterfat. Regular butter is still butter, so it’s usually pretty good and improves the foods you pair it with. But this one can practically stand alone, and if you can resist the urge to snarf it down solo, it’ll make the foods you dress in it simply sing!

Part of the reason this butter is so dang good is that it’s cultured. That’s right, sophisticated. Well, it is a pretty sophisticated butter we’re talking about here, but no, that’s not what I mean. Before being churned, live cultures are added to the cream to ripen it, yielding sweeter and more complex flavors, not to mention making it easier to digest. Allowing cream to ripen — or ferment, or culture, however you want to put it — was once simply the status quo. If you know someone with an antique butter churn who can remember a time before refrigerators, ask them how long they would let fresh cream sit out before making butter with it.

2. AMAZING TEXTURE. It’s creamy, thick, dense, silky-smooth and super-duper-spreadable. Little-known fact: The spreadability of butter is determined by its ratio of saturated to unsaturated fat. If it’s relatively easy to spread, it has more unsaturated (good, healthy) fat and less saturated (bad, artery-clogging) fat. And a 2006 study found that the softer the butter, the more fresh pasture was in the cow’s diet. In fact, cows that eat nothing but grass have the softest butterfat of all.

3. GOOD AS GOLD. The pretty, pretty yellow of Pasture Butter is evidence of its high vitamin and beta-carotene content. Grasses eaten while they are alive are higher in vitamins E, A and beta-carotene than the standard commercial dairy diet, and those nutrients end up in the cream, and thus the butter. (More about that here.) But buyer beware: The pretty, pretty yellow of some nutritionally inferior butters is only evidence of its high food coloring and additive content. Would you like a side of annatto with your butter? Always check the label!

4. RESPECT FOR THE SEASONS. Early summer butter used to command a premium price as compared to the butter you could get the rest of the year. But that was before our food system replaced seasonal and regional variation with homogeneity. Pasture Butter is one of the few food products you’ll find at regular grocery stores these days that even acknowledges Mother Nature in this way. In my opinion, that’s a reason almost as good as flavor to go out and get some Pasture Butter for yourself. (Did you know that meat and dairy are seasonal foods, just like asparagus and tomatoes? Learn more about that in Eat in Sync with the Seasons.)

The butter’s downfalls: Um, does butter have a downfall??? Let’s ask Julia Child.

One of our staff members now lives in and works out of her apartment in New York City. She is fond of sharing her unique restaurant finds while exploring the streets of New York. Last week she told me about Peanut Butter and Co., which serves only nut butter and fruit spread sandwiches — the ultimate PB & Js. Here is their feature sandwich for this week — September 8-14: White Chocolate Wonderful & Blueberry Preserves. Oh, my — I want one — now!!

On Monday, someone suggested that we build a bonfire and have s’mores during our weekly staff meeting — all quite unlikely as we work in an office building surrounded by a parking lot with no fire pits in sight. Being the oldest on staff and therefore officially “Mother,” I was determined to find a way to have s’mores around the conference table if not by a crackling fire. Purchasing the graham crackers was a no-brainer and marshmallow Fluff easily substituted for the real thing. But what to do about the chocolate bars? As I wandered down the PB & J aisle at the grocery store, I happened to notice a new product – Peanut Butter & Co. Dark Chocolate Dreams — oh, yes!!! A sinfully delicious combination of peanut butter and very good chocolate. New York City comes to Topeka, Kan.!

Well, as you can imagine the conference room s’mores were a real hit! And when I go to New York City to visit my granddaughter, I plan to take her out for a gourmet PB & J.

We’re trying it before you buy it.

Company: Kaia Foods
Flavors tested: Dates & Spices, Raisin Cinnamon and Cocoa Bliss
Price: $6.99 for a 12 oz. bag
Editor’s score: 3.5/5

Why we liked it: Surprisingly yummy! (When choosing the right ones)

I don’t know about you, but when a package says things like “Buckwheat Crunchies” it doesn’t sound too appetizing. Fortunately for the raisin cinnamon and cocoa bliss flavors, these gluten-free granolas actually make tasty snacks. Raisin cinnamon wins in the flavor category. Its strong cinnamon flavor mixed with the sweetness of the raisins makes it worth another handful.

The Granola’s downfalls: Some flavors are better than others…

Although many of us in the office love healthy foods (these little breakfast foods are high in fiber, and are vegan AND raw), the Dates & Spices flavor failed to entice us for more. Its dry texture and lack of sweetness made it fall flat with taste testers.

To order online or find out more about these products, visit the Kaia Foods Web site.

We’re trying it before you buy it.

Company: Kopali Organics
Product: Organic Goldenberry dried fruit
Editor’s score: 3.5/5

Why we liked it: Berry Delicious!

The package itself describes the product as “sweet and tangy,” and that is definitely what it is — with an emphasis on tangy. It’s so tangy, in fact, that it’s overwhelmingly sour, a major plus for the sour-candy lovers out there (3 out of the 5 taste testers I recruited thought these were tasty)! And with almost 10 grams less sugar than other popular sweet/sour candies plus a full serving of real fruit, it’s a healthier choice. They are also certified organic, and therefore free from harmful chemicals and funky genetically engineered ingredients.

The Goldenberry’s downfalls: Texture, color and overwhelming taste

A little like large brown raisins, these little snacks on-the-go actually look unappetizing. They are also filled with tiny little seeds that crunch when you bite into them, somewhat hindering the ‘raisinlike’ appeal. Also, if you’re expecting a subtle taste similar to a raisin, the shot of sourness may be a little too much to take.   

For more information on their many products, visit the Kopali Web site.