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By the time some of you read this, I'll be baking my Thanksgiving pies and lowering my turkey into the brine.

But the most important part of this holiday isn't the delicious dishes we'll prepare (although that's important; don't get me wrong). It's sitting down at the table with the people we love and knowing how lucky we are to have the many things that others are not fortunate enough to have.

On that note, I want to thank all of my blog readers for making the Fridge Magnet such a fun part of every day at work. I am thankful for each one of you.

Since I'll be away the rest of this week, I want to leave you all with a special treat. Web producer Meg Martin has built a player for all of the food videos I've created. There, you can watch my wings video, a funny chili pepper video, a story about Foggy Ridge hard cider and the pomegranate demonstration.

Perhaps it will give each of you an excuse to escape the family or just burn a little time while relaxing at home.

Also, by early next week, a new video will appear on the player featuring yours truly preparing a casserole with leftover turkey. It's a delicious casserole and I urge you all to try it out. If you have any other ideas for food videos, feel free to make suggestions.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

Roanoke Times retail business reporter Jenny Kincaid Boone has started a new retail blog on this site called "The Storefront." There, she will explore business openings and closings, shopping, trends and other retail-related news on a daily basis.
I am not mentioning this on the Fridge Magnet blog just to promote the work of a very talented reporter and friend. I think those of us who are interested in new restaurants in Southwest Virginia should keep an eye on Jenny's blog for that kind of news. I try to keep an eye on restaurant openings and closings and my readers are good about passing along tips. But Jenny has been writing a retail column for The Roanoke Times for about 4 years now, so she often hears about a new restaurant even before I do.
Her latest entry, in fact, is about a new El Rodeo opening soon on Orange Avenue. Jenny explores the business angle of such restaurant news, but I would like to press my fellow foodies about what this means for us-- can this area really handle another El Rodeo or El Toreo?

Read more »

Two years ago at the Outer Banks, my local friend finally tracked down a half-bushel of blue crabs for those of us who were blue crab-starved and crushed by their scarcity.
Little did we realize that they would still be scrabbling in their cardboard box when Cindy dropped them off, brushed her hands together and took off like a flash before we could protest or she could see them meet their untimely demise.
My husband, Howard, conveniently decided that it was time for a shower. A veeeeery long shower, at the end of which he hoped there would be cooked crabs waiting all beautifully seasoned and cooked and put out of their misery. It was all I could do to not introduce an unexpected shower partner to him-- a partner with big, blue claws!
Our buddy, Mike, bravely stayed in the kitchen with me and we set a pot of water to boil, gulped hard and reached into that box to retrieve our future meals. Crabs do not like tongs. They do not like tongs at all.
Several landed on the floor while we frantically tried to transfer them from box to pot. A very large one went right for Mike's bare toes, sending him squealing out of the room, at least temporarily.
We eventually got the crabs cooked, and they tasted just as good-- if not better-- than the pre-cooked guys we buy at the store. I learned some important lessons about steaming crabs, but I'm not convinced that any tips will ever make it an EASY job. But wait.....
This brings me to the weirdest food blog entry I have seen today. Almost as weird as Janet Jackson breast cupcakes or Kool-Aid pickles.
This fellow, disturbed that he has disturbed his 3-year-old daughter by boiling lobsters in front of her, has figured out how to hypnotize them first.
Now, if I could just figure out where I'm supposed to tickle those blue crabs.

Picking up a take-out pizza tonight? Maybe you should grab a bottle of Montepulciano D'abruzzo while you're at it.
Concocting a nice stuffed mushroom appetizer? Reach for the Valpolicella.
As silly as it sounds at first, sommelier Natalie MacLean says there's a wine for every kind of food under the sun, even Jell-O or bacon and eggs. She proves it on her Web site Nat Decants at www.nataliemaclean.com.
There, you'll find one of the coolest online tools for foodies that I've seen recently-- a wine/food pairing search engine. All you have to do is select the type of food you want to serve and hit "search" and the tool will give you wine suggestions. Alternatively, you may enter in the type of wine you want to drink and the tool will offer examples of foods you might eat.
According to the MacLean's PR folks, there are 360,000 possible food and wine pairings on the site, with more being added all the time.
"Got a dish or a wine to stump Natalie?" a press release asked. "E-mail her via the web site and she'll suggest a match for you."
MacLean is the author of "Red, White and Drunk All Over: A Wine-Soaked Journey from Grape to Glass." Sounds like a winner to me, and apparently it was chosen the Best Wine Literature Book at the World Gourmand Cookbook Awards.
My only gripe with Nat's food and wine matcher is that she doesn't offer any comment on why a particular wine pairs well with a dish. For example, what is it about merlot that would so complement my mac 'n' cheese? I guess I'll have to try it to find out.

I've added a few more links to the Fridge Magnet blog. If you scroll down and keep your eyes on the right side of the main page, you'll find easy access to a few of my favorite food blogs and recipe sites, as well as some other food-related endeavors from The Roanoke Times and its freelancers.
A mysterious local guy who only calls himself "Not Larry Bly" maintains Big Lick Restaurant Reviews, a well-written blog about the local restaurant scene. NLB and his significant other are regularly checking out new restaurants in the valley and posting their findings.
You might also want to check out the Dining Hall page at the Big Lick University Web site. BLU is a virtual Southwest Virginia college campus, and the Dining Hall page includes restaurant ratings and news.
A few of my favorite national food blogs, Slashfood and Serious Eats, are there for your clicking delight, as well. Slashfood never ceases to amaze me with the quirky, funny topics they take on.
I read an article recently that stated there are some 48,000 food bloggers on the internet these days. I don't think I can link to them all, but if you've got a favorite site I'm missing, please share it with us.

If you're a culinary historian, or at least fascinated by old cookbooks, you might want to check out a neat Web site called OldCookbooks.com. The site is dedicated entirely to-- you got it-- old cookbooks. But they claim to have information about more than 15,000 rare and out-of-print cookbooks, some from the 1800s.
Even better, the site has launched an intriguing blog about the same topic. One recent entry was about a book devoted in part to making dainty little finger sandwiches out of such ingredients as nasturtiums, the edible flower that I happen to have blooming in my garden right this moment.
While you're at it, if you are in the mood for a laugh and have not seen Wendy McClure's site about the 1974 Weight Watcher recipe cards she found in her parents' basement, go here. And be sure to click on the cards for her hilarious captions on such recipes as "Fluffy Mackerel Pudding."