Families cherish their cookie-baking traditions during the holiday season.  Watch a video our newsroom chefs mak easy holiday cookies.

What wine to serve New Year’s Eve? What would best tickle the nose? What goes best with oysters, caviar, shellfish or just about anything.? Sparkling wine, in one form or another, is the answer to all of these questions. It could be Champagne from France, Cava from Spain (especially a pinot noir-based Gloria Ferrer Blanc de Noirs), spumante or prosecco from Italy, Sekt from Germany or Cremant from France’s Burgundy and Alsace regions.

Weekend is looking for open-to-the-public New Year’s Eve events to publish Thursday, Dec. 25.  If you’re hosting a whoop-it-up party or a family-friendly celebration that’s open to all, e-mail the details by noon of Dec. 15 to Pat Row at .

We have reached the season of the year when we must peer deep into our souls and ask ourselves a question of great magnitude: What do we do with the leftover turkey? My answer is simple: Eat it. I’m perfectly happy to graze at the open refrigerator door and pick off whatever I need. Or better yet, make one of those Thanksgiving dinner sandwiches that Dagwood might concoct if using Thanksgiving ingredients.

If you’re looking for a wine to complement your Thanksgiving meal that goes beyond a Chardonnay or Pinot Noir, then a Cru Beaujolais can fill the bill, or better, fill the glass.

The notion of opening a can of jellied cranberry sauce and sliding it—ringed impressions from the can and all—onto a serving dish for Thanksgiving dinner makes Pamela Finer shudder. “No! No! No!,“ says Finer, a recent Massachusetts transplant living in Glen Allen. “You don’t want to do that. It’s so simple to make fresh cranberry sauce from scratch.“

In today’s economy, people are looking for ways to cut corners. That includes food costs, and Thanksgiving is no exception. Food prices—from eggs to milk to meat—have increased more than 4 percent this year, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Recipe for Jean Shields’ Homemade Pimento Cheese, perfect for holiday parties.