At a Glance

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Coba’s Coffee- and Tea-Infused Chocolate Bars

These little bars pack a perk-up punch when you need it. Pitched as a trail-ready alternative to brewed coffee or tea, I find the espresso and chai flavors particularly enjoyable in lieu of an afternoon coffee-al-desko. Each œ ounce bar of infused white chocolate contains about the same caffeine as a cup of coffee, and the mind-sharpening boost kicks in without the jitters.

TipTop Proper Cocktails’ Whiskey Box and Gin Box

Hosting a motley crew this Christmas, where half the party is Cali sober and the other half is more, ahem, old fashioned? Look no further than TipTop’s boxes of cocktails, organized by base spirit and delivered in giftable 18-packs, plenty to host a happy hour or keep a home bar stocked with options. We give bonus points for their pocket-sized cans, perfect for chairlift nips.

Spicewalla 18-Pack Kitchen Essentials

Founded by James Beard Award-winning Asheville chef Meherwan Irani, Spicewalla’s collection of foundational seasonings include great-quality kitchen workhorses like dried and ground chiles, crushed herbs, and baking spices. The variety of flavors are sealed inside small stay-fresh tins that stack neatly in a cabinet or bounce merrily in a backpack without spilling.

Yeti 6-oz. Stackable Mugs

The cutest tea party I’ve ever attended involved two toddlers, a chilly afternoon outside, and these mini Yeti mugs perfect for little hands. They’ve become my go-to gift for the under-5 crowd. And while the tea at that particular party was lukewarm, the mugs—like all of Yeti’s–are just as effective at keeping small pours of grown-up beverages ripping hot (like espresso) or bracingly cold (like martinis). Just don’t forget to “Cheers!”

Meater Pro Duo

Our favorite meat thermometer is now twice as nice with the introduction of MEATER’s Pro Duo. The rechargeable WiFi-enabled base connects two super accurate probes to an app that keeps you informed about everything that’s cooking. Simultaneously use one on the grill and the other in the oven for a seamless and perfectly executed holiday meal.

New West Knifeworks 7” Teton Edge Santoku

New West is possibly the best knife manufacturer in America, and their 7” santoku knife serves as my go-to for making dinner every night. Its Goldilocks size and chef-knife-oomph makes it the perfect tool for almost every job. The handles come in nine color options to match your kitchen (or personality), and the Teton range etched into the blade provides both form and function. Razor sharp out of the box, New West’s knives come with free personalization and lifetime free sharpening. This is the knife I’ve told a dozen friends to register for their wedding or give as a milestone gift, and now I’m telling you, too.

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“This was one of the first recipes I brought home from France,” Alecia Moore says, offering me a pour of rosĂ©. “In 2015, I went to Scamandre, in the south. It’s fully sustainable, regeneratively farmed. It’s beautiful. It’s wild.”

While she was at the vineyard, a grower named Franck Renouard gave her a glass of delicately colored, aromatic grenache rosĂ©. “I did not want to put out a pink wine,” Moore quips. “Though Costco would’ve really liked that!” She asked Renouard about his process. “ ‘Well, you’re American, you’re a woman, and you’re a pop star,’ ” he said, skeptical of her ability to master it. “ ‘Absolutely!’ ”

“So he gave me the recipe,” Moore says. “I’m like, ‘OK, fucker, watch this.’ ”

We take a moment to go through the steps of tasting the wine: tilting the glass in the sunlight to assess color (not pink, but more like white with a blush of peach); swirling to release aromatics from the liquid (basil, citrus peel, and piecrust); and then taking a small sip while inhaling, to experience the acidity, body, and flavor passing over our tongues. One sip and I’m stunned. Alecia the winemaker is not messing around.

Moore and I are sitting under an outdoor pergola, next to a small reservoir on her 25-acre vineyard, which is situated on rolling land just outside Santa Ynez, California, in Santa Barbara County. She’s on a two-week break from her world tour, , and she’s come home to throw herself into the September wine harvest. “Winemaking is not as physically grueling as performing, but it’s still laborious enough to be fun,” she says.

If you’re one of the millions of people who attended a concert in 2023, you know that she’s physical onstage, and that she makes singing upside down—while being hurled through the air, attached to a harness, over a stadium full of fans—look easy. The appearance of effortless grace requires an enormous amount of conditioning and grit. Being home at the vineyard means decompressing from that intensity, even if doing so involves waking up before dawn to pick grapes with the crew. “I don’t remember to breathe until I get to the end of the driveway,” she says. “This place reminds you to just stop.”

“We’ll start picking Block 2 tomorrow,” Moore continues, pointing to a defined, hilly section of neatly organized sauvignon blanc vines that are always the first to ripen. Moore bought this place in 2013. She’s kept most of the 17 acres of certified organic grapes—including cabernet sauvignon, grenache, graciano, syrah, petit verdot, grenache blanc, and cabernet franc—that were planted here before she arrived. She’s since added eight acres and introduced sĂ©millon and merlot to the mix; in all, her crew will harvest over 55 tons of grapes, yielding about 2,500 cases of red wine and 500 cases of white.

Moore opens a 2022 graciano, made from an inky Spanish grape that typically produces a rich, tannic, almost savory wine. As an experiment, she fermented the grapes in whole clusters, using a process called carbonic maceration. The result is fresh and bright, with notes of crunchy tart cherries.

“I got demo-itis on this vineyard,” she says, borrowing a term from her musical life. “As a musician, when you make a demo, if you listen to it more than five times, you’re never going to record the actual song, because you’re now in love with the demo.” She takes a sip. “If you listen to some of the acoustic deep cuts on my records, sometimes I’m not saying the right words. The person doing the harmonies is drunk. I think it’s perfect, because it’s a vibe.”

She tries to bring a vibe to her wines, which are all single varietals. “Why blend?” she says. “I don’t care what the French say. Grapes have their own personalities. They don’t necessarily play well with others.”

“This is my home, this is my place,” she laughs. “This is how I express myself in plants.”

The graciano goes perfectly with a panzanella salad Moore made. She came to this interview from her home garden on a Polaris UTV, with two kids along for the ride and a large ceramic bowl cradled in her lap. Her husband—professional motocross racer Carey Hart, who helps with winemaking tasks but mostly leaves it to her—is also on hand. Their son, six-year-old Jameson, harvested the salad’s heirloom tomatoes; their daughter, 12-year-old Willow, picked the sweet basil. Moore made sourdough bread using freshly milled flour from the famed baker Josey Baker, of the in San Francisco. (They became sourdough pen pals during the pandemic.) She used a starter named Quarantina, which is kept going by wild local yeast.

Over time, Moore has gotten intimate with the land and its microclimate. “We wake up in a cloud every morning,” she says. The vineyard is next to the western slope of the San Rafael Mountains, whose 6,800-foot peaks trap moisture from the Pacific, and the fog hovers until the sun burns it off.

Makes sense. If I were a mist, I’d want to stick around here, too.

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Yeti is releasing the ($60) this fall. So, of course we had to get our hands on one to test. The Rambler is made with stainless steel, has double-wall insulation, and is described as nearly indestructible. If that sounds familiar, it’s because the shaker is quite simply a Yeti tumbler with a new cobbler shaker lid. The lid is compatible with other Yeti cups with the same diameter lip, and the shaker lid is sold separately for $25 if you already have a cabinet full of Ramblers.

Though it’s handy to pop the lid on whatever Yeti cup you have, this shaker reminds us of Mason jar shakers and other retro-fitted mixers that don’t necessarily reinvent the wheel. In our experience, however, Yeti doesn’t typically release products that don’t prove to be extremely tough, useful, or both, so we were game to test it out. 

Why a Cocktail Shaker?

Bartenders and cocktail geeks are obsessed with the finer points of barware, and I can think of no item that is more talked about or controversial than the shaker. Most bartenders swear by a Boston shaker, essentially two tins (or, gasp, a tin, and a pint glass) that fit together, creating an open space for the ingredients and ice to build lots of momentum between smashes at either end. Alternatively, a Cobbler shaker is a three-piece style found on most home bars and consists of a base tin, a sloped centerpiece containing a perforated strainer, and a small, sometimes-shot-size cap.

Not all cocktails need to be shaken (I’m looking at you, James Bond) but cocktail canon  dictates that drinks containing fruit juice, especially citrus juice, must be shaken. Shaking cocktails emulsified their ingredients for a rich, slightly creamy mouthfeel, extra-cold serving temperature, and perfect dilution. When the ingredients and ice knock back and forth against the metal tin, small pieces of ice break off and chill the drink as they melt, diluting strong liquor and sharp citrus juice into something beautifully delicious.  

Oftentimes, cocktail recipe directions will say to shake “until the outside of the shaker is frosty.” However, this isn’t really a good indicator of when a drink is ready because the metal walls of cocktail shakers vary in thickness and insulation. 

If you’d asked me last week or last year about my favorite cocktail shaker, it was hands down the . First introduced to me by Food & Wine’s Executive Wine Editor when I oversaw testing for the magazine, and at the stunning price of $468, I can promise it looks incredible on a bar and mixes a very impressive drink. And it is out of reach for nearly everyone I know. 

Yeti’s $60 cocktail shaker isn’t cheap, so I figured there was only one way to see if it was worth the price: a proper cocktail duel with the Match pewter shaker. 

Putting the Yeti Rambler to the Test

The cocktail: Tommy’s Margarita (2 parts tequila: 1 part lime juice: 1 part agave syrup)

The ice: Cubes from my refrigerator’s ice maker

The rubric: Shake for 30 seconds, strain, measure for volume as an indicator of dilution and temperature. Finally, taste (somebody’s gotta do it).

Results

Dilution: Tied. The drinks poured out at identical volumes, with fewer small micro chips of ice on the surface of the Maker, indicating the ice stayed in bigger pieces and/or didn’t make it through the built-in strainer. There were more visible ice chips, and also more creamy, foamy swirl on the Yeti-shaken drink.

Temperature: Yeti. I used my trusty kitchen thermometer to temp each drink at the bottom of the glass, away from any ice chips floating on the top. It clocked the Maker margarita at 37 degrees Fahrenheit, which is how cold I keep my fridge, AKA “beer temp.” The Yeti got the marg down to 35 degrees and was noticeably colder on first sip.

Flavor: Yeti. While the drink ingredients, number of ice cubes, duration of shake, and glassware were identical, the colder temperature and creamier texture of the Yeti-shaken drink made the drink taste more refreshing and ultimately more delicious.

The takeaway: Yeti’s cocktail shaker is uniquely good at shaking up incredibly cold drinks thanks to the rock-hard metal that obliterates shaken ice cubes and insulated walls that keep the drink near freezing temps. If you already own a Rambler tumbler, the $25 shaker lid is a nice upgrade and the set would make a great gift, though it might look a little sporty on a beautifully curated home bar. But if you’re like us, you’d rather take cocktail hour outside anyway.

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When Iliana Regan bought the in Michigan’s Nahma Township with her wife, Anna Hamlin, in 2019, she was searching for home. One might assume the critically acclaimed founding chef of the Michelin-starred Chicago restaurant Elizabeth might feel overly secluded at Milkweed; the 150-acre property is set deep in Hiawatha National Forest, a wide swath of land where three Great Lakes meet at the U.S.-Canadian border. But it was here that the couple planted roots, planning to run the 12-guest bed-and-breakfast during the six months of the year when the dirt road leading to the rustic cabin wasn’t buried under lake-effect snow.

Also in 2019, Regan’s first memoir, , which tangled with her childhood, alcoholism, and path to becoming a chef, was long-listed for the National Book Award. (The last food writer named a finalist was Julia Child, in 1979.) Regan then pursued an MFA in writing from the Art Institute of Chicago, largely attending classes remotely from the Upper Peninsula between hikes and homestead chores at the Milkweed Inn, which she and Hamlin opened in 2020 to weekenders. The aromas, ingredients, and cooking techniques she used to draw a following to Milkweed occupy the pages of Regan’s latest memoir, , which documents her childhood in northern Indiana and her adult quest for the comforts and familiarity of home. Each of Regan’s books describes the turmoil within her life with both pointed assurance and vulnerability: her oscillation between sobriety and addiction, her three marriages, her six consecutive Michelin stars, and the death of her beloved sister Elizabeth, for whom the Chicago restaurant was named.

Regan has become a reference point for modern American cuisine: she has been profiled and reviewed by , Lucky Peach, and . And the inn is a smashing success, typically selling out a season in advance. Blending foraged ingredients with East Asian, Eastern European, and midwestern cooking techniques, her style is uniquely American. Regan, who never went to culinary school, discovered her knack for food as a child. “When I worked at some fancy restaurants, I knew more about seasonality and what certain foods were than a lot of the chefs, just from having grown up around them,” she told me.

The 43-year-old was raised in Merillville, Indiana, a Chicago suburb, on a ten-acre farm in a working-class family. There she learned about the color, flavor, smell, and toxicity of black walnuts. She observed the crooked posture of certain mushrooms and discovered that not all of them were edible. She ate homemade ferments and Maruchan ramen noodles. The last of four daughters, she was astute from an early age. “There was a lot of attention to where the wild plants were and what they’re doing, when they’re flowering and when they’re ripening,” she says. “And so every time I’m going out on a path foraging, I have to constantly be watching what’s available.”

Regan’s great-grandmother ran a popular restaurant in town, and although it closed before she was born, Regan considers cooking a birthright. “All my sisters are really good cooks, and my mom’s a good cook, and my dad’s a good cook,” she says. “Even if I tried not to do it, this might still have been the outcome—it was going to happen no matter what.”

Regan started finding her way around a kitchen when she was 15, and during her college years she worked at some of Chicago’s most celebrated restaurants. She also sold pierogi and microgreens at farmers’ markets, and in 2010 began hosting a supper club in her apartment. Its success attracted investors, who backed the 2012 launch of Elizabeth. Regan’s cooking, delicate but also fun, earned her Food and Wine magazine’s prestigious accolade in 2016. After the closing of a short-lived second restaurant and a bakery in 2019, Milkweed presented itself as a refuge from the daily grind. In 2020, she transferred ownership of Elizabeth to two of its employees and committed herself to her new endeavor 350 miles north. “I came out here to the woods because I always wanted to do something that felt a little bit more sustainable,” Regan says. “It just made sense to be cooking for ten people a week rather than 150.”

At Milkweed, a bevy of meals are presented to guests who make the pilgrimage for a $750-per-person weekend of fished, foraged, and fermented dishes cooked by Regan in the cabin’s small kitchen. When diners arrive on Friday, she builds a large outdoor fire, then conjures up the entire first meal using different parts of the blaze. Her goal has been to prepare “as much as I possibly could, and use as little as possible, and forage as much as I possibly could myself.” In the process, the menus have transformed into something woven from the land. A recent evening saw her serve a dish of young milkweed pods, fried and served with a ketchup made from chokecherries.

Between cooking for her guests, Regan finished up Fieldwork. “I write outside, even in winter,” she says. “I have just as much attention deficit as the next person. When I’m outside, I’m a little less distracted.” č󟱱đ±ô»ć·ÉŽÇ°ù°ì’s vivid, lengthy descriptions of foraging linger on the often overlooked connections between people and the outdoors. Regan spends several pages detailing the sense memories associated with a single moment in the woods, like collecting mushrooms with her father—unearthing powerful recollections related to coming of age, trauma, and a sense of home.

Childhood impressions of the homestead maintained by her parents, sisters, and tight-knit extended family have been elusive for Regan as an adult. “I’m still searching for that feeling myself. If I die and go to heaven, it will be that farmhouse. I guess that’s my place,” she says. Despite cooking in Chicago for the better part of 20 years, she now thinks of that city as a place she was just “passing through.” Putting down roots at Milkweed helped ground her, she says, satisfying a persistent yearning for an origin point. “I’m still that place, though I’m a little bit of this one now, too.”

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Somewhere between the perfect apple crisp and apple cobbler, this easy cinnamon-spiced apple skillet cobbler recipe comes together using just one bowl. Pastry chef Shania Broyan recommends a mix of firm, fresh Mutzu apples and Granny Smith apples and suggests picking your own or shopping for them at local farmers markets during fall apple season. Flavored with oats, brown sugar, and sweet cream butter, the cobbler has the crunchy texture and nutty flavor reminiscent of apple crisp but bakes up light and tender thanks to the shortcake-style batter for cobbler. 

Broyan is a pastry chef at RT Lodge in eastern Tennessee, a luxe basecamp for exploring Smoky Mountain National Park or a fly fishing excursion on the Clinch River. Returning to the lodge in the evening holds the promise of a delicious dinner from chef Trevor Stockton and a wide selection of American whiskeys in the lodge’s bar, The Morningside Room. Capped off with a seasonal dessert from the pastry team, you’ll sleep like a baby and wake up ready for the next adventure. 

No access to an oven? Try this Backcountry Apple Crisp instead.

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