If you, like me, sometimes browse through your holiday food magazines and find all of the choices a bit overwhelming and difficult to mentally organize, I am about to share with you a life changing gift. Zach and Clay of The Bitten Word have thoughtfully organized every Thanksgiving recipe from 2012’s Bon Appetit, Cook’s Illustrated, Cooking Light, Everyday Food, Fine Cooking, Food & Wine, Food Network Magazine, Martha Stewart Living, Saveur, Southern Living and Whole Living (that’s eleven magazines!) and with the exception of those snobs at Saveur and Cook’s Illustrated, every single recipe is linked online. Today I will be trying a yet-to-be-determined stuffing recipe from the index, and if it’s worthwhile, I promise I will share it. You can find The Bitten Word’s extremely helpful index here.

Speaking of Thanksgiving, did you know that Thanksgiving Eve is considered the biggest drinking day of the year in terms of liquor sales at bars and restaurants everywhere? I’ll let you draw your own conclusions as to why.

My extremely talented friend Beth, founder and CEO of SIPP, an organic soda company, is a true cocktail savant with genius instincts. She is always creating fabulous, original cocktails which she never bothers to write down, much to my dismay. Last night she whipped up a delicious, fragrant, goes-down-way-too-easy cocktail with apple cider and vanilla vodka, and I insisted she write it down so that I could hopefully serve it again. But what to name it? We had many ideas, ranging from Apple Crisp (too desserty) to Autumn Dream (too Glade air freshenery), and let’s just say the ideas did not improve with each subsequent cocktail. But in the middle of the night, like all good ideas, it suddenly came to me: Holiday Helper! I hope you will try this, and I hope this will help your holidays.

Holiday Helper

1 oz. Vanilla Vodka

2 oz. Apple Cider

Dash of cinnamon

Dash of nutmeg

1/2 oz. ginger ale (preferably SIPP ginger blossom if you can get your hands on some)

Combine vodka and apple cider in a cocktail shaker. Top with sprinkle of cinnamon and nutmeg, then splash of ginger ale. Garnish with apple, if desired. Cheers, friends!

p.s. I finally entered 2005 and created a Facebook page for Mom Mom’s Apron. You can like me by clicking the box in the right hand column. As always, thanks for your support!

p.p.s. If you are having a bit of a hostess meltdown, check out this.