Dear Reader,

Why not leave all the plucking and stuffing to professional chefs this year and eat out on Thanksgiving Day? We’ve rounded up hundreds of restaurants across the country that plan traditional menus for this family holiday. Should you prefer to cook for loved ones at home, consult a good book for new takes on turkey, such as The Thanksgiving Table, Autumn Gatherings and the brand new The Harvest Eating Cookbook. In the latter, Keith Snow, host of the PBS series "Harvest Eating with Chef Snow,” introduces readers to the "locavore" lifestyle of eating food grown or produced locally and his principles of "Cookonomics." To further help you not fret the feast, we’ve sipped our way through the Top 10 Thanksgiving Wines and come up with the Best Holiday Wine Pairings. Wine lovers will also be excited about Beaujolais Nouveau being released this month. The young red wine will be available as of Nov. 19.

The holiday season can pack on the pounds, and staying healthy is always a prerogative—despite our being hopeless gourmets. With this in mind, we checked into a simple cure for a common ailment: back pain. The book Exercises for Back Pain provides easy-to-understand exercises and simple lifestyle changes that can relieve some of those troublesome aches. And then there are …. Bananas!—because we’re mad for them and because the potassium packed power fruit has surprising heart-protective benefits while also being conducive to healthy digestion. Equally healthful is a tea with the fascinating name Kenya Black Dryer Mouth. This ungraded offering from elementaltea was specially processed to retain incredibly high levels of antioxidants.

For traveling foodies, we have a hot tip this month: the San Diego Bay Wine & Food Festival on Nov. 18-22 features more than 170 wineries and spirit producers and 60 of San Diego's top chefs.  Check our local culinary event listings to find great food festivals and wine dinners near you! On the other coast, Le Château in the beautiful northeast territory of Westchester County, N.Y., offers a style of grand French cuisine and service rare anywhere these days. Food critic John Mariani likens it to “some auberge in Provence, both a destination and a charming surprise for newcomers.”

And finally, did you catch our own Alain Gayot as a guest judge on “Hell’s Kitchen” in the last episode of Season 6? Also be sure to check our blog, where Sophie muses on her meetings with the crème de la crème of the foodie world. This coming Sunday, Nov. 8 at 8:25 a.m., she chats with chef and radio show host Jamie Gwen about restaurants offering Thanksgiving Dinner and everything Thanksgiving on AM 980 KFWB. Everyone can listen live on www.chefjamie.com.

There’s plenty more we have for you online, including our restaurant ratings, recipes, top spas and more… but we also want to hear from you.  Post a comment on our forum, or review a restaurant or hotel on our site for our millions of visitors to read.

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See you next in December with tips and trends for the holiday season!

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