Break.com

​Chips. Dips. Lil' Smokies. Along with chili, beer, and something mixed with Velveeta in a crock pot, these are the staples of the Super Bowl diet. Perhaps you are planning on getting fancy with crudités, canapes, and blended drinks but have you thought about your game day centerpiece yet? If you're considering making one that's edible, scrap the tower of football shaped cupcakes with royal icing laces (you did that last year, everyone knows) and really go all out with a snack food stadium.

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There are better ways to celebrate Oatmeal Month than a trip to McDonald's

​Once the New Year parties pass, January doesn't offer much to celebrate. A little industrious googling, however, quickly reveals some lesser-known January holidays. Did you know, for instance, that January is National Bath Safety Month, National Braille Literacy Month, and National Blood Donor Month? (The good people at the national month designation society seem to have gotten stuck on the B's). Thrilling though those designations may be, we are most pleased to report that it is also National Oatmeal Month. The Hot Dish came up with this list of the top five ways to celebrate this illustrious occasion here in the Twin Cities.

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Hello Kitty lunchbox from Amazon ($21.65 with shipping)

​There is a rather large section of the foodie population that gleefully self-identifies as geeks.  It makes sense, as only a geek could get excited about things like sous vide or which varietal of hop provides the best counterbalance for your home microbrew.
We at the Hot Dish have found some wonderful ideas for the nerdy nosher in your life.

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Local mixologists literally wrote the book on making great cocktails

​The celebration of the cocktail continues as bars all over town are mixing up their own bitters and infusing everything in sight with herbs, berries, and branches.  People are chipping their own ice shards and buying seltzer makers. It's all delightfully creative and wonderfully boozy. 

For the fiend on your gift list who wouldn't dare stoop to a maraschino cherry, check out our list to get their mixers shaken and stirred. With any luck, they might even share.

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Wikimedia Commons

No can opener? No corkscrew? No knife? No problem.

​You have canned goods. You have wine. You have a giant bag full of carrots. You have just moved into a new house and you have no idea what box you packed all your kitchen tools in. Certainly not the box marked "Kitchen Tools"; they're never in there. But you are resourceful. You are MacGyver. You don't need a corkscrew to get wine from bottle to glass, or a colander to drain your pasta. Ancient people ate and drank relatively gadget-free for thousands of years, and you can too. The Hot Dish rounds up the best ways to get the job done, whatever the job may be, without the proper kitchen tools.

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"Are you still working on that?"

​The front of the house is what makes the back of the house dance in the footlights. What would Meritage be without Desta Klein? It's her touch of genius to create an atmosphere in which the lovely French-kissed food coming from the kitchen is delivered to the right table at the right time with the right flourish. At 112 Eatery, Nancy St. Pierre's leadership out front provides a stage for showcasing chef Isaac Becker's culinary highlights. One happy similarity between these two very different restaurants: wait staff who understand the food and the customer.

The flip side, of course, is the restaurant where it seems wait staff are brought in off the street. The attitude seems to be: If you're breathing, you can wait tables. And due to the code of niceness to which we have sworn allegiance, Minnesotans are forced to put up with the most annoying conversations when all we want is a good meal and a pleasant experience. To wit:

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wollywonderland

I like my hot dogs with mustard and a little bit of fuzz.

​With Thanksgiving behind us and the winter holidays ahead, we enter the weird in-between season better known as "four weeks of shopping." Arts and crafts online marketplace Etsy is always a good place to start if you're looking for a thoughtful present, but particularly good if you're seeking out something special for the foodie in your life. The Hot Dish found felted sugar snap peas in a pod and homemade salted caramels galore, but there were a few sellers who really got creative in their food-as-craft applications. Here are our top five favorites.

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Sparkling wine goes with anything. A Cava from Spain is a bit softer than Champagne.

Thanksgiving is a uniquely American holiday. Food and football. The meal is built around turkey, but it's the side dishes, traditional to your family and friends and as varied or exotic as your friends and family, that make the meal.

Thanksgiving Day dinner offers wine lovers a unique challenge as well. You're faced with picking a wine that goes with turkey but also with tart cranberry, earthy wild rice, stuffing with nuts or sausage or giblets, sweet potatoes, creamed onions, green bean casserole ....

Here are five suggestions from local wine experts to help you solve this annual food/wine pairing puzzle.

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Have any Minnesota chefs made the cut?

​When former Stillwater resident Molly "Cruise Ship" Brandt, the only contestant on the current season of Top Chef who has Minnesota connections, got eliminated in the qualifying round with her mousseline of shrimp, the Hot Dish had to find a new underdog to root for. While smart money is on domineering but well-rounded Lindsay Autry, the elimination got us taking a look back at some of the other reality TV "cheftestants" that made us swell with hometown pride.

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