 Stephanie V.W. Lucianovic is a Bay Area writer and editor. Her first book Suffering Succotash: A Picky Eater's Quest to Understand Why We Hate the Foods We Hate, is a humorous non-fiction narrative and exposé on the lives of picky eaters. She previously coerced Anderson Cooper to overcome his dining issues and told us the most scientifically delicious snack shape. In my years-long quest to put my picky eating into remission, I'm proud to say that I had a list of once-hated green vegetables jockeying for attention at my Thanksgiving table this year. The two that won out are okra (simply sautéed and salted to perfection) and Brussels sprouts, which will be peeled down to individual leaves, sautéed with garlic, then gilded with a balsamic vinaigrette and a smattering of walnuts to comprise a warm salad. However, there are still some turkey day foods out there that get my gorge a-rising and chief among them is that Thanksgiving staple of my Minnesota childhood: green bean casserole.  The Southern Foodways Alliance has a pretty solid collection of community cookbooks in their office—and many more in their staffers' home libraries. And the holidays seem like the right time to whip them out and share some choice recipes with you, our readers. So fix yourself an eggnog, pull up a seat, and check back often between now and New Year's for their Holiday Throwback Recipes. Today's Cookbook: In 1980, Southern Foodways Alliance founder John Egerton and his wife, Ann, came up with a much better holiday dispatch than the much-mocked Christmas letter: a hand-typed, spiral-bound cookbook of some two dozen recipes from their family and friends. That was the first edition of The Lovin' Spoonfuls, and the Egertons published volumes 2 and 3 in 1982 and 1984, respectively. Twenty-five years later, they bundled the original three Lovin' Spoonfuls with an all-new fourth edition. The NEW Lovin' Spoonfuls boasts some 100 recipes, from civil rights activist Rev. Will Campbell's "All-Purpose Sauce" to the late Hap Townes's famous stewed raisins.  5@5 is a daily, food-related list from chefs, writers, political pundits, musicians, actors, and all manner of opinionated people from around the globe. Editor's Note: Dana Gunders is a food and agriculture-focused project scientist for the Natural Resources Defense Council. She recently authored "Wasted: How America Is Losing Up to 40 Percent of Its Food from Farm to Fork to Landfill" and blogs regularly about food waste here. Once a year, we feast to celebrate that our ancestors had enough food to survive their first winter, acknowledging that once upon a time food was something to be grateful for. Then the next day, we throw half of it away. This Thanksgiving, Americans will trash a whopping $282 million of uneaten turkey, contributing to the 40 percent of food that goes uneaten every year. That’s enough turkey to provide each American household that is food insecure (17.9 million American households suffer from food insecurity) with more than 11 additional servings. Along with throwing away the turkey itself, all the resources it took to get that bird to the table will have gone for naught. For instance, it takes 105 billion gallons of water to produce that much turkey - enough to supply New York City for more than 100 days. This year, give gratitude for food and waste less of it by following these five tips to make the best use of your feast. Five Tips to Get the Most Out of Your Thanksgiving Feast: Dana Gunders  Ray Isle (@islewine on Twitter) is Food & Wine's executive wine editor. We trust his every cork pop and decant – and the man can sniff out a bargain to boot. Take it away, Ray. Sommeliers, of course, spend a lot of their time thinking about which wine goes well with which food, or does not go well, or might go well if it weren’t Thursday, and so on. But if you ask a sommelier what wine he or she would like to drink right now, more often than not the answer is Champagne. 
 5@5 is a daily, food-related list from chefs, writers, political pundits, musicians, actors, and all manner of opinionated people from around the globe. A very wise frog once told us, "It's not easy being green." No vegetable knows that plight better than the Brussels sprout. The tiny green orbs cause such visceral reactions among some eaters that you'd think a plate of rotten eggs and moldy bread was in front of them. Walter Bundy, the executive chef of Lemaire in Richmond, Virginia, argues otherwise. In fact, he thinks Brussels sprouts are quite fabulous when done right – and we're going to have to agree. “I love to cook with Brussels sprouts because they seem to represent autumn and winter to me. They are very robust with an earthy flavor. They have a slight bitterness that works well with so many other foods, " says Bundy. Five Ways to Cook with Brussels Sprouts: Walter Bundy  5@5 is a daily, food-related list from chefs, writers, political pundits, musicians, actors, and all manner of opinionated people from around the globe. It's no wonder the holidays and macaroni and cheese go together so well: They're both warm, comforting and filled with more than their share of cheesy moments. With Thanksgiving but a week away, we've enlisted cheese expert Laura Werlin to show you the whey to macaroni mastery. Laura Werlin is the James Beard award-winning cookbook author of The All American Cheese and Wine Book. Her sixth book, Mac & Cheese, Please!, will be released December 4. You can find her on Twitter as @cheezelady if that tells you anything about her fervor for fromage. Five Tips to a (Mac &) Cheesy Thanksgiving: Laura Werlin  Even the most adventurous eaters often give their inner food warrior the day off on Thanksgiving – nothing but the same turkey, stuffing (or dressing!), cranberries, green bean casserole and pumpkin pie they've been eating since childhood. If one of those dishes goes missing, the whole meal just doesn't feel right. Other families stray away from the standards (some friends of ours have to have collard greens, whiskey sours and banana pudding for the day to feel right, while another family dives into duck) and develop their own must-indulge traditions. And for some, like our commenter traveldoc, it's less about what's on the table than who's gathered around it.  5@5 is a daily, food-related list from chefs, writers, political pundits, musicians, actors, and all manner of opinionated people from around the globe. Editor's Note: Gregory Hall is the founder of Virtue Cider, a Chicago-based craft cider company. Hall served as the Brewmaster of Goose Island Beer Company from 1991 to 2011. I became a big fan of hard cider on a trip to England in 2000 with a group of brewers from Goose Island. We visited several breweries on the trip, but the highlight was visiting a pub called The Maltings in York. They were hosting a cider festival with casks from small producers all around the English countryside. We were all blown away by the variety, complexity and just plain wonderfulness of those ciders. Here are five of my favorites, in no particular order. Five Hard Ciders to Try Right Now: Gregory Hall  We're sharing our time-tested Thanksgiving hosting tips and recipes, as well as plenty from chefs, hospitality experts, celebrities, hosts and home cooks we love. Our goal – sending you into Thanksgiving with a confident smile on your face, and seeing you emerge on the other side with your sanity intact. It might seem like a long way off - and a world away for people still reeling from recent storms - but two weeks from now, you're likely going to sitting down to a dinner with loved ones (and a stranger or two), and feeling exceptionally lucky to be doing so. Gratitude is the watchword, and it's incredibly easy to lose sight of that while you're bogged down in the details of serving a dinner that packs a certain amount of expectation. So how about giving yourself a break?  Ray Isle (@islewine on Twitter) is Food & Wine's executive wine editor. We trust his every cork pop and decant – and the man can sniff out a bargain to boot. Take it away, Ray. There’s something about cold weather and large Pyrex baking dishes full of steaming stuff that just natively goes together, and while “large dishes full of stuff” isn’t exactly the most compelling way of describing, say, lasagna, I’m just going to go with it. Plus, December is holiday party season and though that often mean hors-d’ouevres, once in a while it means dinner for 50. When that’s the case, if you’re the host, baked ziti (or moussaka, or forty blackbirds in a pie) starts to sound mighty appealing. Of course, those freezing, ravenous people you’ve invited over are going to want some wine to go with their dinner, right?
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