The decanter and carafe are having their design moment.

Decanters and carafes have been enjoying their moment of late, a kind of drink-fueled renaissance laced with our national love affair with design. Note Liviana Osti’s Cuore series, which features two carafes assembled in the form of a human heart and Esque studio’s Skull Decanter.

The vessels make for creative imbibing, but do you really need either on your shelf? The finer points of that question are best left to the oenophiles to debate. Dealing with it on a very basic level though, here a few distinctions that will add a new swill and swank to your wine habits.

The first distinction between one vs. the other is minimal: a decanter has a stopper whereas a carafe does not. As for their one true purpose in life, what they share in common is rather twofold: they class-up a bottle of wine and they aerate the ambrosia by allowing it to mingle with oxygen.

A carafe or decanter also gets you to the essence of the variety, no matter how fermented. For some, to decant or not to decant is like sharing a bottle of Château Margaux with someone you love or a bottle of Boons out of a paper bag.

Jim Meehan, managing partner of the East Village speakeasy PDT, ought to know. On a recent outing with the New York Times, he revealed that upon his grandmother’s death, he was bequeathed with 16 decanters.

“It boils down to style and ritual,” he told the Times. “The style of the decanter reflects the person drinking from it.”

Decanters and carafes are usually made out of glass, though the ancients have been known to use bronze, silver, gold and ceramic. They typically feature a long slender neck gaping into a wide body so air can find its wiggle room and more effective for highly tannic varieties, like Bordeaux, Cabernet Sauvignon and Rhône wines. More delicate wines, your Chiantis and Pinots, run the risk of being ruined by decanting, or so argued the most famous of famed oenologists Émile Peynaud. For Peynaud, wine was not only an art and discipline but a field of research.

For the lay drinker – one with a bigger eye for design than a stomach for alcohol –  investing in a decanter is an aesthetic choice, as well a coy way to hide an unsightly label grabbed last minute for unexpected company.

Images: Riedel

Stayed home on Black Friday? Good. Here are some gifts you can buy for the comfort of your own home.

Our favorite eco-retailer, VivaTerra, is having a fantastic holiday sale, just in time for dressing your house up in seasonal, original  fun. These five gems are all 50% off, so you’re within your rights to buy two – one as a gift and, ahem (whisper), one for yourself.

With bijou desserts still all the rage, this branch pedestal server ($87) will display your mini-puds to dramatic effect. Designed as a little tree, it has two levels  – one large and one small – with a butterfly delicately perched on the edge of the upper tray. Besides, we’ve been lusting after it for a while.

Finding a unique holder for those table essentials is always a challenge, which is why we love this chirpy bird salt and pepper set ($12). Their shape is smooth and tactile, with a tiny beak and graceful body – they dispense through a discreet opening on their heads. We like their subtle color distinction.

We’re always on the lookout for new ways to present cheese. This ingenious puzzle board ($29) will make your fromage serving both fun and fabulous.

Having limited kitchen space myself, an all-in-one tower which performs no less than five functions is a winner. This minimalist white ceramic tea tower ($27) features storage and presentation for your teapot, tea cup, saucer, sugar and cream.

These glass numbers are designed to echo familiar shapes: the carton ($12) for your cream and the sack ($14) for your sugar. The Milk carton creamer and sugar sack: perfect for the surrealist tea party.

Images: Andrew Warchy; VivaTerra

If you’re not getting enough roughage in your diet, you probably didn’t consider devouring on the paper plate underneath your sandwich. There are a few serving utensils, however, that don’t just look good enough to eat, they actually are edible.

The only thing cooler than sipping a mojito while lounging in a hammock, is munching your way through the edible drinking cup when you’re done. This vegan drinkware is made of agar and created in different flavors, like lemon-basil or ginger-mint. Once you’ve slurped down your cocktail, nibble your way around the edges or drop in a compost heap to biodegrade on its own.

Edible bowls – think taco salad – aren’t particularly new, but Italian entrepreneur Tiziano Vicentini has a pretty inventive take on the idea. He’s created a plate made from 100 percent biodegradable dough that’s sturdy enough to withstand soggy soups and sauces, and can even manage a trip through the microwave. Though the center of the plate isn’t meant to be eaten, its perimeter is designed to be torn off and eaten as a cracker or dipping bread.

The next time you’re debating whether to use a big batch of plastic eating utensils at your next party or consider using your own and face washing 200 knives and forks, think about laying out edible cutlery instead. Eco-packaging company Casetta makes forks and spoons out of vegetable pulp and sorghum, which also happen to be naturally high in nutrients like iron, folic acid, and carotene. The utensils are sturdy enough to use in hot or cold food and stay crunchy enough to much when you’re done with your meal. If you do decide to toss them out instead, the cutlery naturally disintegrates within a day.

Blisstree discovered this neat Cookie Cup formed into a cup-shaped pastry and covered in waterproof icing. It’s a perfect way to quaff your coffee or hot tea, then ditch the single-use “trash” in a responsible way. If munching through the used cup doesn’t grab you, at least you can throw it in the garden or compost pile with a clear conscience.

We’re crazy about these gorgeous serving bowls Dutch artist Geke Wouters shapes out of vegetable fibers. Of course their shelf-life is somewhat limited but they’re a perfect way to lend a touch of elegance to your next cocktail party or birthday bash.

Rain is beating down on the filmy window, yellow lights are blinking like friendly fireflies on the spruced up pine, and your couture edition Snuggie is nowhere in sight. Now is the time to bypass that chalice of chilly organic grape and sip a warm eggnog or Irish Coffee by the toasty fire. In addition to tasting delicious, hot cocktails take the edge off of shopping at the mall and visiting with intense relatives for weeks at a time.

Dirty little secret: I store my own personal flask of peppermint schnapps in a drawer in the guest bathroom at my mother’s manse. You never know when the mood will strike for something hot and medicinal while lounging with Nana and watching marathon reruns of The Nanny and Golden Girls.

If you aren’t leaving home and entertaining during the holidays, offering these options is a way to bring the ambiance of the ski resort into your pad. Here are a few recipes to consider for adding cheer to your holiday this year:

1. Burning Bush

This new spin on the old Hot Toddy calls for Bushmills Original Irish Whiskey (this is where its name is derived, not from the book Exodus) along with honey, hot water and a lemon wedge garnish. Created by New Yorker, Jim Meehan, it is simple to prepare:

Place the lemon wedge in the glass, add 1 1/2 oz of whiskey , 3 oz of the hot water. Stir, don’t shake, and chill.

2. Orange Anise Mulled Wine

You can have fun with varieties of mulled wine in your crockery cooker this time of year, and this recipe delights all your senses with the aroma of seasonal spices and citrus. It requires 2 bottles of Shiraz; 1/4 cup of packed brown sugar; 1 stick of cinnamon; 3 star anise; 1 tsp whole cloves; 1 orange; Orange peel strips.

First, remove the orange peel with a peeler and cut and peel into strips. Then squeeze the juice and discard the seeds and pulp. In a 5-quart crockery cooker combine the juice, wine and brown sugar. For your spice bag, tie the orange peel, cinnamon, star anise and whole cloves in a cheesecloth bag, and add to the cooker. Cover and cook on low for six hours to simmer the flavors. Serve in punch cups or pretty mugs.

3. Starbucks Hot Mocha Cocktail

If you’re a coffee or cocoa hound, you will love this espresso drink made in a saucepan using Starbucks coffee liqueur. It calls for 4 1/4 cups whole organic milk; 4 oz. Starbucks liqueur; 3 cinnamon sticks broken in half; 3 cups espresso; 1 1/2 cups healthy sweetener; 1/2 cup powdered sugar; 1 cup whipping cream; 1 cup cocoa powder.

To make, mix milk and cinnamon sticks in a heavy saucepan and simmer over a high heat. Remove, cover and steep for 15 minutes. Whisk espresso, sweetener and 1 cup of cocoa powder and bring the hot chocolate to a simmer, whisking frequently. Throw out cinnamon sticks and add the Starbucks coffee liqueur. Add the cream and whisk until thick. Ladle the cocoa into 8 mugs. Spoon chocolate whipped cream on top and serve.

4. Hot Apple Pie Cocktail

Apple cider is a popular winter treat and this cocktail is easy to make and very pleasing. Put aside 2 1/2 cups Simply Apple Juice and 4 cinnamon sticks; 1 tbsp lemon juice; 2 tsp. vanilla extract; 1/2 tsp. allspice; 1/4 tsp ground cardamon; 4 small scoops of organic low fat vanilla frozen yogurt; 4 oz. apple schnapps.

Place the apple juice, cinnamon sticks, lemon juice, vanilla, allspice and cardamom in a medium saucepan and warm it for two to three minutes over a medium heat, stirring until mixture is hot and spices are blended. Add in schnapps and divide among 4 mugs, topping with the yogurt.

5. Christmas Punch

An ideal choice for a big group, this English favorite blends rum with citrus and seasonings and has a pretty presentation – whether in a common bowl or grandma’s punchbowl. The recipe includes 4 pt. water; 1 lb. sugar; juice and rinds of three lemons; one bottle of rum; one bottle of ruby port; grated nutmeg; a sliced apple and a sliced orange.

Make it by boiling the water, sugar and lemon rinds in a saucepan. Cool and strain. Add the rum, port and lemon juice and transfer the liquid into a pre-warmed punch bowl. Float the fruit slices on top and sprinkle with the savory nutmeg. After three or four cups, that home wax kit he gave you won’t seem as offensive. Merry mixing!

A popular invention for those who like it straight: If you dislike fruity blends and need that whiskey straight, you can get it to an excellent room temperature using Whiskey Stones - innovative soapstone cubes that look hot and do the trick.

Images: Silly Little Man, Sanfranannie; Charityworld; Insidious; Haleynealphotography; Polkadotcreations

So, what’s on the menu? Now that the chaos of the traditional November feast is but a faint memory, is your menu already lined with dishes fit for a photograph and waiting to flirt with your palate? Admittedly, it may be a little too soon (do you still have leftovers lingering in the fridge?) to write the menu for your next gathering, but the following will give you one more thing (resource) to be grateful for.

What Katie Ate is a blog chronicling the culinary adventures of food stylist and photographer Katie Quinn Davies. Now, I realize that recreating the delicious recipes sprinkled around her blog will undoubtedly not be quite as poetically photogenic, but your taste buds will be just as pleased (you can always eat with your eyes closed).

Ms. Davies’ blog is undeniably one of the most aesthetically lovely places of online real estate, yet it’s laced with pragmatic recipes and confections that allow you to get knee deep in ingredients, baking, and sautéing. What Katie Ate is located in Australia, so there is a touch of the southern hemisphere in her foodie addiction.

Next time you need to consult a cookbook for recipes, peruse the pages of What Katie Ate.

So, what’s on the menu?

(All images by Katie Quinn Davies from What Katie Ate.)

This Thursday, as you gather round the table and devour your traditions, take a moment and offer a little ambiance to your guests of honor. As you prepare to verbalize your many blessings, set the stage (and table!) to celebrate. Here’s a heaping serving of inspiration on a silver platter – just in time for you platters of yams and pumpkin confections.

It seems the clever creatives at Sweet Paul have imagined a handful of stunning ideas to inspire your entertaining. When crisp winter intersects with harvest notions, the result is a gorgeous combination of pristine white and sultry pumpkin silhouettes (image above). Your culinary efforts are sure to glisten on this simple and elegant palette.

If you love the produce aisle and crave a little more color on your table, seek natural hues with interesting shapes to adorn your holiday gathering. Artichokes, beets, carrots, and radishes are vivid and lovely.

Or capitalize on Mother Nature with the habitual shades of amber and orange. Fall leaves can be gorgeous, as this natural setting with rich wood styling depicts.

If the saturated hues of the traditional feast are the beauty you want to highlight, add a dash of dignified blue and watch the edible harvest hues of the season gleam.

These gorgeous images are from the glossy (virtual) pages of Sweet Paul – both the Fall and Holiday issues. If you are still finalizing your menu, you will devour the recipes that accompany these visual feasts.

Still looking for the perfect details?  Lonny has a great feature on the most glamorous table setting ever.  And just in case you’re the type of host who craves order through seating arrangements, this pumpkin place card holder will bring the perfect allure to your table setting.

To Dry For is to die for. An entire website of graphically intoxicating tea towels is seriously alluring, especially since the season of entertaining is nearly here. Why not add a little charm to the least glamorous facet of entertaining, the heaps of dishes left behind by mounds of visitors. The collection of tea towels at To Dry For has given me the perfect excuse to escape the dish soap and suds for the appeal of an unexpected pop of glamor. You wash, I’ll dry.

This is the perfect time of year to fall in love with tea towels. Not only will they gently wick the water off your favorite dishware set, but they also provide a subtle conversation topic for the dreaded after dinner lull (although it’s generally a bad sign if your kitchen linens have more personality than your guests). For a vivid touch of charisma, just dangle one in your kitchen. Or, assuming you want to make your host/hostess swoon, tea towels are a beautiful hostess gift.

If confections of linen and cotton aren’t enough to entice your visit to To Dry For, maybe the little known facts and clever anecdotes will lure you into reading every single product description for a dose of subliminal education while you peruse. Did you know lobsters have blue blood? Did you know the Albert Bridge is the only bridge in London that has never been rebuilt?

I couldn’t resist sharing a handful of my beloved tea towels. Above, from left to right: Irons, You Wash, I’ll Dry, and Sardines. Below, from left to right: Mid Century Chairs, A Meal Without Wine, and Dirty.

I may not be able to sleep tonight if I don’t point you toward this mustard yellow Tea Rex towel and this “˜t’ towel (I know, the wit is almost unbearable). Enjoy!

Growing up, my mother always insisted we use placemats to protect the table from scratches or spills. Hers were the plastic or fabric variety, often emblazoned with seasonal patterns like flowers or Christmas trees.

Thanks to Sweet Green Tangerine, we’ve found a stylish placemat that works year round. With whimsical trees, birds, and butterflies screen printed in white against birch veneer on a thin plywood core, the Season Placemat Set ($32 for a set of four) bring a certain modern sensibility to the table.

They also match some of the dishes and other items in Sweet Green Tangerine’s collection, but we’d be just as happy pairing them with simple white dishes, too.

What do you think of these placemats? Can you see them sitting on your dining table?

To be or not to be – compost worthy? That is the question Hamlet might pose if the play were written in 2010 and his so-called “sea of troubles”  meant environmental destruction such as the Gulf spill, coral devastation or floating plastic islands. In a time of waste not, we need to question when it is okay to throw away food to produce fertilizer or other sustainable uses.

Since the old directive to clean our plates no longer applies (not in a nation fighting an epidemic of obesity) we end up with a lot of extra food on our plates and tables. Sometimes the portions we serve kids and guests are too abundant. We are left to decide whether or not to wrap up leftovers, feed them to hungry pets or grab the kitchen bin to make mulch.

Don’t let it go to the dogs!

Most experts would agree table leftovers are rarely good for our dogs, despite the fact it feels good to share. “Smoky loves turkey,” my daughters coo, often tossing our pug a handful of meat or a bone. According to Pet Education, a morsel off your plate here and there probably won’t hurt, but most people don’t stop there with those perpetual, adorable moochers. And even healthy organic cuisine recommended for us might not go down so well with God’s other creatures. What about your other pets? Find more info here.

“Feed me more tofu and lentils!”

“The rich foods we eat can wreak havoc on your dog’s digestive tract,” warns Animal Planet. “A simple, consistent diet keeps their system functioning as it should. Throw in your very different foods and spices and do not be surprised if your dog has bad gas, bad breath, loose stools, etc.” Hey, none of those side effects are any fun when your little guy sleeps on your bed. That pertains to big guys, too!

Was the food untouched?

Sometimes the scraps we save for ourselves can be bad for the system, too, depending on who dined on them, how long they sat out, and if the cat licked them with her scratchy tongue while standing on the table with her cat litter-covered contaminated feet. My cat learned to mooch from my pug and she is relentless.

I have a few rules about the scraps. For one thing, I never save anything a baby has sucked on because of the gross factor. Sure, I licked my own babies’ toes, but that is different from their soggy, 1/4 eaten Noah’s bagel.

In terms of wrapping it to go in my fridge or pantry, I consider it if it was just my family that at the meal. If that ‘s the case,  I’m obviously more inclined to fridge that other untouched half of a perfectly good turkey sandwich, bowl of pasta or veggie fried rice. I know when my children are healthy, and when they are teeming with germs, they don’t usually eat at the family table. I try to clear the table dishes before animals can get to the food (yes, even when the finale of The Office is starting) and use my best judgment to decide if the saved food will really get eaten. If it won’t, it makes more sense to recycle it as compost, and very rarely does it simply go down the drain.

Guest who’s not eating their dinner?

When guests dine at our table, it is a different story. Call it squeamishness, but I’m more hesitant to save plated food because of fear of germs. Blood is thicker than water and the leftovers of those with different blood can be repugnant. Still, it’s painful to toss a hardly touched plate, and on occasion, I save food off kids’ plates because they simply didn’t eat much and their hands were clean when they sat down. A second helping of macaroni ignored; a bowl of fruit shunned; an ample helping of broccoli that never entered the mouth of steel. I see no problem with keeping those items for dinner or breakfast, or doing what chefs do, and recycling them for a soup or other new dish.

Hunger versus health.

I guess it comes down to what you can stomach and afford. I’ve heard that hungry waiters and other staff working in snazzy Berkeley restaurants often scarf up the five-star fillets and fudge cake barely eaten by a customer. They’re not letting those dishes artfully composed by a celebrity chef go down the drain.

Then again, every day, businesses trash completely untouched food because of health codes. I’ve watched a Noah’s Bagels in my San Francisco hood at closing time unload boxes of bagels into a dumpster on the street.

The final extreme is my ungreen mother, who insists upon throwing out anything left on the table, and even cleaning untouched plates and utensils because they were exposed to the air and potential germs. We all make up our own rules. Ideally, the ones we enforce will result in healthy bodies and a healthy planet.

Images: Jbloom, Pet Education, 1000 Heads

Setting a stylish table means paying attention to details, right down to the slat and pepper shakers. Why go to the trouble of roasting organic veggies and tofu and setting out a pretty tablecloth, only to ruin the effect with plain Jane salt and pepper shakers from the grocery store?

Exactly.

Here are five stylish salt and pepper shakers fit for entertaining.

1. Amenity Arroyo Salt & Pepper Shakers (pictured above)
   Individually crafted by California wood workers, these walnut wood shakers add modern style to any meal. We especially love how the wood grain lends a sophisticated, yet natural touch.
2. Domestic Aesthetic Salt & Pepper Shakers
   With their distinctive shapes and colors, these shakers make it easy to distinguish the salt and pepper (unless you want to play a mean joke on your guests). They’re also made in the U.S. from sustainable materials.
3. Tablecraft Marbella Salt & Shakers
   These shakers are being sold in large quantities by a restaurant supply store, but we dig the simplicity of tinted, recycled green glass and their classic shape.
4. Mudcloth Salt & Pepper Shakers
   Add flair to an ethnic dinner with these hand-painted, black and white shakers inspired by MudCloth textiles from Mali.
5. Licor Delicioso Salt & Pepper Shakers
   I’d save these for a casual cookout or BBQ (hello? perfect for today!), but these mini liquor-bottles-turned-shakers are a whimsical way to set the mood.