I love Thanksgiving! And hate it. The holiday itself is a wonderful excuse to gather ’round family and friends for a conveniently short amount of time. Just enough hours to get in, reminisce for a day, get a ridiculously sized meal into your gullet and leave before the fam starts to work your nerves.

My friend Chris looked up from his glass of Yellowtail Chardonnay (which I did not buy). He squinted at me, pointed and creaked out, “I think you wine people are totally full of BS.” To his surprise, I nodded and replied, “Yeah, your pretty right on...mostly.”

THE BIGGEST FOOD-RELATED uproar in New York this past summer had to be the daring invasion of Manhattan by Canadian donut chain Tim Hortons. NYC residents were taken aback by the almost overnight appearance of multiple maple-leafed breakfast stations throughout the city in July, ramping up fears that our northern borders are not entirely secure. As a tireless Hortons supporter, it warmed my cockles to see Tim flex his sugar n’ coffee muscle through the city that never sleeps. However, I was far more excited to learn a Checkers had quietly snuck its way into Brooklyn a month earlier.

Like Fashion Week for Foodies, the NYFWF features a slew of events from the Oct. 10 Bob Dylan Wine Pairing to appearances by every celeb chef—that term is used loosely—out there, including a cooking demonstration by Alicia Silverstone.There are also more established dining deities like Mario Batali, Bobby Flay, Alain Ducasse and Ming Tsai strutting their stuff all weekend.

When is a Montepulciano not a montepulciano? When it’s a montepulciano, and not from Montepulciano. Confused? So are most people when trying to buy Italian wine. The amount of grape varietals grown in the big, European boot is staggering—estimated at more than 2,000—and the regions are just as prolific.

Chili Pepper Fiesta Oct. 3, Brooklyn Botanic Garden, 1000 Washington Ave. (at Montgomery St.), Brooklyn, 718-623-7200; noon-6:30, $8 In some parts of the country (cf. New Mexico) chilis aren&rs

Weekends are like mini-vacations for my wife and I. We walk around as though visiting some quaint New England town, perusing the Housing Works Thrift Shop on East 77th Street as if it were a clandestine, highly sought after antique boutique. During a recent Sunday afternoon visit, the shop was having one of its frequent “All Books for $5” sales.

Last week, I featured part one of my interview with Frank Prial, former wine columnist for the New York Times and author of the books Wine Talk and Decantations. His column, “Wine Talk,” which ended in 2005, was the go-to resource to learn about trends in wine making and to read travelogue accounts of his fantastical epicurean excursions.

WITH A DEAD baby pig in her arms, Anne Apparu receives news that her good friend and former brother-in-law Dash Snow, has died. But instead of breaking down, Apparu has a meal to cook.

For more than 30 years, one man has had the privilege of experiencing the greatest marvels the wine world had to offer, and he wrote about them for the New York Times. That man is Frank Prial, and his column, “Wine Talk,” which ended in 2005, was the go-to resource to learn about trends in wine making and to read travelogue accounts of fantastical epicurean excursions. He was also unafraid to deflate and demystify a great many myths that kept the wine world at an arm’s length from the common man.

Just down the block from neighborhood stalwart Dumpling Man (and squarely in its narrow shadow) lies Marco Polo Café, the Italian-Asian cheap-eats love child of husband and wife team Stefano Magaddino and Huihui Jiang. Magaddino, Sicilian by way of Buffalo, and Jiang, who was born and raised in mainland China, opened the diminutive dine-in and take-out restaurant in the summer of 2008, combining the similarly foodcentric traditions of their respective heritages. “The first word he taught me in Italian was ‘mangia,’” Jiang recalls.

WILLIAMSBURG’S SWEEPING OLD spaces may have been designed for industrial work, but they were really made for bars.The Woods is tucked away in an old brick building that used to house a metal shop, but when the workers would call it quits after a backbreaking day on the job, did they look around at the high ceilings and exposed brick walls and think one day people will drink here?

IF APPLE STARTED making restaurants, they might be exactly like Macbar. From its bright yellow, seamless plastic interior to the inventive if environmentally unsound food packaging and the noodleshaped case you get if you order a medium macaroni and cheese, this place screams sleek and chic.

WHEN I FIRST heard about this Charles character, he sounded like a dick. There was plenty of hullabaloo about him having no phone number, the sign hanging outside advertising the restaurant that used to live in his space and all sorts of nonsense that made me figure if someone was going to work so hard to keep me from seeing him, perhaps I shouldn’t. And so for a while I didn’t.

I ADMIT, I seldom meet a dirty martini I dont like.Yet never have I sipped one so savory and smootha blend of Russian Standard Platinum vodka and what must be the most luscious olives on Earththat I wanted to haul myself off the velvet banquet on which I was lounging and kiss the bartender.

ON A RECENT Friday night on Second Avenue, I watched as young people strolled by, couples came tumbling out of bars and the well dressed and nightclub-bound were hopping into cabs. This wouldn’t be surprising, of course, except that I was between E. 77th and E. 78th streets—miles from anywhere that I would expect to see people who looked like they knew how to have fun.

THE EASIEST QUESTION anyone will ask you at Park Slope sandwich shop Reis 100 is, “wheat or white?” Other then that, you’re stuck with more complicated choices involving pastrami, bacon, prosciutto, Nutella, duck paté, chicken, smoked salmon, anchovies, olive tapenade, gruyere cheese, egg salad, tuna, kimchee and/or mushrooms. Just to name a few.

APPARENTLY, IN-THE-KNOW drinkers are calling Los Feliz “the tequila mansion.” This multi-level spot offers three distinct bars. At street level, you’ll find a trendy restaurant with a hopping scene while the subterranean spaces both invoke an air of mischief. The first floor down lets you enjoy some tacos and jalapeño margaritas in what can best be described as a tequila cave.

OPENING A BAR on the corner of 16th Street and Prospect Park West, right by the Pavilion Movie Theater and Prospect Park, proved one of the smartest things boozy businessmen Jeff Switzer and Greg Curley could have done.

ENTREPRENEUR Hayne Suthon has a thing for gimmicks. Responsible for drag cabaret Lucky Cheng’s and the tacky exuberance of now-extinct, Hawaiithemed Waikiki Willy’s, the lady likes to fake it for dramatic effect.The tricky thing about Marfa, the high-concept simulacra of a dining spot in the Texas artist outpost, is that it’s more identifiable to Donald Judd fetishists and less welcoming to foodies or need-to-be-entertained tourists.