Hot chocolate is reason enough to endure winter, and Jacques Torres goes above and beyond with his piping beverage made from real, fresh chocolate. Tasters say Torres’ blend is the best store-bought hot chocolate they’ve ever had. He also offers adventurous concoctions like Jacques Torres “Wicked”—a blend of allspice, cinnamon, ground, sweet ancho chili peppers, and smoked, ground chipotle chili peppers.
To escape into a life that is truly not your own, the new Warren Beatty biography, Star, has made media waves for its claims that the 72-year-old actor has bedded nearly 13,000 women, “give or take.” Read it in tandem with Hellraisers, the rollicking story of Hollywood legends Richard Burton, Richard Harris, Peter O’Toole, and Oliver Reed, the raucous quartet of boozers whose sexual conquests became as notorious than their on-screen personas.
If there’s an upside to global warming it’s that warm sweaters will increasingly be on sale. Right now, our favorites are by Maison Martin Margiela, in part because we’ve always loved them, and in part because news broke last month that the namesake designer has quietly exited his own business. The house will go on without him, and some things, like the toasty zip-up cardigans, will likely remain cozy staples for years to come—and have wearers turning down their radiators.
Zinfandel is a great wine for a cozy night at home. It's medium bodied, not too heavy and not to light. The varietal flavors lean toward blackberries and raspberries, and a good one will balance the fruit with some spiciness and smoother tannins. One great example of this is Mauritson Dry Creek Valley Zinfandel. 2007 was a great year in the valley, and this wine will evolve nicely over the course of a few hours. You can also try Bogle’s Phantom or Orin Swift’s The Prisoner—both blend Petite Sirah with the Zin to add more spiciness and meatiness.
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Yoga to the People has studios in New York, Berkeley, and San Francisco that teach yoga classes for free, and now you can download those classes online and do them at home. “Yoga is an amazing form of exercise that helps strengthen, stretch, and de-stress the body and focus and decompress the mind,” says the altruistic organization. What’s more, it requires far more exertion than you might think, which means your core temperature will rise even as the mercury in the thermometer plunges.
NPR’s rapturous show “Piano Jazz” turned 30 yesterday, and the station has made the anniversary episode available online—a full hour of warming songs, amazing piano solos, and fascinating commentary from host-since-the-beginning Marion McPartland. The show opens with a pitch-perfect duet of “Our Love is Here to Stay” between McPartland and Elvis Costello, and only gets better from there. An excellent way to escape from the wind chill for an hour. Download it here.
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Adapted by Le Cirque’s former pastry chef, this recipe yields one of the greatest chocolate chip cookies ever devoured on a blustery day. The combination of bread flour and pastry flour—not to mention the pricey chocolate—gives the cookies a thick crunchy shell and a gooey, tender center. And the sea salt vividly brings out the flavor of the chocolate, so buy the best. The ingredients may require a trip to a specialty store, but the end product is well worth it.
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If getting out of bed isn’t an option, snuggle up with the newly released series Return to Cranford, a period drama filled with small-town adventure and a star-studded cast. The sequel to Cranford—a smash hit in England based on the 19th Century Elizabeth Gaskell novels—chronicles in microcosm UKs transition from old times to new in a tiny market town in Cheshire. The series airs as part of PBS’s Masterpiece Classic series January 10 and January 17.
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Julie and Julia is an ideal light comedy to transport you to summertime Paris, and the food scenes alone will make you think you can smell the duck confit wafting in from your own kitchen. Child’s famous recipe tome, Mastering the Art of French Cooking, is itself stuffed with comfort food, everything braised and battered with butter and breadcrumbs. And the film’s penultimate scene – a dinner party on an open rooftop in Queens – will remind you there’s life after winter.
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Pasta e fagioli is a hearty soup that’s the perfect cure for colds and cold-weather blues alike. Chock full of veggies, beans, and pasta, it’s so uplifting that Dean Martin felt compelled to sing about it in “That’s Amore.” Cookstr.com has an excellent recipe from award-winning chef Nigella Lawson—just be sure to start prepping it in the morning, as the beans need to soak for six hours.
Francesca Yorke
If you must venture outside this weekend, then head to a heated multiplex to see the vampire thriller Daybreakers, starring Ethan Hawke. “It’s an old-school genre movie where heads pop off and things get chopped off, and yet somewhere in the subterranean text of the piece is a giant allegory,” Hawke told the Daily Beast. Nothing chases the cold-weather blues away like some old-fashioned sci-fi gore.
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