Slashfood

Airline food is dead. Long live airport food, which is taking off so fast you wonder if the dining scene at LAX and O'Hare will soon resemble Vegas without the slot machines. Total hype? Sure, but today does mark a milestone with the opening of a new kind of "restaurant" at JFK's two Delta terminals.

Some 200 iPads have been mounted at coffee shop-style booths right by the gates, where passengers can now grab a seat and order a meal, checking stock quotes and playing games as they wait for food to be delivered. What kind of food? Maybe a Cobb salad or spinach quiche at Croque Madame (Gates 21 and 22), from Andrew Carmellini, the chef at Manhattan's downtown hotspot, Locanda Verde, or a panini from Bar Brace (Gate 15), from Jason Denton of New York's 'Inoteca and Lupa.

Next up: Crust, at Delta's LaGuardia terminal, where Jim Lahey, of Soho's Sullivan Street Bakery, will lend his baking prowess to pizza.) Big-name chefs, like Wolfgang Puck and Todd English, have had restaurant franchises at airports for some time now, but this whole park-me-by-the gate-and-hand-me-an-iPad expansion is a step in a new direction. And if you miss having a live server taking your order, you can always stare soulfully into your Apple screen and mumble, "you must be iPaddy, and you'll be my waiter today."

This year, the owners of a local grocery-store chain in upstate New York got probably the best holiday gift ever, when an Oscar-nominated, Golden Globe-winning actor called up and offered to do some TV ads -- with his mom.

Alec Baldwin-star of, well, everything (stage, screen and, currently, of NBC's critically acclaimed 30 Rock) - is pitching holiday desserts and $6 prepared meals for Wegmans, which has stores in Maryland, Virginia, Pennsylvania and New Jersey, as well as New York.

Baldwin's 80-year-old mom, Carol Newcomb Baldwin, is a loyal Wegmans customer, as fans of the Late Show

Sarah Palin is going head-to-head with Michele Obama's efforts to get healthier meals into America's public schools, reports Bloomberg Business Week. The would-be president's latest challenge to the President's wife came as a protest to Pennsylvania Board of Education guidelines that would limit holiday and birthday celebrations -- and thus cake, cookies and candy -- at school. Last week, reported ABC News, Palin showed up at a Bucks Country fundraiser bearing 200 cookies to protest "nanny state" regulations she said were best left to parents.

Next year, the U.S. Department of Agriculture will issue a new version of its controversial food pyramid, which will surely influence what will be served in school cafeterias down the line. Will sugar-coated Sarah and her Tea Party pals swallow any of this? Fat chance. Just look at what happened in Britain a few years ago when a school district banned hamburgers, fries and other fast-food favorites from the lunchroom, while at the same time not letting children who weren't going directly home for lunch leave the grounds. The New York Times reported that mothers, who acquired the nickname "meat-pie mums," began sneaking the forbidden food to their kids over schoolyard fences.

Who's right? Take our poll.

• Only in California: Thanksgiving dinner held outdoors at an ever-longer table. BYOS (bring your own side)!
• As long as you're outside, how about grilling the bird this year?
• And here are recipes for everything else. (And we do mean everything.)
• If you're not up to cooking, Southern California restaurant options abound.

Continuing Slashfood's reality-tv cooking competition exit interviews, we present you a conversation with the winner of Top Chef Just Desserts. To avoid spoilers, click through to read the winner's final thoughts. On Monday, our interviews with the runners-up.

Brussels sprouts are the little cabbages people either fall all over in the fall, or despise. We're in the former camp, and KitchenDaily contributor Alexis Touchet's Brussels sprouts recipe combines crisp, salty bacon with the smooth flavor of the sprouts. We do believe the sprouts have made a genuine love match. And if you hate Brussels sprouts, well, there's more for us.

See a whole collection of Brussels sprouts recipes at KitchenDaily.

Italy's Alto Adige region, also called Südtirol, may only produce less than 1% of Italy's total wine production but the bottles coming out of that part of the country's Northern pocket are worth seeking out. The range of varietals is vast, from acidic whites like Sauvignon Blanc to lighter-style reds like Pinot Noir, as well as red-wine blends that demonstrate generations of experience. This is Italy's oldest wine-making region. A mountainous zone with about 300 days of sunshine each year, it is bordered by Austria and Switzerland.

We recently had a chance to taste wines from this region. Here are our six favorites.

St. Michael-Eppan 2008 Lagrein Red Wine ($16)
A nose of cocoa powder is a sweet touch. So are the intense cherry and raspberry notes that cascade into a light, delicate finish with plenty of length and richness.

Have you ever wondered what the celebrity chefs of America do on Thanksgiving? The editors over at YumSugar reached out to chefs like Gail Simmons, Eric Ripert and Jose Andres and asked what their favorite part of turkey day was. Click here for the full gallery.

Celebrity Chefs Reveal Favorite Part Thanksgiving Over Twitter