Trying to figure out what to get for your food-obsessed Uncle Leo? Words to Eat By has the answer!

Many of you, I’m sure, are familiar with Chowhound. Whenever I’m stumped for a good place for dinner in the theater district, or the best burger in town, or honest takes on the hottest new restaurants, this is where I go. It’s run by really smart, really hungry people, and you can (almost) always find what you’re looking for. Heck, when I needed a kosher butcher recommendation for the first dinner w/my parents and my then-future in-laws, Chowhound saved my ass. But as much as I love the message boards, I have a heck of a time keeping up with them–the pages load slowly, and you have to click on each posting individually just to read a thread. Luckily, the geniuses who run Chowhound offer a way to make sure I’m not missing anything: ChowNews. It’s a weekly e-newsletter that sums up all the best tidbits of the last week, and it’s really, really helpful. Not only does it summarize restaurant discussions, it also includes food and cooking-specific tips. Oh, and did I mention that it’s incredibly cheap? Only $15 for six months of weekly emails!

I’ve been a subscriber for years now, and I absofreakinlutely love it. Today’s edition includes summaries on Jacques Torres’s new chocolate-store-cum-cafe-cum-factory (thumbs way up on the hot chocolate & chocolate chip cookies, thumbs down on the coffee and service in general); early reports on Patricia Yeo’s new gig at Sapa (definitely mixed, though it’s still too soon to be sure); and a discussion of Holiday Spice Pepsi (ho-hum, they say. But who knew such a thing even existed???). It also included a plea for help in spreading the word about ChowNews–apparently the subscriber level is disappointing, and as they put it, “We need to increase our readership to make this worth doing.”

OK, have I sold you yet? Surely you know somebody who’d appreciate such a wonderful, thoughtful, unusual gift… What are you waiting for? Get off my damn site already and order it! Oops, that was a bit harder a sell than I meant to give. Apologies. Please, do Uncle Leo (and Chowhound) a favor and purchase a subscription or two. Thank you, and have a nice day.

I’ll be posting notes on the Caramel Apple Pastis I made for Thanksgiving a little later on…

* I have absolutely no financial interest here; I just think ChowNews is fantastic and I’d hate to see it go away because not enough people know about it.