A. Camille Nicholson is a graduate student in Cultural Studies and English Literature. Although she worked as an E-Commerce Developer during the .com’s height, she attributes her burgeoning interest in the culinary/baking arts to her volunteer duties at a local non-profit bakery and the past two years teaching cooking classes for kids.

I have loved the Twinkie since the dawn of my birth. As a child of suburban New Jersey in the 1980s, my fuschia green lunchbox frequently entertained the usual elementary lineup: Watermelon Ssips, a bologna or peanut butter sandwich, chocolate milk (which inexplicably required school permission), and a member of the Hostess snack cake family — typically, its irascible younger sibling, the Twinkie.

I have consistently defended the Twinkie against verbal assaults from more nutritionally minded acquaintances. However, the Twinkie’s reputation is slightly better than what they assert, although, admittedly, by a small margin. Surprisingly, one Twinkie provides only 150 calories and 4.5 grams of fat. Although it contains corn derivatives and two types of glycerides, the only preservative embodied within its banana yellow sheath is absorbic acid. When introduced in 1933 during the Great Depression, its offering of two cakes for five cents assisted those enduring financial deficit.

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I don’t ask for much these days. As a mom of an almost-five-year-old who really, really likes me to put him to bed, I don’t get out much. So after a long week, when Friday night finally rolls around, I drink.

I know what you’re thinking, but work with me here. I’m not talking vodka in a secret flask inside my semi-attractive yet hefty mom purse. The perfect wine to match the delectable meal Keith and I have prepared for ourselves, to unwind and satiate — that’s what I’m talking about.

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Our (apparently coerced) Guest-clacker today is Stephen Degon, a retired manufacturing and engineering executive whose hobbies include food and wine. That means he loves to cook, eat, and drink, but not write about it.

Well, it’s that time of year again, when we all start to think about the perfect Thanksgiving feast. Thanksgiving is such a special holiday because it reminds us of how fortunate we are, even if we are in the throws of a financial downturn. It means family and friends without the need for gifts. This should lead to a no stress holiday right?…WRONG! Everyone feels enormous pressure to make the perfect meal, accompanied by the perfect sides, and served alongside a perfect wine.

Which brings us to what we really want to talk about…wine. Turkey is a fowl, so it should have white wine, right? How about the dressing? Does it contain lots of meats? How are the veggies prepared? All of these questions should factor into your wine selection, but most important is “what kind of wine do you really like?”

Here are some suggestions, depending on your particular leanings.

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Join Debbie as she raves about whole foods, rants about chemicals and generally celebrates cooking and eating with fresh, local, nutritious foods. And sometimes she might get a little feisty….

We’re in the heart of it now… the beautiful season we call autumn. There are so many things to love about the fall in New England: the spectacular foliage, the crisp sunshiny weather and the seasonal foods. Let’s celebrate the fresh, whole food and autumn-inspired recipes that the season brings us. You just might find a new favorite.

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TV’s in full swing and we’re just about to enter November sweeps. Do you have something to say about what you watch? Are you a sci-fi junkie, or maybe nighttime soaps float your boat? Perhaps you’re up-to-date on all the latest TV news and have your own take on what it means for the television world. You might just be a writer looking for an outlet, a place to share your unique voice. Hopefully you’re snarky, knowledgeable and funny, without being insulting and overbearing.

With November also comes the holidays, and well, people eat during the holidays. Do you like to cook? Bake? Eat? Maybe you create original recipes and want to share them with the world. I’m betting you like to scour the internet for top-notch recipes too, don’t you? Maybe you like to eat out and drink out and write about your experiences. You might consider yourself a food snob, or you want to tell all the food snobs where to go and praise the simple food in life. If you’ve got something to share about all things edible, CliqueClack Food may have a place for you.

You can go about writing for CliqueClack in a number of ways:

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There’s almost nothing good about Daylight savings time. Now that we’ve changed the clocks back (fall back…), I wake up — mind you, at an ungodly early hour — and it’s light out. Yeah, who cares? I’m cooking dinner by the light of the moon and craving foods with vitamin D. How can that be right?

You know what else? I’m hungry. Sure, it made sense that on Sunday we ate dinner at 4:45, since our bodies technically still believed it was almost six o’clock. Yes, you read that right. I might as well start cultivating the white hairs upon my head, because we could have taken advantage of the senior citizen early bird specials that night. But yesterday it was Tuesday, so you’d think my body would have somewhat adjusted.

No dice.

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Just the other day an e-mail found its way into my inbox, advertising the new prix fixe menu at one of my favorite local restaurants. Somehow, I’m always excited when I get mail like this, but I’m not quite sure why. After all, prix fixe menus sort of take away all the great parts about eating out. With a prix fixe menu, you don’t get to choose whatever you want, you don’t get to control what courses you are served, and sometimes you don’t even get to pick the wine out!

Yet, there is something really appealing about a prix fixe menu and all the things it does offer.

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