Wednesday Links: The New Classic Cocktails, Mad Science and How to Buy a Duck

[Photographs: Evan Sung and Christopher Smith for The New York Times ]

Welcome to the first edition of Wednesday Links. This is our weekly collection of four of the most interesting food links we've discovered in the past week. Enjoy!

Nick:

Heston Blumenthal's Mad Scientist Christmas Dinner
This video showcases Heston's perfect Christmas meal...and I thought my Christmas dinner of fried chicken and grits was time consuming.

Scientists with Cocktail Shakers
Six modern cocktail classics from the aughts. I'm particularly smitten with the Red Hook.

Blake:

Adam Gopnik on Our Hunger for Cookbooks
Adam Gopnik's rumination on whether cookbooks can actually teach us anything--and why we still read them.

Duck: Famously Fatty, Simply Delicious
A perfect argument for why duck is the greatest bird to cook with, plus a rundown of breeds.

Cocktail, Cookbooks, Duck, Heston Blumenthal, Wednesday Links