If you’re sprucing up your holiday table, looking for a very special hostess gift or a great Christmas present, look no further than the Ultima Thule, Iittala’s icy take on glassware. I’m as crazy about its appearance as I am its history.

Originally created by Finnish designer Tapio Wirkkala for Finnair’s new route to JFK in the late 60s, this cool glass looks like a dripping chunk of ice that was recently brought in from the cold. In fact, the labor-intensive technique that creates its shape was pioneered by Wirkkala and is called the ice glass technique.

The Ultima Thule comes in a variety of sizes, from cordial to cocktail to tumbler, so you’re sure to find one to fit any and every need. I love the tiny cordial glasses, perfect for serving limoncello or nocino after dinner, as well as the somewhat larger, but still short and stout cocktail glasses and tumblers that once graced Finnair meal trays.

More than a glass, the Ultima Thule is a work of art. And a sensational gift.

—Tracy Schneider

It’s Friday again! Full up from Thanksgiving goodness, you may be wondering what other culinary challenges lie ahead. A few suggestions:

• These chocolatey waffle cookies aren’t (just) for breakfast.
• Another possible breakfast choice, double chocolate pecan pie.
• Chocolate chip cookie brittle. Or, as the baker says: “Basically an entire pan of the crisp, brown-buttery, sugary edges of the very best chocolate chip cookie, aka The Best Part.”
• On a healthy note, stacked pear salads that make a statement.
• And, back to the sweet stuff: chocolate caramel bars look delectable.
• Food52 serves up the Piggyback. More proof bourbon and bacon go together.
• In case you’re already missing turkey, a parting shot of a super bacontastic one from Wan Life to Live:

Photo courtesy of Wan Life to Live

While you’re out and about, reading up on food news, you might also be looking for Black Friday deals. Check out Amazon’s deals on kitchen and dining essentials, while supplies last:

• KitchenAid Professional 6-quart stand mixer in Meringue
• Keurig Elite Gourmet single-serve coffeemaker
• Cuisinart Mini Prep Plus food processor
• Tom Douglas by Pinzon 10-inch chef’s knife
• Mikasa Parchment Red 40-piece dinnerware set
• Pinzon wine box stand

Did I miss a not-to-be-missed foodie link from this past week? Add a comment or tweet at me!

Have a great weekend!

—KitchenMaus

The New York Times announced their 100 Notable Books on Thanksgiving Eve (they’ll appear in the print edition of the Book Review on Sunday), which completes the annual triumvirate of US top 100s, including PW’s list and ours. I won’t go to the cut & paste lengths of linking to all 100 of the NYT’s picks, but you can find them all in this list on Amazon. What I will do, as I have done in the past two years, is pick out the books we all three agree on. The three lists don’t all cover the same territory (the NYT and PW don’t include kids’ books, and the NYT also leaves art books, cookbooks, kids’ books, and other specialty titles for other year-end lists, while PW also doesn’t include kids’ books and shows a much heavier interest in comics, religion, and genre fiction than we or the NYT do in our main lists), but our common picks do give a sort of consensus on the most-admired fiction and nonfiction of the year.

Eleven books appear on all three lists, the same number as in 2007 (last year we agreed on 13), although I’m also going to list two books that we and PW agreed on that also appeared in the NYT’s other year-end lists:

• Asterios Polyp by David Mazzucchelli
• Await Your Reply by Dan Chaon
• Sag Harbor by Colson Whitehead
• The Age of Wonder by Richard Holmes
• Born Round by Frank Bruni
• Cheever by Blake Bailey
• Columbine by Dave Cullen
• Fordlandia by Greg Grandin
• The Good Soldiers by David Finkel
• The Lost City of Z by David Grann
• Shop Class as Soulcraft by Matthew Crawford
• Momofuku by David Chang and Peter Meehan (not in NYT’s 100 Notable, but in their best cookbooks list)
• The Jazz Loft Project by Sam Stephenson (not in NYT’s 100 Notable, but in their Gift Books list)

Only two novels pleased everybody, along with a graphic novel. And what else do you notice about these shared picks? Yes, just like the much-debated PW top 10, no women (but four Davids and a Dave!)…

Is this list a hint of what to expect from the NYT’s 10 Best, coming next Wednesday? Last year half of that list came from the consensus picks, but in 2007 only two did. My money’s on The Age of Wonder, The Good Soldiers, Lost City of Z, and Cheever to be on that list, along with the big award winners Wolf Hall and Let the Great World Spin, which were in our overall top three but didn’t make the PW list. But we’ll see… —Tom

P.S. One further clarification: for those readers who don’t read the NYT tea leaves as closely as many in the industry do, the Sunday Book Review and the daily book reviews are entirely separate, and so while the 100 Notable and 10 Best lists are put together by the Sunday Book Review staff, the regular daily reviewers—Kakutani, Maslin, and Garner—have each chosen their own 2009 top 10s. Those looking for further consensus will note that four of the books above (The Good Soldiers and Lost City of Z for Kakutani and Await Your Reply and The Age of Wonder for Maslin) also appeared on those lists.