Y&H enjoys James Norton's clever, bone-dry work, and, no, it's not just a mutual admiration society thing.

If you haven't noticed, Y&H has been obsessed with fried chicken lately, Maryland and otherwise. I think it's because fried chicken is the one dish that, above all others,  can inspire fear, loathing, and adoration. In the wrong hands, it can be a tasteless hunk of bird meat, simultaneously oily and dry.

But when handled by a skilled practitioner, fried chicken is one of those rare plates that brings both country folk and urban dweller to the table, each searching for new superlatives to capture that perfect, well-seasoned balance of crispy skin to moist flesh.

In this video, the Lee Bros. give us some insight into their ideal fried chicken, courtesy of Charles Gabriel, chef and owner of Rack & Soul in New York City.

Later today,  I'll point you to an unusual outlet for superb fried chicken, a Maryland pub that time has forgot.

But whether or not the idea ever becomes reality, Y&H has a question for you potential urban farmers: Do you have any idea how to tend your own flock?

Chow.com does. Check out all these videos on urban chickens:

Then check out this easy, tasty-looking recipe for nachos, the ultimate football snack.

Y&H loves Chow.com's supertaster James Norton, a foodie who knows how to straddle that fine line between pretentiousness and passion. He's like the Comic Book Guy without the superciliousness.

Y&H has already featured videos with Norton sampling commercial ice cream toppings and baby food. This time the  supertaster takes on the world's most expensive beer, Samuel Adams' Utopia, which can be had for the same price as a prix-fixe meal for two on Thursday night at Chez Panisse.

Here's hoping you find a little Utopia this holiday season.

Y&H salutes Chow.com for this smart, straight-forward video on how to brine your turkey. Brining, of course, is a terrific way to avoid dry, tasteless, and under-seasoned birds that require a gallon of gravy to make them palatable.

But as chef Michael Chiarello from Bottega in Yountville, Calif., points out, brining is no insurance against inferior turkey. Plenty of things can go wrong with this preparation, too. Take a look and then learn how to brine the right way.

Chow.com "supertaster" James Norton takes up the challenge of trying to describe four different commercial ice cream toppings. Two of them he actually likes, but his description of the Smucker's Magic Shell "limited edition" cherry topping is priceless.

It tastes, Norton says, like someone "melted a piece of watermelon Hubba Bubba onto my ice cream."

There are few pleasures greater than eating pomegranate seeds fresh from the pod, and I'd say that even if the fruit weren't a favorite of my wife, Carrie, whom, incidentally, I married three years ago today after gobbling down many pomegranates together. Pomegranates are a symbol of fertility, you know.

Pomegranates are also a bitch to eat.

My Field Guide to Produce offers a painfully protracted, seven-step process to extract the seeds. It's a wonder anyone eats these things. Check it out:

1. Cut off the crown.
2. Gently scoop out some of the center white core with a spoon.
3. Score just through the outer rind, marking the fruit into quarters.
4. Place your thumb in the center of the core and gently pull apart the sections.
5. Peel away the white pith and discard.
6. Turn the skin inside out and pop out the seeds.
7. To separate the seeds from any remaining white pith, place sections of pomegranate in a bowl of cold water and gently swish around. The white pieces should float to the top while the seeds sink.

Oh, they forgot Step 8: Die of hunger.

Sheesh, this Chow tip makes the process sooo much easier.

Bonus trivia: According to the Field Guide, "The French named their hand-tossed explosive after the seed-scattering properties of the fruit." (Incidentally, The French name for the fruit is grenade.)

Chow has deemed Russian River Supplication the perfect beer, a sour brown ale with sour cherries and three strains of wild yeast (including that Brettanomyces you may have heard of)...and oak-aged in Pinot Noir barrels. As part of their "The Perfect" series, which also crowns hamburgers, martinis, olive oil, and a host of other foods, Lessley Anderson tours the brewery with Russian River's Vinnie Cilurzo and discusses the aging process as well as working with the wild yeasts that have made the name "Russian River" something of a rosary for East Coast beer nerds.

I'm not ready to single out the perfect beer — I haven't even tried Supplication yet — but I will say that Consecration, also by Russian River, is certainly a perfect beer. I was reunited with this lush sour beer last weekend during a trip to San Francisco, where I sampled it on draft (repeatedly) and brought a bottle home. (Read on for the beer-porn description.)

Consecration is a strong, light-bodied sipping beer with a deep garnet color that looks like being trapped inside a cherry. It ages in cabernet sauvignon barrels, basking in French oak while soaking in the flavors of the black currants added to each barrel. The Brett sourness blends in with the currants' tartness, making you pucker and mash your lips around like the obnoxiously cute girl in the Welch's commercial. Sweet berry flavors come to the party too, along with notes of funky yeast, chocolate, and light oak (showcasing the difference between delicate wine oak and heavier bourbon oak). The world's best beer? Who knows. But it tastes like perfection.

(Sadly, Russian River beers are sparse on the West Coast and nonexistent here. But Vinnie brought his yeasty gang to Savor last year, so we'll keep an eye on the beerfest circuit and let you know next time they're in town.)

Screenshot from Chow