Time Out Chicago: In a main course, in a dessert, in a cocktail: how a few chefs are making use of persimmons in Chicago. -- Jeff Gordinier Newsweek: A catchy headline, "The End of Pasta," illustrates a serious problem: potential worldwide shortages of durum wheat. -- Julia Moskin The New Yorker: A Red Hook gastrotour by the actor Michael Shannon (who plays the disgraced F.B.I. agent on "Boardwalk Empire") before and after Sandy, from Fort Defiance to Steve's Authentic Key Lime Pies at Pier 41. - Glenn Collins The Awl: If your angle on England is more phobic than Anglophilic, skip the wassail and Tom and Jerry we celebrate this week in Dining, and toast the holidays with some good old Polish krupnik. With a grain-alcohol base, it should fire up the caroling a bit quicker. Start with "Good King Wenceslas." - Patrick Farrell The Santa Barbara Independent: A California farmer on the singing of pistachios. -- Jeff Gordinier Bloomberg Businessweek: The New York Times gets results: Pete Wells's no-star review of Guy Fieri's restaurant has prompted "ironic dining" at the Times Square eatery. -- Susan Edgerley Chow: "It doesn't smell fantastic." In this video segment shot in Minnesota, a spirited attempt to sample lutefisk leads to "a don't-eat-this seizure." -- Jeff Gordinier Bloomberg News: The gap between haves and have-nots is especially striking at McDonald's, where the pay disparity between its front-line workers and its chief executive has doubled in the last 10 years, as the company lobbied against increases in the minimum wage. - Patrick Farrell The Guardian: Felicity Cloake on the art of putting together a Christmas cheese selection. -- Jeff Gordinier Nordic Food Lab: Always educational, if rarely practical: a report from the kitchens at the Nordic Food Lab in Denmark. This installment is on traditional salt-curing methods for game, with a recipe that calls for yogurt whey, juniper dust, spruce resin and melted beeswax, and takes seven months to complete. -- Julia Moskin The New York Times: In case you missed it on Wednesday, Dwight Garner's drily funny review of "The Book of Gin" goes down like a smooth, cold martini. Most of the book, he writes, "closely approximates a watery well drink. Whether you choose to remember the evening at the bar or the hangover the next morning depends on your personality." - Patrick Farrell The Wall Street Journal: Venerable, fancy and fashionable heirloom grains - including einkorn, millet, sorghum, amaranth and quinoa - are increasingly becoming supermarket staples. This guide offers the footnote that the last meal of Otzi, the 5,200-year-old Alpine mummy also known as the Iceman, was an einkorn flatbread. - Glenn Collins