This week's Dish offers a multitude of ways to party this season (some green, some decadent) from EarthSave's holiday dinner to uber-indulgent parties catered by Daveed's. If you like to mix your holiday mingling with social consciousness, start with EarthSave, which will host its holiday potluck dinner Dec. 14.  

You know the scene: A jangled Parker family makes their way to a Chinese restaurant on Christmas Day, still mourning their turkey's fate as a plaything for 785 "Notafinga!" bloodhounds. Create your own Christmas story with one of these seven recommendations for dinner out on Dec. 25.  

I recently had the opportunity to have lunch at Cincinnati COOKS!, a kitchen in an old building on Ezzard Charles Drive across from a vacant lot. No, it's not the scene you get at most restaurants in Cincinnati, but this building has a thousand times more soul and spirit than all of them put together.   

This week, The Dish is on a mission to make sure local families have food for Thanksgiving. Because of the flailing economy and lost jobs, local food banks are experiencing severe shortages, and some of our neighbors might be without Thanksgiving dinner this year.  

I'm a lover of things that can’t be put in a box and escape all attempts to define them. This has included people, art, literature, cities and a variety of spiritual and political movements, but it hasn’t included bars — at least not until I went to Gordo’s Pub & Grill. Smack in the middle of Norwood on Montgomery Road, Gordo’s looks like just another neighborhood bar with neon beer signs in the window.  

Every year my family and I eat Thanksgiving dinner at Paparazzi, an Italian restaurant in Boston. And every year I long for the antique drop leaf table that stretched across our old farmhouse dining room where we had Thanksgiving dinner during my first 30 years. Here are three great local options for eating out on Thanksgiving.  

It was supposedly the Duchess of Bedford who first introduced the world to afternoon tea. One of Queen Victoria's ladies-in-waiting, the Duchess was afflicted - so many were back then - with a 'sinking feeling' everyday at 4 o'clock. So she asked her servants to begin sneaking a pot of tea and assorted breads to her room.  

Recently, I was invited to a turtle fry in Ripley, Ohio, an hour east of Cincinnati along U.S. Route 52. According to local legend, it’s been going on for generations. I went with three questions: 1) How do you catch a turtle 2) How do you prepare it and 3) Is it worth eating? Like all events in Ripley, there was a fascinating crowd.  

I don't believe I've written a restaurant review while I was still eating, but it's the perfect indicator of how fast our world moves. Going to It's Just Crepes (39 E. Court St., 513-63-CREPE) downtown was a big reminder of that: This place really caters to our busyness.  

As you sit by the fire in one of The Tousey House's dining rooms, you can almost feel the energy of the last 186 years, the life span of this Kentucky federal-style home.