Check out this flight simulation of US Airways Flight 1549, the plane that landed safely in New York's Hudson River by by super-cool-under-pressure Captain Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger. The audio is from the actual flight and subsequent crash landing into the Hudson, and the whole thing feels very realistic with the alternating audio from Sully and the air traffic controllers. It's OK to enjoy it! No one got hurt too bad!

Do you remember the first drink you ever ordered? Mine was an Amaretto sour -- not very adventurous, and though I like them to this day, I’ve been fine-tuning my drink list ever since. I’m now partial to sidecars, although more often than not, a bartender turns me down. So I’ll ask for something easier -- a lemon drop, a mojito, or, facing a very limited bar, that girly drink every mixologist knows how to mix: a cosmo. But I’m always embarrassed to utter that word. I am not a cosmo girl. They’ll do in a pinch, but how much lovelier to saunter up to a long bar and order something refined, raising one’s eyebrow and rolling each syllable off the tongue -- Bran-dy Al-ex-an-der, or Sing-a-pore Sling? The elegant romance of these classics is evoked by Assouline’s glossy new picture book, Vintage Cocktail. Gorgeously photographed by Laziz Hamani, the drinks in this coffee-table treasure were mixed at an equally urbane watering hole, Bemelmans Bar at The Carlyle Hotel.

When I walked into Book Soup on Sunset Boulevard for Mary Forbserg Weiland’s book reading on Monday night, it was immediately clear this was not your average book party. For one thing, there was an inordinate number of extremely tall, extremely beautiful, extremely well-dressed women in a crowded indie book store. That would be because the author was also a model. Then, there was the presence of a genuine rock star or two ... Dave Navarro (If I really have to tell you -- Red Hot Chili Peppers, Jane’s Addiction, yadda yadda yadda), and Dave Kushner of Velvet Revolver. A writer version of a rock star, Cameron Crowe, was also there, and yes, we stammered something stupid to him. The reason for all the celebrity fanfare? You might recognize her last name: she was married to Scott Weiland, the lead singer of Velvet Revolver and Stone Temple Pilots. Her friends in high places came to support her debut book, a memoir about her drug addiction and mental illness, co-written with Vanity Fair writer/editor Larkin Warren.

Even a humble sandwich shop is, in Manhattan, prone to the haute treatment. Since 2003, ’wichcraft has been laying out gourmet takes on what goes between two slices of bread. Of course, that’s only the beginning. This year, founders Tom Colicchio and Sisha Ortuzar published a book on the subject, 'wichcraft: Craft a Sandwich into a Meal -- And a Meal into a Sandwich. And Ortuzar has turned the upstairs of the Flatiron ‘wichcraft into a destination dining spot. The menu is market-driven and the combinations are creative, like short rib with romesco and grilled scallions, or a trippy fluke ceviche with green mango and watermelon. In that spirit, Ortuzar passes along a side dish that’ll class up any Thanksgiving spread.

I picked up Lina Hanson's Eco-Beautiful: The Ultimate Guide to Natural Beauty and Wellness a while ago, and have not been able to put it down. The book is a gentle reminder that it is possible to green every aspect of your life, and Hanson introduces concepts in a way that makes transitioning into a conscious lifestyle less exasperating and more empowering. I've been trying to take measures of my own in this department, making little changes in my beauty routine that have really started to make a difference -- and one of the things I am trying to incorporate is what she calls "Juice Couture."

As someone whose favorite dish is Trainwreck Fries (pickled jalapeño, buttermilk ranch, smoked bacon, and scallions, from Virgil’s Real Barbecue), I try to make up for bad fuel with good, choosing organic and local produce whenever I can. In the green versus conventional debate, for me it comes down to fresh food that doesn’t rack up frequent flier miles or need to wear a hazmat suit. (Supporting local and small agribusiness, the health of growers, and a happier planet notwithstanding.) What started off as a health thing is now just as much about taste. I find that many organic and conventional foods can be as different from each other as a symphony from a one-man band. New nuances of flavor appear in the most ordinary of ingredients. What gastronome wouldn’t want that?

Today's brisk morning found New York's fashion set SoHo-bound, but instead of queuing for yet another sample sale, they sidled into Prada's artistically palatial store on Prince Street for the unveiling of their newest creative fare - -the Prada book. Just what we need, another fashion book telling us what to wear, when to wear it, what to pair it with and flashing papparazzi pics of all sorts of celebs wearing it before. Thankfully, there's none of that in the new take-away tome simply entitled Prada. Arguably the most desired geometric shape in the world, the inverted triangle is worth very little by itself; that is until P-R-A-D-A is stamped inside, giving it a life -- and subsequent price tag -- worthy of a legacy.

Dismal weather brings out the cook in me. There’s nothing like cozying in your kitchen and whipping up a warm, satisfying dish on a hot stove. It’s also carb season, and what better way to fuel up than a tangled pile of spaghetti? And I’m not talking your childhood sauce-n-glop. No sir. We found a recipe for designer pasta that’ll knock the stockings off your most well-heeled dinner guests: Isaac Mizrahi’s Mushroom Truffle Spaghetti, published this month in Assouline’s CFDA American Fashion Cookbook. Mizrahi’s dishy dish is just one of dozens of stylish entrée, appetizer, dessert, and drink recipes from a roster of fashion’s finest. Hungry? Try Zac Posen’s great-grandma’s butterscotch wafers, or Diane von Furstenberg’s chicken, or Bill Blass’ prune whip.

Guides to dinner parties tend toward the dowdy and the sanctimonious. They suggest dated social rituals, perhaps witnessed in footed pajamas from the top of a staircase. Their advice to fledgling cooks tends to not be of the “stir like a mofo” variety. Not so Forking Fantastic!, which sets out to “put the party back in dinner party.” Authors Zora O’Neill and Tamara Reynolds met when they worked at Prune. They discovered they shared a neighborhood, Astoria, and an affinity for adventuring with food. From that commonality, Sunday Night Dinners were born. Friends, friends of friends, and eventually more or less random strangers were added to the mix. O’Neill and Reynolds share wisdom accumulated over years of feasting, walking readers through stocking kitchen and cabinets, a “baby-step dinner party,” and on to full-blown blowouts.

Are you not working today on account of some government-sanctioned holiday that today celebrates its 75th year of being a federal holiday and otherwise only existed in some make-believe land called "Colorado" before 1934? It commemorates a day when some dude from Europe stuck a flag on what would later be American soil and declared it "discovered." That is, despite the existence of indigenous tribes before he and his band of small pox-carriers infected America with his plight of in-breeding, poor animal husbandry, and genocide. Since then though, America's evolved into a post-racial paradise, where its denizens, wrought with liberal guilt, remain unable to properly reflect back on the scourge of Columbus-inspired racism as it continues to rear its hydra-licious heads in our contemporary culture. So here's an abbreviated recap.