Here we are at midweek already. Isn't it funny how some weeks drag and others fly? Well, the newspaper food pages decided to stuff themselves silly today with good stuff for us to eat up. From heritage turkeys to chilled oysters to fried pizza to coconut cake, there is a delightful assortment of food news today.

Meatloaf, Pizza, Biscuits: Cold Comfort Extravaganza

Falling temps combined with rising holiday ennui may have prompted food editors to focus on hearty classics this week. Melissa Clark's N.Y. Times "A Good Appetite" column is about meatloaf, and Clark explores ways to do a gourmet one instead of the kind you remember from your 1960s or 70s youth. While cooking the meat rare is one way to make it juicy, she points out rare meatloaf sounds about as delicious as "liver tartare." What is the trick? She makes her loaf-burgers with the fattiest ground beef available.

For dessert on the comfort front, there's a piece about coconut cake that has sent Hot Plates on a Memory Lane stroll -- a fresh-off-the-grocery-truck, in-a-box kind of stroll. Also a sitting-at-the-diner-counter stroll. Entenmann's coconut cake, purchased from Waldbaums and dated fresh ... what a spend of $2.99 at the A&P. Then later, in our 20s, tucking into a laughably tremendous slice at the lunch counter at the Neptune Diner in Queens. I guess not everybody waxes rhapsodic about this classic, though: "While I find the chewy texture and sweet flakiness appealing," the writer says, "a co-worker once compared eating coconut shreds to chewing fingernail clippings." Eew.

Pizza in a pan, but it's not "pan pizza" but rather "pizza frita": Mark "Minimalist" Bittman does it again with this idea for pizza done on the stove. Sounds like a nicely crisp, olive oil-slick crust, and you can play around with toppings.

Biscuits ... yeah. They are one of those foods some people feel really passionate about, and others (we won't name names) just kinda think about Fido when they hear the word. If you are a biscuit connoisseur, you'll love Jane Black's Washington Post article on the alchemy of biscuit-making. She travels to Charleston to get the real thing, though we hear she could have tasted some pretty great ones in D.C.

Muffins are everywhere. You can find them in most any to-go place, cold and doughy and flat-tasting much of the time. There are definitely shops who make a mean muffin (a certain coffee chain's pumpkin cream cheese one does not deserve to be dissed, we have to say), but we haven't heard of anyone as inspired as Kim Boyce. This L.A. Times piece on muffins highlights a pastry chef-cum-stay-at-home-mom who rassles up creations with "dates and velvety roasted yams" or "sautéed apples, cinnamon and freshly grated nutmeg" -- all with a whole-grain base.

Hey, what a great idea! Florence Fabricant of the N.Y. Times tips us off not only to wagyu beef cold cuts (definitely not available at a Safeway near you) and uptown chocolate, but to this great new invention: Mama Fresco's Pizza Saver. If this triangular doo-hickey really works, we'll have to get one.

Brainier Things

Also in the realm of food chemistry, we have a piece this week out of New York about chefs' increasing use of science. It explains hydrocolloids -- essentially particles that help liquids form a gel. "Cooking is chemistry, after all," Kenneth Chang writes: "Searing meat does not seal in juices, for example, but high heat does induce chemical reactions among the proteins that make it tastier." The artsy Alinea chef Grant Achatz uses agar-agar and gelatin, both hydrocolloids, "to make transparent sheets that he drapes over hot foods."

There is a little review of a new book about oysters in the L.A. Times by "an oyster geek of the first order" which will teach lovers of this briny bivalve everything they ever wanted to know and more. Could be a nice gift idea.

You shouldn't miss this very fun and cute (especially the photo of the "four-footed cheesemaker" snacking from a visitor's hand) article about a trip to a raw-milk cheese tasting and farm tour. A bus full of New Yorkers head to the area's "cheese belt" led by Saxelby Cheesemongers, whose owner was intent on not having it be "snobbish" or "pretentious" -- not "a lacteal 'Sideways,'" as the writer puts it. Even if you don't love cheese, you'll love the description of the herd of sheep taking off when a visitor mistakenly opens up a gate.

Turkey Prep

What is a heritage turkey? "The birds with the right markings ... the right ratio of meat to bone, so [the] turkeys don’t end up like the average supermarket bird, with 70 percent of their bodies breast meat." According to this very interesting N.Y. Times piece, turkeys whose genes trace back to the 1800s are increasingly in demand for their fattier, and therefore tastier, meat. It is no minor expense to get your hands on this kind of historic treat: as Thanksgiving approaches, "they will be in the kitchens of people who paid as much as $209 a bird."

Lipstick peppers and pomegranates are written up as "peaking" in the L.A. Times Farmer's Market feature. It includes good descriptions of how to eat both.

Pumpkins are painted, carved, or smashed, depending on who's got a hold of one. But as this writer in The Washington Post points out, more people might try cooking something other than pie with them. Roast it, puree it into soup, make it sweet or savory -- it is a good filler for some creations and it can be a star for fans of true pumpkin taste.

OK, relax. We still have weeks before we have to deal with turkeys. On a merry note, here's a great piece from Dallas where chefs are consulted for their favorite party-season recipes. We are coming to any party featuring pomegranate martinis and wild mushroom and mozzarella fondue on grilled bread. Before the big-deal holidays come, go lighthearted and host a last-minute snacks-and-drinks gathering.