Thanksgiving pizza.

What to do with that leftover turkey, gravy and cranberry sauce sitting in the ‘fridge? If you run an Italian restaurant, there’s an obvious solution: make pizza.

Bart Retolatto, chef at La Bottega, the stylish Italian trattoria at the Maritime Hotel, is rolling out his latest creation — the Day-After-Thanksgiving pizza-for-one.

An Italian riff on that classic post-Thanksgiving turkey sandwich, the pizza is stuffed, naturally. Between its thin double crusts go roasted turkey, sweet potato puree, wild mushrooms, cranberry sauce and gravy.  It’s available for $12 through the end of the year. (more…)

Cuisinart one-cup coffeemaker.

We love the sneak peek aspect of trade shows, so we beelined to the recent International Hotel, Motel and Restaurant Show at Javits Center. Seeing the panoply of items hotels can choose from prompts reactions from what took them so long to whatever were they thinking?

Here’s a sampling of what we saw – and what you’ll be seeing soon, if not already. To put it another way – expect a lot more square dinner plates, one-cup coffee makers and iPod/iPhone dock station alarm clocks.

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The Candard Hotel.

Q. When is a can of tuna more than just a can of tuna?

A. When it’s grouped with more than 4,000 others to create a grand-scale sculpture of New York’s Standard Hotel, aka The Candard Hotel.

Huh?

Explainer: Each year at Thanksgiving the nation-wide Canstruction competition challenges designers to think up clever ways to fashion sculptures, the wittier the better, out of food cans. The edible creations go on display for a week or so before being dismantled and distributed to the needy.

“The Candard Hotel” was one of 25 structures built from 101,369 cans of food in New York’s Canstruction competition, on view through Monday at the World Financial Center. Among our favorites were “I Think I ‘Can,’” a visual riff on “The Little Engine that Could,” and “Tomato Tornado,” a gigantic funnel constructed from canned tomatoes.

But we love hotels, so the Candard gets our vote. Constructed by DeSimone Consulting Engineers, the 4,056-piece structure comprised of canned tuna and canned green beans depicts the Standard’s double-rectangle structure as well as the High Line park, which ribbons below the hotel.  The deconstructed Candard, by the way, will  be donated to City Harvest and will feed 1,500 New Yorkers.

Meet Mr. Big — with starfruit.

Cocktails as health drinks? In our dreams.

Still, every day, it seems, another hotel bar announces an ingredients purge.  Out with processed juices, prefab mixes and high fructose corn syrups. And in with fresh squeezed juice (complete with traces of pulp), mint leaves and sliced fruit.

Bars at boutique hotels, like the Royalton’s revamped Forty-Four, have led the all-natural, fresh-everything, organic-when-possible charge.

But when New York Central, Grand Hyatt New York’s glass-enclosed restaurant, opens today following a suitably grand-scale renovation, you won’t find items like Rose’s Lime Juice and Tropicana Orange Juice in the bartending fridge.

“It’s all about taste,” says bartender Kevin Draper, who plans to spend a chunk of his shift squeezing juices. “Drinks taste clean and crisp when everything’s fresh.” (more…)

Crosby Bar — home of Mrs. Lilley’s Pumpkin Pie.

Seasonal drinks make some people squirm, but we love them. Give us a pumpkin martini, and we say Thanks(giving)! Stir in a cool story, and it tastes even better.

Which brings us to Mrs. Lilley’s Pumpkin Pie, available for a limited time, naturally, at the Crosby Street Hotel.

Richard Lilley, head barman at the Crosby Bar, credits his wife, a former bartender in Chicago’s fabled Division Street, with the creation of this spicy/creamy concoction 17 years ago.

Like many bartenders, she enjoyed inventing new drinks. One autumn, she mixed up pumpkin shots, as she called them, and served them to the other bartenders after closing time. The drink was such a hit she turned it into a cocktail. (more…)

Aloft Harlem’s (faux) fireplace.

Harlem isn’t known for hotels. In fact, it’s main headliner, the white brick Hotel Theresa – guests included Louis Armstrong, Malcolm X, Little Richard, Josephine Baker and Fidel Castro — closed in 1967.

Aloft Harlem aims to change that. On December 2, this tall, skinny link in Starwood’s fast-growing chain of hip-on-the-cheap hotels – think W on a budget – opens its big glass doors.

And just like that, 124 rooms north of Central Park are yours for the asking – and $239 a night through the end of the year.

With 40 outposts from Abu Dhabi to Austin, Alofts pop up all over the world. But Harlem is the first New York foray (look for Aloft Brooklyn sometime next year).

We attended a preview party this week for a sneak peek. (more…)

Wine — real or virtual?

Can you tweet a wine tasting?

A trio of top sommeliers from Four Seasons hotels aims to find out on November 17.  That night, at 7 pm New York time, anyone anywhere can log onto Twitter, search for hashtag #FSWine, raise a glass (crystal or virtual) and join the online discussion that ensues in what’s billed as the first ever online wine tasting at Four Seasons.

The idea is to sample and discuss wines that will go well with holiday foods.  Two reds and a white made the cut. Participants are encouraged to purchase them locally, sniff, swirl and sip along with the pros, and join the twitter.

The chosen three — Loosen Bros. Dr. L Riesling, Paraiso Syrah and Chappellet Mountain Cuvee – hail from Germany, the Salinas Valley and the Napa Valley respectively and are in the $30 range. (more…)

Jimmy Roberts.

Not so long ago, New York hotel bars were almost like supper clubs without the supper, a classic mix of martinis and live music, part Bobby Short, part Fabulous Baker Boys. For the price of a drink or two or three, a pianist, harpist or jazz trio would entertain you before you headed upstairs or back home.

Times change, fashions change, recessions happen. Cocktail entertainment still thrives at hotels if you look hard enough. Consider Bemelmans Bar at the Carlyle, where the Loston Harris Trio and pianist Chris Gillespie tease standards most evenings. Or the Waldorf’s Peacock Alley, brightened by a pianist most nights (too bad the fabled Cole Porter piano in the front lobby is silent). Or check out the lively lobby at the Ace, where DJs and live rock bands reinvent the genre almost nightly.

But sometimes the best place to hear great hotel cabaret is away from the hotel and the drinks and that annoying conversation you can’t tune out at the next table. (more…)