The biggest holiday party flex? A raw bar. When I think about the moment I fell in love with food, I think about oysters. I was maybe 12, and slurping down a raw oyster felt like an alarming dare. I ...

Use a kitchen towel to hold your oyster. "It's the safest way to be," Kolender says. Put the kitchen towel flat on a surface.

Oysters are diverse, sustainable, increasingly accessible, and festive—and preparing them in your own kitchen is eminently doable. Tasting expert Jack Bishop explains how to eat oysters at home.

They’re famed for making us frisky. Yet far from being seductive, whenever I’ve had oysters I’ve felt ungainly and gauche.