Archive for the 'holidays' Category
Friday Night Lights
December 3rd, 2010by Caroline My kids are fascinated by Hanukkah. Everything about the holiday, from its length, to the rituals, the candles and the games and songs, delights them. Eli checked a Hanukkah book out of the library and is working on composing a new Hanukkah song. Meanwhile, although I haven’t fried up any latkes, I’ve found [...]
Doughnut Muffins
December 1st, 2010by Caroline This time of year, seasonal eating is often also holiday eating, as we slide from Halloween through Thanksgiving into Christmas and New Year’s. I want to take each of these in turn, give them their due, and then take a breath before the next one is upon us. Which is why I love [...]
Thankful
November 26th, 2010by Caroline Wednesday afternoon, after lunch. We’re hanging out, starting to think about, maybe, some Thanksgiving dinner prep. My brother-in-law calls; he’s on his way, but can’t stay as long as he expected. He’ll leave after lunch on Thursday, instead of staying through dinner. Hmm. Thanksgiving dinner is always, in our family, in the evening: [...]
Plum Cake, for Rosh Hashanah or any other day
September 10th, 2010by Caroline You know how it goes. The school year begins and suddenly the calendar fills up: parent association meetings; soccer practices and games; school fundraisers. You try to get friends over for dinner and it takes a dozen emails and weeks of planning. Except, every once in a while, it comes together quickly, magically, [...]
Homemade Marshmallows
February 19th, 2010by Lisa The Valentine’s Day lollipops were a disaster. Two recipes, three flavors, three batches, nearly 150 suckers later, and not a single one came out right. They were pretty, but not so tasty, and didn’t harden. They’re not a good activity for kids because well, candy is really hot. So, on February 13 we [...]
Pasta with Beets for Valentine’s Day
February 14th, 2010by Caroline There was a time when Valentine’s Day had me making heart-shaped chocolate sandwich cookies, or even, just a few weeks before Ben was born, brownie ice cream sandwiches (I’ll never forget the lady who saw me standing in the ice cream aisle — I was looking for flavor inspiration — and commented, “It’s [...]
Hickory Puffs
December 30th, 2009My dad and sons added a new cookie to their repertoire this year, one I grew up with thanks to the nut-gathering efforts of my dad: hickory puffs. Now, most Californians don’t know about hickory nuts; the trees grow in New England and Wisconsin, and the nut shells are so hard and the nutmeat so [...]
Chocolate Hazlenut Roulade
December 30th, 2009By Lisa My Christmas table wouldn’t be complete without a chocolate roulade, which my sister calls a giant ho ho, or giant yodel, and she’s right. But it’s delicious, and deceptively easy to make. I’ve been making this recipe for about 8 years, though the recipe has morphed into its current incarnation. I start with [...]
Cooking with Granddad
December 30th, 2009by Caroline We don’t have quite as many holiday food traditions as Lisa’s family — the meals always vary depending on whether we stay in California or travel east to my parents’ home — but one tradition that reaches back generations is, as in many families, cookie baking. My grandmother and mother kept tallies of [...]
Tomato Confit
December 28th, 2009by Lisa For two years now, I’ve served my Christmas filet with tomato confit. It’s totally delicious, sweet, herbaceous, jammy concoction that is pretty and complex enough for your holiday table. But every year I have way too much left over. This year, I halved the recipe and still had too much, and so when [...]