Blackbird cocktails
On the fourth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me Four calling birds, three French hens, two turtledoves, and a partridge in a pear tree. I realize that a blackbird seems like a stretch from the songbirds in…
Orange-mustard roast chicken
I’m trying to catch up on the Portland food scene while I’m home, and while reading recent reviews in Willamette Week stumbled across my favorite assessment of local restaurant culture: “Other Portland restaurants have in-house butchery, of course, but Old…
Turtledove caramels
On the second day of Christmas, my true love gave to me Two turtledoves and a partridge in a pear tree. These are by far the easiest caramels I’ve ever made. Instead of anxiously keeping tabs on every grain of…
Pear and hazelnut pie
On the first day of Christmas, my true love gave to me A partridge in a pear tree. Merry Christmas to everyone! I hope that Santa determined that you were nice this year, unless you really deserved that stocking full…
The 12 days of Christmas
Fasten your seatbelts, people. We’re taking this Christmas carol to the kitchen. To celebrate the season and fill all of my free time during my days off, we’re going to cook, bake, and drink our way through the 12 days…
Why rest crepe batter?
In reading a bunch of crepe recipes in preparation for the crepe cake, one common element stuck out to me: they all called for resting the batter before cooking. Times varied from an hour to overnight, and none of them…
Chocolate-coconut icebox cookies
I love the holiday season for too many reasons to count: silly family traditions, ambitious knitting projects that result in half-finished presents, Christmas carols everywhere, and COOKIES. All of the cookies. We have to make a batch of sugar cookies…
November updates
We’ve already talked about the biggest event of the month: I moved to Boston! Well, technically I live in Cambridge. But given that the list of places I can get to without mapping it remains in the single digits (grocery…
Honey and olive oil crepe cake
One of the perks of working at America’s Test Kitchen comes in the form of very exciting visitors. During my first week, Dorie Greenspan stopped in to see our kitchen, give an informal talk, and inform us all that she…
The myth of turkey and tryptophan
As we all look forward to some socially acceptable gluttony tomorrow, let’s fast-forward to the inevitable consequences: the food coma. You know how it goes. You say you’ll just get a bite of everything, but then the cranberry sauce really…
