Tag: holiday

Turning out a new fave cookie

[O]ccasionally (well, perhaps more often than occasionally), I become mesmerized by little cooking videos on the Internet. You know the ones, where an overhead camera view captures the step-by-step process (often sped up to keep the video short) that makes whatever is being made look like a snap. Maybe sometimes […]

Dancing with ‘sugarplums’

[J]ust what are sugarplums, anyway? According to Clement Moore’s classic holiday story poem, “’Twas the Night Before Christmas,” children had visions of them dancing in their heads. And sugarplum fairies flit magically in the most well-known and traditional of holiday ballets, “The Nutcracker.” When I have done my own envisioning […]

Dishing on the simplest holiday side

[I] think more than any other meal, it is the sides of Thanksgiving that get us all excited. Never is more effort put into all the bowls and platters on the holiday table; never is there more variety (outside of a summer potluck). And they bring with them rich flavors […]

Deciding on witch finger cookies

[E]very year, I get a kick out of the parade of homemade Halloween treats in magazines, on websites and blog posts. From the most creative (cupcakes topped with “skeletons” made of yogurt pretzels and marshmallows) to the least (a full-sized fake plastic skeleton whose ribcage was merely loaded with sausages […]

Bread of the Month: Revering an artist and a Rosca de Reyes

[B]eyond some of her work and her unforgettable image — dark-haired, piercing-eyed, flower-crowned — I didn’t know enough about the Mexican artist and icon Frida Kahlo until the 2002 biopic “Frida,” starring Salma Sayek, in a stirring performance examining her life. That movie, for me, ignited an admiration for the […]

Keeping the fire with cinnamon candy

[T]hroughout my childhood, I was treated to a tale of candy. The imagination can almost act as the proverbial “candy store,” and I was the kid who went there, as my parents recounted a magical place. Next to a local movie theater, there existed a candy store where the proprietor […]

Bread of the Month: Spicing up a baked doughnut

[I] know that I’m not the only one who associates doughnuts with Halloween, although I suppose I could associate doughnuts with anything, given a chance. Sunset magazine also pondered the connection between the traditionally fried treat and our favorite fall holiday. In an online article, Sunset reminisced on issues of […]

Bread of the Month: Filling the heart — with jam

“The Heart wants what it wants, “ poet Emily Dickinson wrote, “– or else it does not care.” [M]y heart, or at least the scones I made into hearts, wanted jam, and who was I to deny them? Scones and jam have gone together since the clocks could strike three […]