My holiday dance card has never been quite so full as it is this year.
Baking
Maple Oat Bread
There are so many wonderful smells in the world. Fresh lilacs. Dried lavender. Warm laundry. New cars. Chicken roasting. Bacon frying. Brisk autumn air. These are all beautiful and evocative smells that make life so sweet. But bread baking? That might be my raison d’être. Or at least, that’s what I thought to myself two weekends in a row, each time I made maple oat bread. If I could have bread baking in my apartment at all times without even eating the bread, I would be content. It smells that good.
Maple Pecan Bars
After a week in Vermont that was full of blissful relaxation and naps whenever I wanted, I was thrown back into a satisfying yet unrelenting flurry of activity and busy-ness. Bye-bye #vermontvibes.
Home Cooking with Laurie Colwin: Baked Mustard Chicken and Herb Biscuits
Back in mid-May, I made what very well may be the last meal I cook in my home of 16 years. My parents are selling our house. Just like baking chocolate or revenge, it’s bittersweet. After living in five different states all while under the age of 10, we finally landed in New Jersey, where I did most of my growing up and where I learned how great bagels really are. In that house, we’ve said goodbye to dear pets and we’ve welcomed new ones. On our street, I learned how to drive in a car that was recently, after 17 years, traded in for a pick-up truck. (I’m still laughing about how my dad parks his new truck behind his cream-colored Mini-Cooper with racing stripes.) Through the years, I’ve left our pretty, grey house for multiple adventures to Europe and across the U.S. Over almost two years in Brooklyn, I’ve gone back often to spend quiet weekends in the suburbs with my parents and my pets. And, in our home’s kitchen, I’ve learned how to cook.
Homemade Bagels
Cinnamon Rolls with a Maple Cream Cheese Glaze
Several months ago, a coworker of mine gave me a gallon of pure maple syrup. She got it as a gift for Christmas and said she’d never go through all of it. In my Vermont crazed mind, I thought I would go through all of it super quickly. You can do a lot with maple syrup! And, I don’t know if you knew this, I love Vermont. (see here, here, and here)
A Pinch of This 