Winter brings a flurry of cold weather things: down jackets, twinkling string lights, oversized sweaters, fires in the fireplace, cookies, cookies, and more cookies. It doesn’t usually bring sun or buds on the trees or Christmas days hikes in a t-shirt and shorts. But that’s all turned upside down this year, so if we’re going to get all addled with our seasonal cues, I figure we might as well make the most of it and eat some s’mores. We can’t eat them over a beach campfire on a warm July night, but we can turn them into cookies and that’s just as good.
Read moreCOTTAGE CHEESE COOKIES
Listen, I understand if you don't want to see cottage cheese and cookies in the same sentence. You think I'm crazy. You think I'm one of those people who like canned pineapple and cinnamon in their cottage cheese, which in my opinion is right up there with other questionable behaviors like wearing sneakers with jeans and putting tiny rain boots on your dog.
Read moreMOLTEN CHOCOLATE CAKE
Happiness is a warm, exhilarating feeling. And being happy because of someone else is even more thrilling: a lightness like you're a balloon buoyed up with air. It's out of your control -- which can be scary and leave you reeling, or amplify your happiness beyond a factor you yourself could achieve.
Being happy like that feels like driving at night up a long stretch of road and hitting every green light, one after another after another. Like walking into the subway station just as the train pulls up. It's Neil Diamond's "Sweet Caroline" and Sam Cooke's "Wonderful World" and Bruce Springsteen's "Dancing in the Dark" coming on the radio. Flipping your pillow onto the cool side in the middle of the night. A drink of cold water when you're incredibly thirsty.
Read moreCHEESE & HERB STAR BREAD
I'm sitting here in my usual spot, thinking about home. My phone pinged this morning with a message from my oldest sister: In one week we'll all be at home together!!!
That means sleeping in my narrow double bed. Brushing my teeth next to my sister in the mirror. The sound of doors opening and shutting as we all get ready for bed, footsteps in the hall in the early morning, the busy warmth of a house full of people.
Read moreCRANBERRY WALNUT CAKE
When I'm home on the farm, I like to take a walk around our three ponds once the sun sets. From afar, the lights of the house are ablaze, standing out like a beacon in the acres of darkness.
I stomp the mud from my boots, open the kitchen door, and warm, sugar-scented air wafts towards me. Two of my sisters are making linzer cookies, one of my dad’s favorites. There’s an open bag of flour on the marble counter. Powdered sugar spills out of its box, a batter-coated spatula is propped up on a mixing bowl, and scraps of cookie dough are strewn around.
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