Lots of thank yous in this post! First, thanks to Sarina for pointing out that today is National Don't Cry Over Spilled Milk Day. I know, it's apropos of absolutely nothing, but it had to be said. Second, thanks to everyone for the birthday wishes! Now that I've got a quarter […]

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I'm going away for a few days this week, and wanted to leave D with an ample supply of goodies for while I'm gone, so yesterday was a non-stop baking marathon chez moi. I'll admit that I find myself constantly reverting to tried-and-true recipe favorites, like those cranberry cornmeal cookies and whole wheat sables. […]

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I am a total sucker for cornmeal. Perhaps it's a texture thing: cornmeal is both grainy (in a good way) and soft. It's responsible for creamy, buttery, polenta, and for crumbly, steaming-hot cornbread. Substitute 1/2 a cup of flour for an equal amount of cornmeal in your go-to pancake recipe, and I […]

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All my culinary kudos are going to Alice Medrich these days. She does that thing none of us want to do: she makes the same darned thing over and over again, each time tweaking the recipe until it comes out just perfect. All that toil translates: Alice's chocolate pecan pie is to die for, her […]

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A while back, Deb of Smitten Kitchen fame blogged about the shortcomings of Martha Stewart's chocolate pretzel cookie recipe. "Dry, bland, and not chocolatey enough" and more colorful adjectives described a cocopretzel that just didn't cut it. She suggested trying to make pretzels out of Dorie Greenspan's very flavorful and buttery chocolate rollout cookies, which […]

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