Christmas

Christmas and New Year’s mornings are perfect times to enjoy a special breakfast. Here is a collection of some of my favorite holiday breakfast and brunch recipes. They are mostly on the sweeter side, though there are bagels and buttermilk biscuits and bacon cheddar scones if you’re more of a savory fan, and they are …

This cashew brittle is just the thing for when you want to make something that feels impressive but don’t want to spend more than 15 minutes making it. It doesn’t require any fancy ingredients (ok, you should really get some Maldon sea salt for this if you don’t have some already, but really any sea …

These cookies. Oh, these cookies. They’re familiar, in that they’re crisp chocolate wafer sandwich cookies, a little bit like Oreos but you can use better chocolate to make them richer and deeper and more chocolatey. The surprising part is the filling, which is white chocolate that gets flavored with drops of clove and orange and …

Cranberries are the under-appreciated fruit of fall and winter. They’re often relegated to a sad cylinder of canned cranberry sauce at the edge of the Thanksgiving table, an afterthought to the apples and pumpkins taking up the dessert space. Which is a shame, because when strategically deployed, cranberry desserts not only bring a welcome burst …

Eggnog is a divisive beverage. It inspires strong feelings. There are some who look forward to the time of year when it’s socially acceptable to down a glass of frothy nutmeg-topped egg and cream, and others who consider it a gloppy scourge of the holiday season. I have always fallen firmly into the former camp. …

I’ve been slow to get into the holiday spirit this winter. I’ve tried. I watched the charming A Very Murray Christmas on Netflix. I’ve listened to some of my favorite holiday music—Vince Guaraldi, Bing Crosby, Nat King Cole, The Pogues’ “Fairytale of New York,” The Pretenders’ “2000 Miles,” Joni Mitchell’s “River”—and none of it has quite …