My First Strata

In The Family Stone, one of my mom's favorite movies, there's a key scene involving a strata. Sarah Jessica Parker's character makes a breakfast strata for her in-laws-to-be, and then later ends up covered in it. I came across a Nigella recipe for a strata and decided to try making it as Christmas morning breakfast for my family.

Happily, it turned out well and no one ended up wearing it. It's actually the perfect easy Christmas morning breakfast because the combination of bread, eggs, and cheese is prepared the night before (in only about 15 minutes time!), so all you need to do in the morning is bake it while you're opening presents. It's also the kind of recipe where you're pretty much an expert at it after your first try, so you can make it over and over again. Truth be told, this picture is actually of my second strata. It was in a prettier dish than the first one I made on Christmas.

Worst Book Award

I have to preface this by saying that I'm not someone who automatically disparages all chick-lit. I've certainly read and enjoyed my fair share (see here, here, and here for proof).

Now that that's out of the way, I can say that Chasing Harry Winston by Lauren Weisberger is officially one of the worst book's I've ever read.

You might be wondering why the bad title and cover didn't tip me off in the first place. My thought process in picking it was a) I found the book for $1 at a church book sale; b) it said it was by the author of The Devil Wears Prada, which was a decent enough movie; and c) I thought it would be a nice, quick, light read on the heels of the sometimes heavy Little Bee, perfect for the holiday time when I was more interested in baking and watching Christmas movies than reading.

I'm not exaggerating when I say that I can't remember ever disliking a book so much while I was reading it as I did with this one. Something made me stick with it to the very end, which only confirmed the bad impression that I had formed at the beginning. My biggest problem with it was that the characters were beyond stereotypical- I literally hated them during every moment of the book.

Not only does this win the award for one of my least-favorite books, but I think this post might win the award for the most scathing book review I've ever done on this blog!

The Twelfth Cookie of Christmas

Twelve Chocolate-dipped Pecan Bars

These are a Barefoot Contessa recipe. How bad could that be?

And that marks the end of the Twelve Cookies of Christmas. I tried a mix of old and new recipes, found a few new favorites (like these pecan bars, and the pumpkin cookies), but most of all I realized that the best cookies are the recipes that my family has made for years and years. I'm glad I did this little baking project, but even more glad that I now have all these cookies to eat! And, yeah, maybe give a few away too.

Merry Christmas!

The Eleventh Cookie of Christmas

Eleven Black and White Striped Cookies

Christmas Collections

It seems like collections have a way of sneaking up on you. You start out getting one or two of something, and then next thing you know, you have a full-blown collection on your hands.

My mom has a big Santa collection that we display every year.

We also display all the snow globes I collected growing up.

Now I might have unintentionally started a nativity collection. This is a ceramic set that my parents brought back from their honeymoon in Mexico.

This is a Lladro set that I got when I was in Bermuda. I like how it's three children carrying toys dressed up as the three wise men. (Those ornaments in the background are from the little tree my family sets up with picture frame ornaments of all of our relatives.)

And this is one I was just given this year- the Peanuts characters dressed up from the play in A Charlie Brown Christmas. I really like Sally as the Angel and Snoopy as the sheep!

The Tenth Cookie of Christmas

Ten Pieces of Butter Crunch Bark

The secret ingredient in these is Saltine crackers.

The Ninth Cookie of Christmas

Nine Pumpkin Cookies

(Recipe courtesy of Leslie.)

The Seventh and Eighth Cookies of Christmas

Seven Chocolate Gooey Butter Cookies

This is a Paula Deen recipe and I have to say, these are my least favorite so far. They're not terrible, but the secret ingredient of chocolate cake mix somehow made homemade cookies taste like store bought.


Eight Mexican Wedding Cakes



These have always been one of my favorites and this year I tried a new version from a Martha Stewart recipe. I think they came out better than ever.

The Sixth Cookie of Christmas

Six Walnut Cherry Chocolate Chips

(Previously seen here.)

The Fifth Cookie of Christmas

Five Cream Cheese Gems

How about my amateur food styling? Getting more ambitious with each cookie, isn't it?

The Fourth Cookie of Christmas

Four Apricot Thumbprints

The Third Cookie of Christmas

Three Coconut Macaroons

This was my first time making these, and they weren't quite as super-easy as I expected. Let's just say that I had to trim away some overly chewy edges to get a good finished product.

The Second Cookie of Christmas

Two Mint Chocolate Chips.

The First Cookie of Christmas

Earlier this fall, a few of my relatives gave me some apartment-warming gift cards. I put them together and used them to buy a food processor, which made me want to do a lot of baking this holiday season. I decided to try making twelve different cookies, one each night, give or take, in honor of the Twelve Days of Christmas. And the first cookie is....

One Peanut Butter Blossom

More often made with Hershey kisses on top, I decided to swap in my personal favorite, Reese's peanut butter cups.

Little Bee

Did anyone guess my book club's latest book based on the hint I dropped about a month ago? It was Little Bee by Chris Cleave.

I'm glad we chose this book. It was really well written and yielded an interesting book club discussion. That being said, the most interesting thing about it might actually be it's marketing angle. The back copy of the book takes the line of "we're not going to tell you anything about the story because it's so special that you need to experience how it unfolds for yourself". Kind of a genius marketing ploy. Even though I really liked the book, I'm not sure it quite lived up to all of that hype. There is a pivotal scene that's probably best not revealed ahead of time, but I kept waiting for even more, like some huge twist that would totally change the way I thought about the story, and that just never came.

I can't complain too much, though. It's definitely a book worth reading. All I say about it is it follows the intersection of the lives of a Nigerian girl and a British woman. I can't reveal anything else. You'll have to experience it for yourself.

Tree Farm

For quite a few years now, my family has been cutting down our Christmas tree from a somewhat local tree farm called Lone Silo. You can probably see why.

This year, we of course brought Millie with us. It was a freezing cold day and I'm not sure who was more bundled up, me in my puffy coat, scarf, and hat....

...or her in her sweater and fleece coat.

She even found a tree that she wanted- one that was just her size.

A Warm December

Today was a strange beginning for December around here- warm enough to wear ankle pants, but with monsoon level winds that practically knocked me off my feet. The inside of my apartment is already very December-like, though. Perfectly cozy and fully decorated.

My window decorations:

My mantle:

And my little tree: