Desserts

Lemon-Glazed Caraway Christmas Cookies

I have a new favorite Christmas cookie, a sweet little biscuit flavored with lemon and caraway seeds and finished with a lemon glaze. Even better, the recipe takes us way back to the very beginning of American cooking. In fact, it has its roots in the first cookbook ever published here. The First Christmas “Cookey” […]

Food

Make a Cake Stand | Simple DIY Project

Cake stands are adorable and useful (especially during Christmas cookie season), but tough to collect. They cay be pricey, especially the vintage ones, and they take up a lot of room in a china cabinet. So I’ve come up with a solution to satisfy my cake stand fetish without overwhelming my budget or storage capacity. […]

Magazine

Here in New England | The Man Who Listens to Soldiers

He wonders: How wide do his shoulders need to be? How open his heart? How deep his soul? Can he ever really understand what it’s like to lose a child, even as he looks parents in the eye and lets them fold their grief into his arms? He has been telling me about a time […]

Appetizers

Holiday Appetizers Through the Decades | 1990s Baked Wontons

It’s true the 1990’s weren’t that long ago (at least they don’t feel like they were). Still, it’s been 22 years since Madonna showed us how to Vogue and 20 since Bill Clinton played the saxophone on the Arsenio Hall show. The decade of the internet, which introduced us to phrases like “surf the web” […]

Desserts

Homemade Graham Cracker Christmas Cookies

As I was working on recipe testing for the latest Yankee cookbook, the gorgeous Lost and Vintage Recipes, I met a cookie that has since muscled its way onto my short list of “absolute favorite cookies.” In truth it was a recipe for homemade graham crackers, but just like their animal cousins, graham crackers are […]

Desserts

Greek Crescent Cookies

Greek crescent cookies (kourabiedes) are a variation of Christmas shortbread cookies made with nuts and coated in powdered sugar: Russian tea cakes, Mexican wedding cookies, pecan puffs, and snowballs. There are many names for the family of Christmas shortbread cookies made with nuts and coated in powdered sugar: Russian tea cakes, Mexican wedding cookies. In […]

Massachusetts

Visit to Stockbridge, Massachusetts

Even if you’ve never visited the tiny western Massachusetts town of Stockbridge, chances are you’ve probably sung its name a time or two (or more) thanks to James Taylor’s popular 1970 lullaby “Sweet Baby James.” The song includes the line “The first of December was covered with snow, and so was the turnpike from Stockbridge […]

History

Best New England Christmas Traditions

Whether it’s a seeing The Nutcracker, touring historic New England homes, cruising past a sea of twinkling lights, or whipping up traditional wassail, here are some of our picks for the best New England Christmas traditions!

Appetizers

Holiday Appetizers Through the Decades | 1980s Bread Bowl Crab Dip

Welcome to the totally awesome eighties — a decade that brought us an actor in the White House, the first home computers, Ninetendo, designer jeans, and hair so big it required an entire can of hairspray just to keep the mountains of crimped waves in place. The holiday season during the 1980’s channeled the yuletide […]

New Hampshire

Mt. Washington Valley Inn to Inn Cookie Tour

If your idea of the perfect way to kick off the holiday season includes sweet treats, overflowing Christmas decorations, snow-capped mountain views, and the (optional but encouraged) cozy charm of a New England bed and breakfast, then the annual Mt. Washington Valley Inn to Inn Cookie Tour is exactly what you’re looking for! Taking place […]

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