Happy New Year!

Instead of posting all about resolutions or my Top 10 Meals…OF THE DECADE, I’m ending the year with a picture of my Bûche de Noël.  The cake is long gone and the picture is a week late, but, hey, it’s never too early to start planning for next year.

My new year will bring a new home, lots of cooking in my brand new Le Creuset pot (dijon), and — with luck — more work than I’ve had in the past couple months.

Happy New Year!

Meredith’s Macaron Extravaganza!

The first thing you need if you’re going to undertake French macarons is lots of enthusiasm.

I find that nothing makes me more enthusiastic about baking than a nice Mrs. Claus apron and a Le Creuset full of delicious simmering caramel sauce.

The second thing you need when undertaking French macarons is a friend who happens to love them.

It also helps if it’s that particular friend’s birthday and your gift happened to be a book about macarons, ingredients and supplies to make them and a free afternoon in which to do so.

Christmas cookies already?

I went rabid over Christmas as a kid.  We used to pull all the decorations out Thanksgiving weekend and force my parents into the spirit.  Now I’m fully grown at 23 (and 1/2, as I sadly realized last month) and currently living with my parents; I definitely do not have the same desire to festoon the house and blare tacky holiday music.  On a related note:  Sarah — if you’re reading — please please please listen to this.  Four years as a chocolate store employee in a mall may have contributed to my change in holiday spirits.

Here I am in 2008 making the required sugar cookies.

My family celebrates the holidays high on tradition — despite my opinions about public displays of Christmas spirit.  Most of these revolve around food, such as the aebleskiver every year at tree decorating time.  (How many Americans of no known Scandinavian ancestry can claim that?)  We also have a long list of cookies with names like Frosty Fruit Bars and Pecan Tassies and Toffee Cookies that must be made.  I have no objection to this, and usually decree the must be made-ness of any such variety of cookie.

In which I reveal an embarrassing secret and attempt to atone for my neglect

I figure after neglecting this site for nearly a month I should make my big comeback by confessing my deepest, darkest secret.  This is something I’ve tried over and over to play down or explain away.  I’ve tried to quit cold turkey, but I always go back for more.

Apple Cake from The Traveler’s Lunchbox

My take on a very appealing apple cake recipe.

About 20 minutes after this recipe showed up on The Traveler’s Lunchbox I received an email from my mom asking me if I’d seen the apple cake recipe yet.  Plans were immediately made — my dad’s birthday was coming up and, as it turned out, both my parents and my aunt and uncle would be passing through Portland in the afternoon of the birthday.  My mom orchestrated a gathering in my apartment involving everyone and an apple cake that I was to provide.

I was more than willing to bake a cake.  Usually I make extravagant dishes for no special occasion and ultimately feel guilty that I really did eat crème brûlée for breakfast.  A birthday is a socially acceptable, guilt-free time to make a cake.  Also, my dad always appreciates a good cake.

Become a fan on facebook!

Three Cheesecakes now has a public profile on Facebook.  Show your support by becoming a fan!  You can also follow me on Twitter here:  3cheesecakes.  Your support means a lot to me!  The more interest people show, the more motivation I’ll have as a blogger.

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This may come as a shock…

…but I don’t always make dessert!

It’s true:  sometimes I actually cook meals.  Most of the time, actually.  Because I cook meals every day I don’t always consider them special enough to mention.  And it’s true that six out of seven nights are usually more along the lines of “open a bag of dry pasta and a jar of tomato sauce” than Mastering the Art of French Cooking (pop culture’s new favorite book), but I can whip out some pretty decent dishes when I need to.

Beef Stroganoff

Most of these are old favorites, like beef stroganoff, baked macaroni and cheese or chili.  Often I cobble something together out of whatever is left in the refrigerator, like the time I made chili out of about $50 worth of steak leftover from a dinner at a steakhouse that I did not pay for.  (I knew the steak would never live up to its previous glory.)

Crème Brûlée

Crème brûlée, superfluous diacritic marks* aside, is really quite simple.  I’ve heard that it’s not even French, which means I just wasted three minutes figuring out which way the accents pointed and how to type them.

Stracciatella?

I have a lot of favorite foods, but have never included ice cream in any of the categories.  Ice cream transcends favoritism.  When I studied in Spain I had the horrible misfortune of passing four or five heladerías on my way to school and I generally stopped twice a day for scoops.   Stracciatella was always a favorite (along with the ever-mysterious chocolate barriloche that I couldn’t even begin to describe), but I never really understood how it was supremely better than plain old chocolate chip.

I save gelato cups so I can use them at home.

Another Cheesecake (but really it was the first)

I made this one back in May for Nick’s birthday. It was the best and prettiest.

I’d say maybe it was because I cared most about his, but I cared pretty hard about my mom’s too and wound up disappointed. I guess it was just luck.