bakeries

New York City Bakeries

New York City Bakeries

There's nothing like New York during the holidays. As many of you know, I spent Thanksgiving in New York this year visiting family, staying with my little sister in Soho and eating many, many cookies. And slices of pie. And cupcakes. I wanted to share a quick photo tour of our time spent bakery-hoppingĀ  so next time you find yourself in the city, you have a sense of where to go and what to try.

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My Favorite Fall Cookbooks, 2010

My Favorite Fall Cookbooks, 2010

This has been a banner year for fall cookbooks. There are always some great new releases that I get particularly excited about, but this year's different. I can hardly keep up and I wanted to share some of my new favorites with you. These are the ones that are bookmarked, riddled with post-it notes, and live on my bedstand--the ones I turn to for ideas on innovative ingredients, old-fashioned Southern recipes, and classic chocolate desserts. I've ogled them, baked from them, and recommended them to friends (not surprisingly, most of them are baking books). After chatting about these, I'dĀ  love to hear about any new (or classic) fall cookbooks you've been enjoying lately.

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A Quick Jaunt to Seattle

A Quick Jaunt to Seattle

This odd thing happens when I travel to new places: I convince myself and my loved ones that I'm meant to live there. The grass is always greener, right? But after a few weeks, my new obsession wanes and I settle back into life in the Bay Area. Seattle's a bit of an exception. That feeling doesn't wear off after a few days when I come home from Seattle. I really, really love this city. In addition to the amazing food, distinct neighborhoods, fleece-loving clog-wearing population, the water, and (way) cheaper real estate...my sister lives there. And she just moved into a cute new house and put pink flamingos in her yard. Yeah, she has a yard. Jealous. So my mom and I decided to capitalize on a few days off mid-week and flew up to wander, eat, explore, shop, and gawk. Here's what we were up to in case you're ever up in Seattle and at a loss for what to do.

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My San Francisco Sweet Tooth

My San Francisco Sweet Tooth

Many of you know that I'm training for the Nike Women's Marathon this Sunday. And most of you know that currently, what I do for "work" is write about food. Now thankfully, those two things have been a really nice pair. It's been working out just fine. Eat, run, eat some more, write a little. But I've been advised that after Sunday, I may have to cut back on my generally ravenous appetite. I'll worry about that later...for now, here's a visual chronicle of a food writer's week. And not just any food writer, but one with a penchant for sweets, and cookies in particular. There's a great new lunch pop-up in the Tenderloin called American Box. Remember the lunch boxes you had as a kid? Well they're doing them for adults. This is a warm oatmeal raisin cookie fresh out of the bag. I will add that right before I got to take a bite of this cookie, I was pulled over for having an expired registration. My grown-up lunch box cost me about $117. How is it that I've never, ever been to Mitchell's? I had a fantastic meal at The Front Porch with Craig and Linnea last week for a piece I'm doing on Soul Food in the city. We were cruising around the neighborhood, walking off our fried chicken and macaroni and cheese, when we stumbled upon Mitchell's. I'm much more of a chocolate ice cream kind of girl, but their fruit flavors are pretty incredible. The young coconut and cantaloupe were flying out the door.

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Tokens to Remember

Tokens to Remember

When I worked at Two Hands Paperie in Boulder, CO–a lovely little paper store on West Pearl St.–the owner, Diana Phillips, used to have a bowl of matchbooks on her desk. When I’d sit talking to her about the shop or how business was going, I’d…

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