This, my friends, was the view from my car window on the drive down from Seattle to the Bay Area. Remember when I promised photos from the coast road and a recipe for Christmas morning? Well that was quickly absorbed by a very different kind of trip than we'd originally expected. A snowier trip and a much less scenic one (as we had to take an alternate route), although one filled with ample memories and cups of gas station hot chocolate. I didn't expect for the blog to be silent during the holiday week, but sometimes you can't control these things. So I sincerely hope that you had a wonderful, restful time with family and friends and are slowly getting back into the swing of things. This year, we spent a lot of time at home with family instead of rushing around to visit various new spots around San Francisco. We did a little cookie baking, visited Sam's favorite record store in the Haight and saw many old friends. We drank martinis, endured a period of holiday rain of the likes I haven't seen in years, and snuck out when the rain finally let up to run or walk the neighborhood. We had a lazy pajama-cloaked Christmas morning complete with numerous cups of coffee and a team-effort eggs benedict on toasty bagels smeared with avocado. I'm reluctant to head back but also love the feeling of a new year and looking ahead towards all that it may bring. Maybe on our drive back, I'll actually get to snap a few coast photos. Cross your fingers! In the meantime, I wanted to share just a handful of favorite recipes from 2012 on the chance you've got time and are inspired to cook this week. I'll see you back here very soon, feeling newly inspired and refreshed after such a nice break from our often busy day-to-day life back in Seattle.