Linzer Cookies

Remember a few posts back when I let you in on the news that I would be starting a job outside of blogging? Well, it's been about a month since my first day, and guys, I'm effin' beat. How do you work a full time job while having a dedicated side project at the same time? Especially a project that submits to the will of the fickle sun, who likes to start setting shortly after lunch these days. Tell me your secrets, how do you manage everything? (Really, I want to know).

Take Thanksgiving for example. Did you know that it's my favorite day of the year? A day dedicated to making a buttload of food, eating, napping, watching TV, then eating some more. Of course you didn't. Because reading my blog, it's as if that day doesn't exist! Though I made a whole 14 pound turkey and 5 different sides for a measly 3 people + 2 cats and we stuffed our faces silly then ate leftovers for days, there was not the faintest glimmer of Thanksgiving here, I couldn't even scrounge up a roasted brussels sprouts recipe for you all, and for that and I am sorry. I failed.

But I'll be damned if I miss the rest of the holiday season, which is why I'm here to make it up to you with these festive linzer cookies. With their ruby red jam and a dusting of snowy powdered sugar, is there a more quintessential winter cookie? I mean, besides gingerbread men, but I don't really consider those Christmas cookies so much as Christmas...decorations. Do people actually eat them?

Bacon Cinnamon Rolls

Apparently I am on a wicked sweet and salty kick with baked goods. First an apple cheddar pie, now this. Let's rewind shall we? Where did this all get started? I blame it on Alton Brown and Netflix. After a week of binge watching Good Eats, my mind was swirling with ideas. Especially after an episode where Alton makes bacon praline. Bacon praline! For snacking! What?? He's a horrible genius, he is.

So I came up with (what I thought at the time was) a genius idea for a bacon praline and salted caramel cake that substituted half of the butter in the cake itself with bacon fat. I might have been a little...overenthusiastic. I made the cake. I didn't like it. It turned out to be too much. Butter + bacon grease in the cake, butter in the swiss meringue buttercream, butter in the caramel sauce, all topped with a crapton of bacon praline. Too. Much. To. Handle. I had Phillip take the cake with him to work the next day and after the initial shock of realizing there was bacon on a cake, it did receive a warm reception from his coworkers. I still didn't really like it though.

Apple Pie with a Cheddar Cheese Crust

My dear readers, I have some good news and some bad news. The good news? I got a job. The bad news? I got a job.

As some of you may know, I moved from Chicago to New York back in April and left my job there in order to do so. My educational background is in marketing research (I actually have a master's degree that I got when I was 22 years old, if I may toot my own horn for a second...okay, I'm done now) and I worked at small marketing analytics consulting firm during my time in the windy city. It was nice at first, but toward the end I was miserable, which made it that much easier for me to leave and start something new here in Brooklyn. I had been casually looking for another job in the same field, but after I started this blog, most of my time was spent here. In the six months that have passed this blog has turned into my world, a (mostly) productive way for me to channel my energies. I say "mostly" because sometimes I get down on myself for not being good enough, or for taking shit photos, or for whatever else I can nitpick about. The human ability to create stress out of an otherwise completely stress free environment never ceases to amaze me. All tangents aside, I've learned more than I thought I would in this short time, I've met some wonderful people, and I've developed a deep appreciation for what it means to be a food blogger, a recipe developer, a home chef, a photographer.

Unfortunately, what this new job means for me is that I won't have as much time for good old O&O. Believe you me, this is by no means a goodbye. I could be in a hospital bed and I'd still be updating this blog. What it does mean is that I'll be around less often. Currently I try to post once or twice a week, this might slow down to once every two weeks. Especially as the sun will be setting quite early in the coming days, I'll only have time to photograph my creations on the weekends. To give you an idea, let me walk you through how I made and shot this apple pie. I started working on it at 11:30 am: setting up all the ingredients, weighing flour, cutting in butter, grating cheese, slicing apples, accidentally huffing cinnamon, clumsily weaving a lattice crust, taking photos every step of the way, washing my hands a thousand times over (so I don't get flour stuck inside my camera). I worked until I could no longer take photos as the sun was too far gone, around 5:30 pm. And I didn't even get to cut out a slice! I ran out of time.

I won't be able to do that anymore on a wonderfully sunny Tuesday (that's on top of other days that are full of recipe testing and re-shoots, which I'll spare you the agony of reading about...). I'll have to reserve it for Saturdays or Sundays when I'd much rather sleep in and eat breakfast at 2 in the afternoon, then have my early evening bourbon at 4 and watch tv for the rest of the day. Now, instead of lazy weekends, I'll be cooking, taking notes, and taking photos. All because I've carved out a home for myself here, a little blog home in the vast wild west of the internet.

Triple Berry Coffee Cake

So...I don't really drink coffee. I know, I know, you think I'm weird or crazy or both. I'm just more of a tea person okay?? I'll just go...wander off into that corner over there.

Whenever I go to coffee shops I always get iced tea or an italian soda if they make them—peach preferably. And on occasion, if I really feel like treating myself, I'll get a slice of coffee cake.