of chestnuts and plenty

Happy New Year! The first day of the year is a good day for talking about a healthy start and new beginnings. It’s a day for fruit salads and resolutions. But we lived so much in every inch and corner of last year that it’s spilled over into this one. Resolutions will have to wait. Today, I’m still reflecting.

Last year was full—full of blessings. Of celebrations and new things. It was a year of grabbing each moment and living in it a little more richly—allowing space and time for doing or cooking or eating or learning something that grabbed my attention at a given time, a freer form of living I learned from my sweet husband. I spent more time luxuriating over details on the garden. I splurged a little on that fine stinky cheese or handmade chestnut raviolis at Eataly, despite the knowledge that I could make (the later) at home for half the cost.  I enjoyed the craft of crackly crust breads I dream of making myself, and not for a minute regretted that I haven’t gotten to that yet.

Last year, I read books, books like The Invisible Bridge and The Shoemaker's Wife, which let me travel far beyond our four walls, let my mind and soul soar to new places and times, like a tiny village of the Bergamo Alta in the Italian Alps at the turn of the last century.  It is there that I imagined this meal, and how it came to be in our table—a meal from the time of artisans, when handcrafted foods unassumingly filled our kitchens—a time of hand cut ravioli and Robiola that aged in the cellar of every family home. It left such an impression on my soul that when Gourmet asked me what my best meal of the year was, this one came immediately to mind. It’s now a part of their collection of the Best Things We Ate in 2012 on Gourmet Live, and one of dozens of memorable meals, moments, and riches I count among my own year's bests.

~

I always thought it odd that in our culture on New Years Eve, we party until the ball drops, and start the New Year pulling our pillows over our eyes. I’m much more inclined to want to sit around a table with good friends and a generous spread of food, as we did last night, giving thanks for the plenty in our lives—the friendships, our dear families, good health—and then, at home quietly in our beds, think about what we want to carry forward into 2013: meals like this one, the love of color and texture and intoxicating photography, the instinct to stop long enough and often enough to write down the amazing things our tiny girl is saying and learning, to savor the pink of her cheeks and lips when she first wakes up, to keep dreaming about making my own crackly crust breads, and when I can not, keep treating myself to those made by others.

More than anything else, I want to carry forward gratitude—gratitude to God for all the tremendous opportunities we’ve been given; Gratitude to our friends, our family, our communities for making life rich, and for believing in our little family; Gratitude to all of you who come here to read and be fed. I hope you’ll keep coming, and most importantly, I hope your new year is full of plenty. 

Photos and Recipes © Sarah Copeland 2013

Please credit source when using on Pinterest. All other uses require permission via email.

{best of} Thanksgiving 2012

{download the menu and pdf here, under Bonus: Classic Menu. }

Thanksgiving comes but once a year. Unless, of course, you're a food stylist, recipe developer, food editor or anyone who works in food media. For us, there's thanksgiving #1, in the summer, when we're busy cooking up the features, and then real thanksgiving again come November, when, incredibly, we're finally in the mood for it again.

This year, I contributed a classic Thanksgiving feast to Rachael Ray Magazine {download here}, complete with a few tricks for making your bird the juiciest ever (hint, flip the bird halfway through cooking), killer mashed potatoes and a pumpkin pie I think you'd be super proud to call your own. 

And then I sort of forgot about Thanksgiving until the November issues of every magazine I subscribe to (too many, I can't help myself) starting hitting my mail box. Miraculously we, the *food people* behind these pages, managed to recreate the classics yet again, in ever new and inspiring ways that have me, frankly, salivating. If I had the help (and the stomach) for the world's largest feast, here's what I'd serve between my turkey and my pumpkin pie.

The Best of Thanksgiving 2012

~

Goat Cheese Mashed Sweet Potatoes {Better Homes and Gardens}

Mustard Greens, Roasted Squash and Hazelnut Salad {Bon Appetit}

Haricot Verts and white Beans with Shallot Vinaigrette {Food & Wine}

Brussels Sprouts Salad with Avocado and Pumpkin Seeds {Whole Living}

Sage & Honey Skillet Cornbread {Martha Stewart Living}

Pumpkin Cheesecake {Real Simple}

~

Hats off to my friends and colleagues in the food world. You are a remarkable bunch, and I'm grateful to be among you. And to the rest of you, I hope your platters are full of plenty, and your home the host to dear friends, family and oodles of things and moments to give thanks for. 

with love + gratitude,
Sarah

{gift guide} a few ideas for valentine's

          {photo by sara remington}

serve her breakfast in bed {dutch babies, the newlywed cookbook} ~  promise to keep her juice glass always half full {anthropologie}

melt her heart with this bashful lamb {abc carpet kids} ~ then go in for the kill with The Cheesemongers Kitchen, {chronicle books} and a wheel of stinky bliss {saxelby cheesemongers}

put your crush for him in print {luxe paperie} ~ and give him his fave on the rocks {vital, etsy}

serve her dinner with bronze {anthrolopologie} ~ then give her some gold {ariel gordon jewelry}

send her flowers that last {etsy} ~ spoon feed him pudding from pretty bowls {west elm}

this valentine's day, don't spend every dime, but do spend every minute with the one you adore.

xo
Sarah

Weekend Project: Peanut Butter Chocolate and Pretzel Fudge

{a DIY candy bar}

Okay, ya'll, you know there's nothing more generous to give at the holidays than the gift of your time and something decadent handmade in your kitchen. It's time to up the ante. The food-lovers in your life are way beyond chocolate. It's peanut butter, chocolate and pretzel time.

This year, I created ten delicious, hipped-up riffs on some classic homemade holiday food gifts  for Cooking Channel, and my favorite is this Triple-Decker Peanut Butter and Pretzel Fudge topped with ganache and sourdough pretzels. I'm not normally a fudge gal. Not for the making of nor the eating of (caveat, this is cheater's fudge, the kind made with melted chips). But this is so easy it hardly befits the Weekend Project category. All you need is an hour.

I like to think of it as a chic DIY candy bar, the kind my buddies at Baked would make. In fact, one of their books would be the perfect pairing for this gift if you want to up the ante yet again.

Click here for the recipe. Now hit the kitchen.

x
Sarah

Eggs So Pretty {An Easter Story}

I love everything about eggs. Their golden yolks that nurture with fat and flavor, their silky whites that transform into luscious meringues, their fragile shells in pale blues and greens, tans and browns. I love the way the shells crumble into a million pieces, how they look sitting up tall and proud in an egg cup, or poached and perched, yolks oozing over a frisee salad. But in our big world of bold colors and flavors, the egg is still a fairly humble ingredient.

So at Easter time, I always find it remarkable how magnificent they can look painted. These painted eggs got their beauty in the patient and talented hands of my friend George McKirdy, owner and pastry chef of Astor Bake Shop, our favorite neighborhood haunt. Years ago I worked for George in the pastry kitchen of Café Boulud, and was thrilled when he turned up again down the street behind the big, open windows on the corner.

I've learned so many things from George {how to make the world's best coconut macaroon, to forever love the combination of passion fruit and chocolate, and that a financier never, ever goes out of vogue} but in a sense this is my favorite ~ that with a little tender care, the humble, everyday egg can become something spectacular, something that glimmers with alarming beauty.

That is the message of Easter. That something bare and unadorned ~ an egg, a life, a soul ~ can be transformed by the gifts of patience, grace, and love.