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Toasted Coconut Spice Fauxnuts

"Two fingers," he'd say, holding two gnarled, deeply tanned digits up to his glass. Reaching into the sideboard cabinet, he pulled out a half empty bottle. He poured two fingers worth of brown liquor into the rocks glass and I followed, holding the carton with two hands and topping the booze with at least two more fingers of eggnog. Some years it was Wild Turkey and others Crown Royal, but always whiskey with eggnog. Like a lot of Japanese-American men of his generation, my grandpa wasn't a super talkative man, but he'd sit at the kitchen table and shoot the s**t over a glass of spiked eggnog, getting chattier as he got deeper into his cups.  Even now, there's nothing like a whiff of whiskey and eggnog and nutmeg to put me right back at that table with him during the holidays.

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Dahlia Bakery English Muffins

  When I heard Tom Douglas was going to be at Costco signing copies of the Dahlia Bakery Cookbooka couple of months ago, I expected organized chaos a la Giada de Laurentiis’ signing. I rolled in about 30 minutes before it was slated to start and Tom was already there. No need to pre-purchase a book, get in line outside and have a handler scribble your name on a post-it for the inscription.  I walked right up, got a book (one for me, and one for my mom), had a chance to have a little chat with Tom and then was on my merry way for the rest of my Costco shop.

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Fit for a Cookie Craving: Date Walnut Spice Cookies

  You're surviving on Pinterest, aren't you? These first few weeks of January are hard. You're back to eating the way you should, getting more exercise, but you're eyeballing that lasagne with the stretchy cheese, living vicariously through images of pizza dip and cream cheese brownies. I see it in your pins! You know what, I'm right there with you.  Yesterday, I wanted a bag of Doritos like nobody's business. And after dinner, I've been finding myself wanting a little something sweet. Not a full blown dessert, just a little something. These little spice cookies fit the January agenda -- sweetened mostly with dates and applesauce, spiced with a little cinnamon (and high in fiber!).

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Momofuku Milk Bar’s Bagel Bombs

  My tour of duty in food service included time at both Mrs. Fields and a few years at a bagel shop that originated on Long Island, NY. So like most people, I think I know a thing or two about a good bagel. You can argue about how they should be prepared pre-bake (boiled NOT steamed). You can argue about flavors (I don't argue, I just don't enjoy cranberry orange or sun-dried tomato). You can argue about who has the best in NYC. (H&H or Columbia Hot Bagel - well, that one's now closed.) You can argue about how to pronounce it. Whatever your position, we've all had the bad bagels -- tough, dense, hockey pucks or spongy grocery store white bread dough, indistinguishable as a bagel except for its shape. These are not those bagels.

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Masa Biscuits with Ham & Chipotle Jam

Half Price Books has been an amazing source for cookbooks. Somehow there are always good finds, whether semi-recent releases or books of a certain vintage. I always want to leave bookmarks or post-its sticking out of some books saying, "BUY THIS ONE!!" And while sometimes you know why books end up on the clearance shelf -- 80s microwave cooking, anyone? -- others are a mystery. The El Paso Chile Company's Texas Border Cookbook -- was one of those mysteries, but the recipe for masa biscuits alone made it a bargain at twice the price.

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