The nice thing about having an interest in cooking is that everybody knows what to get you. This Christmas, I got some nice kitchen tools. I got a cute black and white apron with geometrical shapes on it, a set of adjustable measuring spoons, and two measuring cups. I also got four, count em, four books on cooking. They include the beautiful Nigella Lawson’s Feast: Food to Celebrate Life, the classic Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking, the foodie/literary sensation Julie Powell’s Julie and Julia, and Kitchen Companion, an incredibly useful cooking encyclopedia of sorts from Williams-Sonoma. A Year In Food will be taking a break until after the new year, but is sure to return in force, armed with these culinary delights.

Update: Additional cooking-related gifts include an apron that reads “I’m not messy, I’m just creative,” Great Women Chefs: Marvelous Meals & Innovative Recipes from the Stars of American Cuisine, and The Best of Taste from Williams-Sonoma. Aren’t they beautiful?

I have a tremendous sweet tooth, so I love having a couple different desserts to choose from. I like to have something chocolatey and something fruity, and it wouldn’t be Christmas without Christmas cookies.

I got this cookie recipe from a neighbor a couple years ago. I’ve since seen store versions, but they’re never quite the same; they tend to be drier and less like cake. I like my version better. If you pay attention to both the directions and the picture, you’ll notice that I screwed up a little and put the layers in the wrong order. The taste, of course, remained unchanged.

No meal is complete without a little chocolate. I made this truffle torte from Rose Levy Baranbaum’s The Cake Bible, via 101 Cookbooks. It was fantastically decadent.

Not everybody is as big a chocoholic as I am, and sometimes it’s nice to have something sweet instead of rich. Jeremy Jackson’s tartlets from Food & Wine provided a nice foil. I multiplied the recipe by one and a half for twelve tartlets.

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This was my first experience being in charge of a large holiday dinner. It was a bit strange to have people looking to me for direction, but, having always been something of a bossy boots, I really enjoyed it.

Soup is always a good way to start off a meal, and this French onion soup, adapted from Michael Mina’s in Food & Wine, is no exception. The original recipe calls for truffled Pecorino cheese, which is, and I quote, “available in any good cheese shop.” Nevertheless, I found it really difficult to find and ended up settling on a recommendation from a nice woman at Balducci’s (can I move in there?), which was a little softer and not quite as salty, but very good anyway. Like at Thanksgiving, we had vegetarians, so I made two versions.

There’s really nothing much more traditional than a Christmas goose, but it’s not a very popular dish. I really don’t know why. The flavor is like a cross between dark turkey meat and duck meat. There’s a lot of fat on a goose, but the meat itself is not fatty. It’s always a bit tricky making something you haven’t had before, and this was my first time cooking a bird, but I thought it worked out really well. The recipe is from Jacques Pepin via Food & Wine. Unfortunately, in all the excitement, I forgot to take a picture of it.

I made some changes to the original recipe for these vegetables, again from Michael Mina in Food & Wine, since it became apparent that not everybody can eat cream sauces. By having it on the side, people could control the amount of cream individually. Remember not to wash the mushrooms, but rather wipe them clean with a damp cloth, avoiding the gills.

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