"No one who cooks, cooks alone. Even at her most solitary, a cook in the kitchen is surrounded by generations of cooks past, the advice and menus of cooks present, the wisdom of cookbook writers,"
Laurie Colwin
This Christmas, more than perhaps any other Christmas since my first few years as a new immigrant in the United States, a few hours of solo cooking in my kitchen is one of my absolute favorite aspects of the festive season.
There is something so completely spiritual and satisfying in the quiet reconjuring of holidays past, the recreation (and sometimes appropriate readaption) of time-tested, old family favorites.
Today's pre-Christmas Eve self-assignment in the baking department is Rivetti California Clan's favorite Chocolate Guinness Cake. I'm posting this while this West Coast substitution for more traditional Old Country Christmas cakes bakes in the oven.
It struck me this December, attending many, lovely holiday parties around town, that a tasty, telling part of each host's history unfolds on the dessert table around this time of year. We all have our own very peculiar weird and wonderful sweet offerings to impart (mine being the absolute must-have home baked Mince Pies), but isn't it great that our individual culinary heritages resurface each December, calling us back to our loved ones who tended stoves in so many far flung outposts of the world?
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