It’s giveaway time! It’s a massive one guys and I’m pretty excited! For the past week or so I’ve been featuring recipes using Staub, Shun, Cuttingboard.com, Finex, and Kitchen Aid and now’s the time to finally bundle everything up and give it all away. Well, not literally, because you’re actually going to win new items, so there’s no real bundling, just figurative bundling.
win this staub!
I hope you’ve been following along – so far I’ve made Slow Braised Japanese Chashu Pork, Mini Puff Pastry Roses, Caramel Corn and Rice Krispie Mix, and Mint Snowman Marshmallows, but with these giveaway items you can make pretty much anything, which is perfect for the holiday season.
win this shun knife and cuttingboard.com boo’s block!
I love food – as I’m sure you know – and one of my favorite Christmas memories is of me, my brother, and Christmas chocolates. As little kids, come the first of December, we would get chocolate advent calendars. I still see them around now: those thin cardboard drugstore boxes featuring a Christmas picture with tiny numbered windows and chocolates hiding behind them. My brother and I lived for that moment at the end of the day when we got to pry open the cardboard for our long awaited treat. Our eager fingers would melt the chocolate ever so slightly as we tried to eat our chocolates as slowly as possible.
win this finex cast iron pan!
One year, we got it in our heads that we didn’t want to wait. We snuck our calendars down to the basement – it was cold and dark down there and I didn’t like it but my brother convinced me it was the best place to hide – and ate every single chocolate. We ate the entire month of December. And the thing is, we did it in a gentle, artful way where we could close back the windows so that at a casual glance, you couldn’t tell that the calendar was ravaged.
win this kitchen aid!
Maybe it was the sugar-high making us crazy, but we totally thought we got away with it. That is, until it was time for our nightly ritual with our parents. Needless to say, there was no chocolate treat that night. Or the next night, or the next. But, it was okay, because come Christmas morning, there were still presents under the tree. Apparently, our chocolate binge didn’t leave us on Santa’s naughty list, which was a huge relief, because, presents.
These days I’m more into giving than receiving so I couldn’t resist putting together this giveaway for you! I wish I could send everyone a Christmas present but since I can’t, I thought I’d do the next best thing and giveaway some of my favorite things. So, let me know your favorite holiday memory and maybe you’ll be the lucky reader who wins! Good luck!
Giveaway: I’ve teamed up with some of my favorite brands to do a massive giveaway. One lucky reader will win:
Staub 4 Quart Round Cocotte
Shun 6-inch Dual Core Utility Knife
Cuttingboard.com Boos Block Walnut 20×15 Cutting Board
Finex 10-inch Cast Iron Pan
Kitchen Aid Artisan Design Series 5-Quart Stand Mixer w/Glass Bowl in Pearl Silver
To enter: Leave a comment on the blog with your favorite winter holiday memory. I want to hear ALL the details! I’ll randomly choose a winner and notify them through email. Open to US residents only. (Sorry international friends, only American companies agreed to this one!) If you’d like some extra entries use the widget below to follow me on Instagram, Twitter, and Pinterest. Contest ends December 21st at 12pm PST. Good luck!
The giveaway is closed! I’ll be announcing the winner in the next week or so after reading through all of the comments. Thank you everyone who entered! There are some beautiful memories here!
Update: Congrats Chelsea, you won! Look for an email from me shortly!
Making & eating a Yule log is one of our favorite traditions
I always loved making holiday cookies with my mom when I was younger. She’d find a bunch of cookie recipes from magazines and rip them out and then let me choose which ones to make. She still makes a lot of the ones we used to make each year and gives me a batch.
My favorite holiday memory is baking cookies with my Mom. She always goes all out every year, baking a ridiculous array of goodies, including sweet and chewy biscotti, savory crackers, and unique delights from her childhood. She taught me everything she knows about baking, and had infinite patience even through my teen years. I remember distinctly hovering around as she worked on a batch of chewy chocolate chip biscotti, wanting to snatch pieces without helping (a total no-no). Of course, the secret to biscotti is the double-baking, and I simply couldn’t wait that long and drifted back to my room. Soon enough, my mom popped into my room and without a word dropped off a bowl of end pieces (my favorite) and went back to the kitchen. They were warm and moist and amazing. I’ll always remember that as I do my own holiday baking every year, using both her recipes and mine.
Mine is a memory of a tradition more than a single one. It’s my favorite now because it ended, and is one of those things where you never know ahead of time that this time is the last time, although there is one time that stands out – whether it was the last or not, I have no idea.
On Christmas Eve my grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins on my mom’s side would all come to our house for a huge turkey dinner, and then we’d all open presents together. My great grandma would always cry at dinner when she saw all four generations around the table. One year my sister got Dance, Dance Revolution as her gift, and after wondering for a while why the living room was so empty I went downstairs to see my mom, her brother, my grandfather (!) and my aunt attempting to follow the dance instructions on the pad. My grandfather gave up and danced a jig on the platform, and my aunt and uncle gave up and just did a two-step around the basement.
After all the cousins left, my grandparents would stay for the night and my parents would stay up late wrapping presents from “Santa”, while my sisters and I pretended not to know that’s what they were doing. (As we got older, we were conscripted into this – each of us in a separate room wrapping Santa’s presents for the others.) We’d open presents first thing in the morning, and then my dad would make waffles and sausage, and then start on Christmas Day dinner, which was always ham, and turkey bone broth from the bird the night before. This tradition still persists, somewhat, although now that I’m older my family usually falls asleep right after dinner, and I go out and meet friends for drinks and presents (usually homemade cookies or liqueurs) with their families.
It’s silly but I always remember my mom making chili for Christmas Eve dinner. Our family opened gifts on Christmas Eve so it was a quick meal with pretty simple clean-up so the kids could get right to the good part!
I remember staring out at the colored lights across the street, listening to the rain beat against the window as the smell of fried potatoes filled the house. Surveying the homes along my block, I remember waiting for Christmastime’s heavy white blanket and the soft jingle of sleigh bells I’d seen in Home Alone. But even the red and green bulbs lining my neighbors’ houses couldn’t enliven a world overcast by the low-hanging iron grey clouds of the Pacific Northwest.
If that dampened the Yuletide cheer, I couldn’t tell. Because we’re Jews, which meant that rather than trees and mistletoe, we went for simple things. We lit candles, spun dreidles, and bit down on latkes.
Hi Steph,
First and foremost, I just want to tell you how much I absolutely love your amazing blog! You are such a rare talent! Thank you for sharing all your wonderful treats with the world!
So my favorite winter holiday memory starts off a bit sad but there is such a wonderful silver lining. When I was in my mid 20s, my father was very ill with lung cancer. He died on Christmas morning and I believe that was his Christmas gift. He was finally not suffering anymore. His very favorite meal was always braised short ribs and my tradition for the last 25 years has been to make braised short ribs for Christmas dinner. It is such a wonderful way to honor and remember my amazing daddy. It’s quite interesting how sometimes very sad things can turn into a wonderful traditions.
I would be absolutely thrilled to win all of these amazing gifts. My daddy would be thrilled to know that I was making his favorite dish in one of those gorgeous Staub Cocettes!
Cheers for a very happy holiday!
Maureen
My favorite holiday memories are all in the kitchen. All the baking and bonding with various relatives over the years. Learning new recipes, and spending time with my mom, aunt’s, grandma, and most of my son. I’m the master of all things sweet in family, but only because the love of baking has been passed on to me over the years. I can’t wait to start my holiday baking spree this Thursday & make new memories with my family while doing so!
My favorite winter memory is learning how to cook all of my mom’s Hanukah recipes with her! She doesn’t follow any recipes so I was basically following her around writing things down. It was so fun for her to spend the time with me because her own mom was very sick growing up and died young so since her teen years she’s longed for a warm, close family. I love learning from her.
My favorite holiday memory was going to my grandparents house for Christmas. We didn’t have a large family so when we all got together it felt like we did. Now my grandparents have passed. My husband is in the army and we aren’t going home for Christmas this year so it will be very different than previous Christmas experiences.