By now, with all of our Christmas cookies recipes - Gingersnaps (two ways!), Cranberry, Orange & Dark Chocolate Chip Cookies and Chocolate Peppermint Drops - your cookie plate is going to look very appealing when you put it out with a nice variety for Santa on Christmas Eve. But Christmas just isn't quite right unless you get to spend some time decorating cookies. Not only is it a great creative outlet, but you get to eat the results.

Rather than opt for the traditional gingerbread men with royal icing, especially in light of the fact that I made gingery cookies last week, I opted to make some of my favorite Vanilla Cutout Cookies. These cookies are soft, but not cake-like, and are very easy to make. They use both butter and buttermilk in dough, both of which add a richness to the cookie, and vanilla extract with a touch of almond to keep the flavor bright. As always, I recommend using a very high quality vanilla extract or something even more vanilla-y, such as vanilla bean crush or vanilla paste to boost the vanilla flavor.

• What kind of sauce do you put on your steak?
• An appreciation of writer R.W. Apple Jr., who died last week.
• An interview with David Kamp, author of The United States of Arugula: How We Became A Gourmet Nation. Arugula is one of those words that doesn't sound like a word anymore if you keep saying it out loud. Arugula, arugula, arugula.
• Eat sushi. All the cool kids are doing it!
• Three students from Johnson & Wales took on three students from the New England Culinary Institute. And the winner is...
• From the Dishing blog: why is a 2004 cookie recipe the most e-mailed article at Boston.com this week?
• This weeks' recipes: Loaded Butter Cookies with Chocolate, Fruit, and Nuts, Jambalaya, Fruit Chaat, and Mrs. Fleisher's Almond Cake.

Salt is used in baking, and with food in general, to enhance other flavors. A pinch of salt makes plain foods taste more interesting and makes sweet foods, like watermelon, taste a little bit sweeter by comparison. In most baked goods you cannot taste the salt as a distinct flavor; it simply blends into the background. There are exceptions to this rule, however, and sometimes having a little extra salt is a good thing. The Vanilla Salt Cookies from Umami are topped with a small sprinkle of coarse pink Himalayan salt, which accentuated both the vanilla flavor and the butteriness of the cookies. The original recipe called for a sprinkling of coarse sugar, not salt, but the change made the cookies both original and even more addictive. Just imagine it with a sprinkle of both sugar and salt...

Some people have to avoid butter in their diets and to the die-hard butter fans, this seems like a sad thing. There are many valid reasons to do this, though, such as a doctor's orders to reduce cholesterol intake. There are also some people who simply prefer the taste of margarine, but though it might make an acceptable substitute on toast, margarine can't really compare to butter in baked goods - particularly in a butter cookie. Or can it? The Wall Street Journal baked up a few batches to find out.

The butter cookies made with real butter, the Land O'Lakes Ultra Creamy, came out on top. Land O' Lakes stick margarine came in second place, with a reasonable approximation of the taste and appearance of the real cookie. Unfortunately, the Land O' Lakes tub margarine did not fare as well, and though it had a similar texture to butter, the taste was nowhere near the real thing. Promise stick margarine did not do well, either, producing a cookie with little butter flavor.

I have actually had good results using Earth Balance "buttery spread" when baking, but the clear the solution is to stick to butter - not margarine - when it comes to baking.

 As Sarah pointed out, not everyone has a heart-shaped cookie cutter to help them make Valentine's Day Cookies. While the use of a cookie cutter can turn just about any cookie into something appropriate for the holiday, it certainly isn't your only option. These Easy Sugared Hearts are formed by hand, rolling and pinching the soft dough into a heart shape. The dough is easy to work with, so your kids can even help you shape them. The cookies are dipped into both red and plain granulated sugar before baking, which adds extra sweetness and beautiful color. The cookies are light and crisp without being crunchy. Not too sweet, despite the sugar coating, there is also a hint of butter and vanilla in them. They go perfectly with a cup of tea, coffee or hot chocolate.

Because frosting cookies, even for a special occasion like Valentine's Day, sometimes to require more of a time commitment than we are able to make, it is nice to have a simple decorating stick up your sleeve. Or in this case, in your kitchen drawer. All you need to make these heartbreakers is a heart shaped cookie cutter and a knife. After punching out the heart shape, simply use a small, sharp knife to cut a zig zag line into the cookie. Pull the edges slightly apart so the line doesn't seal itself up during baking. You can roll them in sugar, as I did here, or simple leave them plain.