"december" news and stories

It is difficult, if not impossible, to recount all the great food moments of an entire year, but Chow set out to do just that with their Year in Food feature. Divided up into nine individual themes, their picks cover the top trends. Cookbooks and books about cooks were big. Huge, in fact. The Omnivore's Dilemma got people thinking and the 75th-anniversary edition Joy of Cooking got them back in the kitchen. Food went high tech with the continuing popularity of molecular gastronomy and the ever-expanding realm of food blogs. And everyone was drinking, whether his or her beverage of choice was an energy drink, wine (possibly in a box) or a luxe new liqueur. Breeze through the rest of Chow's year-end picks for a cheat sheet on the last 12 months of food, but if you happen to have a lot of time on your hands, you can always browse through our own archives for news, recipes and lots and lots of food porn.

Source

We already had a brief discussion about the worst holiday foods and responses included canned cranberry sauce and fruitcake. But it's no fun to dwell on the negatives when you're supposed to be celebrating and spending time with your family, so why not think about the best holiday treats instead? What are those foods that you look forward to all year?

When it comes to store bought treats, peppermint bark and chocolate covered graham crackers always seem to be readily available, but the best holiday foods come from home. Here are some suggestions from around the blogosphere for holiday favorites that should make your menu this year:

• Jelly donuts, a.k.a. sufganiyah, are a standard for Hanukkah celebrations
• I'm partial to oven baked latkes myself, but purists will want theirs fried in oil.
• You can make homemade peppermint bark and use it (or store bought) to make Chocolate Peppermint Bark Cookies
• Fudge is an easy to make homemade candy that looks great out on the dessert table.
• Gingerbread fans can choose from regular gingerbread, chocolate gingerbread, gingerbread men or spicy ginger cookies.
• Eggnog takes many forms, as well. It can be a drink, pancakes or even cheesecake.
• The Bûche de Noël, simply known as a "yule log," is a classic, chocolatey Christmas dessert that consists of a rolled, filled cake that is covered with a chocolate frosting and shaped to look like a log.
• Last but not least, we have the crowd-pleasing homemade marshmallows. Don't forget to serve them with hot chocolate!

Hanukkah is known as the "festival of lights" and is a holiday in which oil has a special meaning. To put it very, very briefly, Hanukkah celebrates a miraculous occurrence where one night's worth of oil burned for eight. There is a lot of oil used in foods that are served for this holiday and much of it is used for frying. The two most well-know Hanukkah staples are sufganiyah (jelly-filled donuts) and latkes, or potato pancakes. As good as these two foods are, health-conscious holiday revelers don't always want to completely blow their diet with a meal of entirely fried foods, nor do they want to restrict themselves to only a few bites of this holiday favorite.