Always wanted to be an at-home espresso machine person? Right this way

Encountering a big, beautiful espresso machine at someone’s house feels a lot like gazing upon the countertop equivalent of a vintage Bentley, or observing the mechanics of an expensive watch. There’s that covetable air of functional sophistication; the nonchalant cool that comes with a device that showers you with at-home cappuccinos at the pull of a handle (or push of a button, these days). Granted, these sexy Rube Goldberg machines are not cheap — so when a sale on a top-shelf brand pops up, I pay attention.

Right now, De’Longhi has kicked off a holiday sale that will last until December 24, and which chips away at its (otherwise) lofty price tags with up to $300 off its espresso and coffee machines. Below, I plucked three of the best, most affordable De’Longhi deals from the sale, whether you’re looking for a smaller countertop option or a cold brew-making beast.

Starbucks Workers United says the company isn’t bargaining in good faith. So they’re rolling out strikes around the country just in time for the holidays.

In 2024, Starbucks Workers United (SBWU) grew across the U.S.: In October, the 500th Starbucks location unionized, and now there are over 525 stores in 45 states who have voted to unionize. And in February, Starbucks finally agreed to bargain with the union, but negotiations have stalled — SBWU has accused the company of failing to present a viable economic proposal, despite the company’s insistence that they settle the contract by the end of the year. In response, the union is going on an unfair labor practice strike across the country.

SBWU has planned a series of escalating strikes, beginning today and ending December 24. Today, workers will be walking off the job at 15 stores in Los Angeles, Seattle, and Chicago, and the union will announce more locations across the country on subsequent days. By Christmas Eve, hundreds of stores could be on strike.

In LA, strikes began at a location in Burbank, and in Chicago, striking locations include two in Edgewater and Bucktown.

“In September, Brian Niccol became CEO with a compensation package worth at least $113 million. It’s worth a shocking 10,000 times the median hourly wage for a barista,” Michelle Eisen, a Buffalo Starbucks barista and bargaining delegate, said in a press release. “In October, we were ready to exchange comprehensive economic proposals. In October, November, and December, Starbucks failed to bring viable economic proposals to the table that included real investment in baristas. This is backtracking on months and months of progress and promises from the company to work toward an end-of-year framework ratification. We’re ready to do what it takes to show the company the consequences of not keeping their promises to baristas.”

In a statement, Starbucks told Eater: “We are focused on enhancing the partner (employee) experience, with over $3 billion invested in the last three years. Starbucks offers a competitive average pay of over $18 per hour, and best-in-class benefits,” including things like healthcare and paid family leave for baristas who work at least 20 hours a week. However, understaffing and a lack of consistent schedules is one of the many issues SBWU is bargaining for, as workers say Starbucks keeps slashing hours, keeping many workers from accessing these benefits.

The statement continues: “Workers United proposals call for an immediate increase in the minimum wage of hourly partners by 64%, and by 77% over the life of a three-year year contract. This is not sustainable.” According to its website, SBWU is asking for a minimum of $20 an hour for baristas, and $24.50 for shift supervisors.

After the departure of former CEO Howard Schultz, who testified about his anti-union stance before Congress, the company has seemingly become more willing to engage with unionized workers. In March 2023, Schultz was replaced by Laxman Narasimhan, who despite being more amenable to the union, still held the line that “a direct relationship with our partners is the best way forward.” This September, Narasimhan was replaced by Niccol, who explicitly committed to bargaining with the union. “I deeply respect the right of our partners to choose, through a fair and democratic process, to be represented by a union,” Niccol wrote in an open letter. “If our partners choose to be represented, I am committed to making sure we engage constructively and in good faith with the union and the partners it represents.”

In its statement to Eater, Starbucks said: “Workers United delegates prematurely ended our bargaining session this week. It is disappointing they didn’t return to the table given the progress we’ve made to date. Since April we’ve held more than nine bargaining sessions over 20 days. We’ve reached over thirty (30) meaningful agreements on hundreds of topics Workers United delegates told us were important to them, including many economic issues.”

The union has made strides in bargaining this year, tentatively agreeing with the company on paid parental leave and just cause firing. But according to the SBWU, “Starbucks proposed an economic package with no new wage increases for union baristas now and a guarantee of only 1.5% in future years,” which workers say is unacceptable in the current economic climate. It also says the company hasn’t moved on resolving hundreds of outstanding unfair labor practice charges with the NLRB.

“After all Starbucks has said about how they value partners throughout the system, we refuse to accept zero immediate investment in baristas’ wages and no resolution of the hundreds of outstanding unfair labor practices,” said Lynne Fox, President of Workers United, in a statement. “Union baristas know their value, and they’re not going to accept a proposal that doesn’t treat them as true partners.”

SBWU has staged strikes during disruptive times for Starbucks before, including on Red Cup Day, historically one of the company’s most profitable days. “Nobody wants to strike. It’s a last resort, but Starbucks has broken its promise to thousands of baristas and left us with no choice,” barista and bargaining delegate Fatemeh Alhadjaboodi said in a statement. “In a year when Starbucks invested so many millions in top executive talent, it has failed to present the baristas who make its company run with a viable economic proposal. This is just the beginning. We will do whatever it takes to get the company to honor the commitment it made to us in February.”

Update: December 20, 2024, 3:00 p.m.: This article was updated to include comment from Starbucks.

From classic chocolate chip cookies to ube crinkles and holiday party-worthy linzers, these are the cookie recipes we make again and again

Cookie season is here, when it’s no longer too hot to turn on the oven, and when we’re practicing our best bakes in hopes of impressing at all the holiday cookie parties to come. The cookie can be humble, like the simple sugar cookies plus mix-ins that we make when we have leftover candy laying around, or snickerdoodles and their many variations. Or cookies can be a whole ordeal, like project-worthy linzer cookies that call for some helping hands. Whatever your cookie preferences, these are the recipes that Eater editors turn to time and time again, because life is always better with a fresh batch of cookies.

Chocolate Peanut Butter Cup Cookies

Deb Perelman, Smitten Kitchen

I have maybe four happy memories of the early days of pandemic lockdown, and three of them involve Deb Perelman’s chocolate peanut butter cup cookies. I found them at the perfect time, meaning just after the initial horror had started to fade but before the general despair took hold, and boy, am I glad I did. These are cookies that know how to lift a mood. This is in large part because they are more or less a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup, the most perfect candy known to humankind. They’re also very easy to make. You just mix together some peanut butter, powdered sugar, and salt into little balls, then chill them in the freezer while you make the chocolate cookie dough that you then shape around them. The dough also contains peanut butter, because there can never be enough peanut butter in a peanut butter cookie. After you roll the dough in a little sugar, you bake the cookies for what doesn’t seem like enough time but is the perfect amount of time because you wind up with little tuffets that are soft on the outside, gooey on the inside, and so good that they induce a pharmaceutical-grade state of bliss. You will probably want to eat at least three at a time, and I recommend that you do. — Rebecca Flint Marx, home editor

Perfect Chocolate Chip Cookies

Farideh Sadeghin, Saveur

One thing I like about getting older is my increasing ability to see a trend and think, I’ll sit this one out: checkerboard-everything home interiors, the return of ballet flats, and, to bring it back to food, those thin, “pan-banging” chocolate chip cookies that everyone seems to make now. Despite the popularity of rippled, crispy cookies, my cookie tastes have always leaned cakier — more in line with Levain than with Tate’s. Since the former served as the inspiration for this chocolate chip recipe, it’s no surprise that it hits the exact notes I’m looking for: a thick, cakey cookie that’s gooey in the center and dotted with puddles of chocolate. It’s the only chocolate chip cookie recipe I reach for now, baking trends be damned. This recipe freezes well, too: Scoop your dough into balls, freeze them on a baking sheet, and then transfer them into a freezer bag. — Bettina Makalintal, senior reporter at Eater.com

Pretzel Linzers with Salted Caramel

Deb Perelman, Bon Appétit

Linzers are persnickety, what with rolling the dough, cutting shapes, and prepping fillings. These pretzel caramel numbers are no exception, requiring bakers to also wedge a cutting board in their freezer and arrange cookie segments on cooling caramel. But they’re also very gratifying for the work. I first made them as part of an assorted holiday cookie tin, which was a mistake, both because the linzers require enough work to count as a standalone project and because they outshined every other cookie in the box. They’re salty and sweet, snappy and chewy. They deserve to shine on their own, and they make a great group activity. A food processor, a microwave, and enough room to spread out make the task a lot easier. — Nick Mancall-Bitell, travel editor

M&M Cookies

Eric Kim, NYT Cooking

I have an M&M bar recipe that I’ve been loyal to for several years, but something still made me try Eric Kim’s M&M cookies recipe. It’s become a surprise hit — I’ve made these cookies for everything from snacking to camping to entertaining, and people can’t seem to get enough of them. They’re soft and well balanced and couldn’t be much easier to make. I shouldn’t have been surprised that Kim wouldn’t let me down: His gochujang caramel cookies were a big hit for Christmas last year, and these have a similar perfect chewiness. Subbing this recipe for my old favorite M&M bars also means I don’t have to run out and get shortening, which I use only for that recipe, anytime I make them. — Missy Frederick, cities director

Ube Crinkle Cookies

Abi Balangit, The Dusky Kitchen

Any time I include these cookies in a holiday gift box or bring them to a party, people rave. There are so many things to love about them: the gorgeous purple hue, the melt-in-your-mouth powdered sugar coating, the unabashed ube flavor that is sweet and fragrant. For me, it’s not truly December until I am whipping up a batch of these cookies (and freezing some dough for my future self). And for those who are craving a single, giant cookie, Balingit includes a recipe for an ube crinkle skillet cookie in her debut cookbook, Mayumu. — Kat Thompson, Eater at Home associate editor

Salted Chocolate Chunk Shortbread Cookies

Alison Roman, Dining In: Highly Cookable Recipes

Every year, my family and I love to bake our ritual holiday cookie lineup and also try a new recipe to round out our assortment. Last year, we discovered Alison Roman’s salted chocolate chunk shortbread cookies, a jazzed up shortbread cookie with lots of chocolate chunks, rocky demerara sugar, and flaky salt. I recommend using Guittard’s semi-sweet chocolate baking bars and Maldon sea salt for the recipe, and absolutely not substituting the demerara sugar, which creates an amazing crunchy texture on the rims of the cookies. Be forewarned: without a stand mixer, I needed to devote almost ten minutes to processing the butter and sugar together. But the final result was worth the trouble. Between the big indulgent chunks of chocolate, crunchy sugar, and flaky salt, all paired with the subtle sweetness of buttery shortbread, this is truly a perfect cookie. It was such a hit last year that we ended up making two more batches. This year we plan on doing a triple, and I highly suggest you do the same. — Julia Hess, associate producer

Brown Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies with Toffee

Kate Davis, Bon Appétit

To me, chocolate chip cookies are like movies. Everyone has a favorite that they’re always willing to revisit, but no one tends to agree on which one is best. My go-to is the rich, salty-sweet rom-com that is Kate Davis’s brown butter chocolate chip cookies, which are speckled with cameos of Toblerone fragments crushed into little toffee-studded geodes. The recipe doesn’t linger in the saccharine, though: If you’re not into the flat, cavity-inducing rom-coms, this isn’t just filler with a great PR team. Instead, hefty chunks of flaky kosher salt and that deeply nutty, toasty butter bring out the complexity and intrigue that keeps any creation from feeling bland or half-baked.

And even if you find that the recipe doesn’t meet every single one of your personal tastes, it’s adaptable enough to accommodate whatever add-ins or substitutions you may need to make. No Toblerone? Skip it! Not enough milk chocolate? Add dark chocolate, pretzels, or nuts! Whatever you want from the experience, this cookie can provide, and it’s always ripe for a remake. — Jesse Sparks, senior editor

Chocolate-Covered Marranitos

Rick Martinez, Food52

Few things capture the feeling of stepping out of the cold and into a loved one’s home like Rick Martinez’s recipe for chocolate-covered marranitos, pig-shaped cookies that are infused with velvety molasses, grated piloncillo, allspice, and warming ground chile de árbol, then topped in melted dark chocolate.

The cookies are straightforward to prepare, relying on three of the most sacred baking steps: simply mixing the dry ingredients in one bowl, wet ingredients in another, and then combining wet and dry. From there, the dough gets a little bit of time to hydrate, and then you’re ready to roll it and bake. In case the recipe still feels a bit too intimidating, Martinez has a video walkthrough that I may or may not rewatch every time I remake these little piggies. In many ways, they’re an emphatic celebration of cookies’ underappreciated abilities to highlight the depth and richness of ingredients that often get forced into a supporting role (looking at you, unapologetically complex chocolate, molasses, and piloncillo). Plus, they offer an activity for family and friends of all ages: decoration!

Whether you’re the host or the guest offering these treats, everyone lucky enough to get one will want to stay a while. — JS

From the Martha Stewart documentary to “Great British Bake Off” to “Challengers,” our favorite things we watched this year — with one exception

This was a delightfully chaotic year for food on film, whether on the small or the big screen. As a refresher, this year saw the return of Chef’s Table and the debut of the much-maligned Jerry Seinfeld Pop-Tart movie. There was a chicken haunting the satirical characters of The Curse, and Kristen Kish stepped into Padma’s shoes as the new host of ol’ workhorse Top Chef. Reba McIntyre’s latest sitcom, Happy’s Place, is set in a bar; the Food Network’s latest baking competition is inexplicably set in Hogwarts.

But amid that chaos, there were definitely some shining pop culture moments that centered food — and some of those showed up in perhaps-unexpected places. Here now, 2024’s best food moments on TV and in movies, according to Eater editors:

Martha

This year provided a dearth of documentaries scrutinizing staple figures of American TV, softening their subjects into their most palatable or pitiable forms. Then, there was Martha. The Netflix documentary casts Martha Stewart as more than the sum of her career’s parts, exploring the unglamorous realities of her working-class, Polish-American family, the fraught workplace dynamics behind her ascent to media mogul, and the scandalous affairs that marked her marriages. Through it all, she’s ambitious and exacting, callous but candid. Most impactfully, Stewart parting the veil of her own mythology (along with her pushback against producers) serves as a reminder that life is meant to be messy and unapologetically delicious. — Jesse Sparks, senior editor

Challengers

I don’t think I need to elaborate on why the churro scene from summer hit Challengers is on our list of favorite food moments captured on film this year. But for those who somehow haven’t seen Mike Faist as Art and Josh O’Connor as Patrick tensely share a churro, here’s the clip. Instead, I’d like to take this time to remind everyone that Challengers also brought us a pivotal scene that takes place at an Applebee’s. The casual suburban fixture is the unlikely setting for Tashi (Zendaya) and Art’s first sparks of romance, and to see them finally make out in an empty Applebee’s parking lot against a far off city skyline was a delight. It became even more delightful when we learned that the setting was chosen because in reality, tennis players in town for the Cincinnati Masters, which is held in the suburb of Mason, Ohio, would eat at Applebee’s. Elite athletes in psychosexual love triangles — they’re just like us! — Monica Burton, deputy editor

Delicious in Dungeon

I watch a lot of anime — and this is one of the most inventive and unexpected examples of the genre I’ve seen. Also known as Dungeon Meshi, this show is a master class in world-building, one that immediately sells you on a wild premise: That a group of adventurers, journeying through a dungeon seeking to save a friend, must eat the monsters and other fantastical creatures that cross their path not just for survival, but also for pure pleasure. The animated cooking scenes here remind me a lot of the equally beloved show Midnight Diner: They’re lovingly rendered and narrated, which is even more remarkable considering they’re cooking up things like mandrake and “treasure insects.” Just go with it; it’s a delight. — Erin DeJesus, executive editor

Quincy

Quincy Jones was a peerless artist, so it’s no surprise that when the producer and musician, known for such productions as The Wiz and The Fresh Prince of Bell-Air died on November 3, fans turned to the 2018 Netflix documentary, Quincy, to honor his legacy. Produced by his daughter, actor and producer Rashida Jones, the film details the composer and producer’s life — towering wins, health challenges, personal complexities, adoration of yoga, and all. I knew that a person who lived such a colorful life had to love food and drink (and Jones’s affection for cocktails and liquor is a core element of the documentary), and found that the musician did, indeed, dabble in the hospitality industry. In 2016, the frequent global traveler opened Q’s Bar and Lounge at the Palazzo Versace Dubai in Dubai, naming beverages for some of his most celebrated projects, all of which are served against the backdrop of live music. As outlined in Toni Tipiton-Martin’s Juke Joints, Jazz Clubs, and Juice, alcohol and music are inextricably connected in Black culture. Jones, an aficionado of Black artistry, is a contemporary — and forever cherished — example. — Kayla Stewart, Eater.com senior editor

Great British Bake Off

The latest season of the Great British Bake Off felt like a welcome return to form. It was full of displays of genuine talent (see Dylan and his prodigious knack for flavors and presentation and, well, just about everything). There were contestants who were a real pleasure to watch. (I’m talking about Nelly, obviously.) And with challenges that leaned wholeheartedly into British baking — spotted dick and all — there was very little to be mad at. Dylan fans may disagree, but I’d go as far as to say that it was nice to see the person who wanted it the most — the person who most embodied the spirit of what it means to be a skilled home baker — take home the title. — MB

Lessons in Chemistry

Although it technically aired in October and November of 2023, the Apple TV+ miniseries’s import has grown exponentially this year. Adapted from Bonnie Garmus’s 2022 novel of the same name and led by Brie Larson, Lessons in Chemistry is a celebration of the subversive powers a cooking show host can wield — and have turned against her. Almost like the antithetical complement to Julia Child’s friendly curiosity, Larson’s Elizabeth Zott starts as a brilliant, confident lab tech chafing against the misogyny of the laboratory she works in. After numerous challenges at work and in the process of raising her daughter, Zott grows to be undaunted by the limitations others place on her work, her parenting, and her aspirations for the show despite the pointedly obvious racism and misogyny of the era. It’s an arresting study in questioning everything before rolling up your sleeves to experiment for yourself. — JS

The Apothecary Diaries

Calling this a food show is stretching it slightly, but in this anime that takes place in Imperial China, teenage apothecary Maomao uses her knowledge of cooking up herbs (and her willingness to be a taste-tester for poison) to rise up the ranks of the palace’s pecking order. There’s tons of palace intrigue here, but the plots are borrowed more from House — i.e., they usually revolve around Maomao using her powers of observation and medical knowledge to solve an in-episode mystery — than Game of Thrones. This is a wonderfully escapist show where the knowledgeable, resourceful young woman always wins, even if she has to swallow a bitter pill or two along the way. — EDJ

… and the worst (sorry, Chicago):

The Bear

I knew we were in trouble with Season 3 of The Bear from the very first episode, which felt less like an episode than an extended and very self-serious montage. And lo, things got worse from there. It’s difficult to pick out what I liked least about this season: was it the Fak family’s “haunt” schtick, as fresh as a fart in an elevator? Or the insistent flashbacks that supplanted actual narrative momentum? Or wait, maybe it was its cameo-appearance deification of real-life chefs whose posteriors have already been exhaustively kissed (e tu, Thomas Keller?). It was all that, but it was also, perhaps worst of all, boring. Tedious and indulgent, this season wasn’t so much a bear as a shark, jumped. — Rebecca Flint Marx, Eater at Home editor

We tested three popular French toast recipes to find the one we could easily whip up for a crowd

Maybe it’s just me, but pancakes feel like an any-weekend food, while French toast feels more special occasion. Perhaps it’s the fact that I grew up with the assumption that French toast required planning and couldn’t be made on a whim: Not only did the bread need a while to soak, it also had to be stale before soaking. For this reason, I don’t make French toast too often.

But with visions of holiday mornings in my head — twinkly warm lights, the smell of cinnamon wafting from somewhere — it seemed high time to revisit French toast and to test whether my assumption was actually justified. Does French toast have to be a pre-planned affair, or can you just whip it up on the fly?

To see whether dried versus fresh bread, or long-soak versus quick, really matters, I tested three popular French toast recipes from around the internet, using challah for each one. What I was looking for was moist, eggy-flavored bread that tasted good even without being covered with butter and maple syrup. Here’s what I found.

Classic French Toast

Lauren Allen, Tastes Better from Scratch

This recipe, which claims the top spot in Google’s search results for “French toast recipe,” challenged my assumption that French toast requires planning. It claims that though it’s “nice” to use stale bread, it’s not necessary. And it requires no soaking at all — just quickly dipping the bread in the milk-and-egg mixture, to which Allen adds flour. She claims this results in “extra fluffy” French toast; I can attest it makes the mixture thicker and more like a batter.

Allen’s recipe was certainly the easiest of the ones I tried. It’s nice to be able to think, I want French toast and have it finished within just a few minutes. That being said, the end results revealed the downside of the expedited process. The inside of the bread didn’t seem to suck up any of the soaking mixture; its interior looked basically indistinguishable from a regular slice of challah. And while Allen claims the flour adds fluffiness, my finished French toast claimed otherwise. Overall, this French toast felt more like lightly griddled, sweetened bread — somewhat dry even after the addition of maple syrup.

I think the success of this recipe depends on what you’re looking for from French toast. I’m sure some people aren’t looking for a soft, wet French toast, and I’d say this recipe is for them. But for my own tastes, I knew I could do better.

Perfect Quick-and-Easy French Toast

Daniel Gritzer, Serious Eats

Serious Eats editorial director Daniel Gritzer brings his publication’s signature rigorous testing to this “perfect” French toast recipe. Like Allen’s recipe, Gritzer’s is meant to be relatively quick: something you can whip up without much forethought. He extends his process slightly, however, by drying the bread in the oven, which takes about 10 minutes at a low temperature. That’s still faster, of course, than waiting for bread to go stale. Gritzer calls for taking this dried bread and soaking it for a few minutes in the milk-and-egg mixture. Before flipping each slice of French toast, you sprinkle on some sugar.

I found that the dried bread definitely sucked up the egg bath, which I could feel the instant I lifted the slices to transfer them to the pan. The interior of each slice was soft, squishy, and lightly eggy in flavor, while the sprinkle of sugar gave the exterior a little bit of a crust. Compared to Allen’s take, this French toast seemed the most transformed from the initial slice of challah. It read a little more wet, which, again, aligned with my personal preference.

Easy Overnight French Toast

Holly Nilsson, Spend with Pennies

Holly Nilsson’s French toast recipe feels engineered for a holiday morning, when you’ve already spent the previous day cooking a feast and still have a crowd of people to feed. What makes it so appealing is that you do all the work the night before. Nilsson’s recipe calls for placing oven-dried bread on a baking sheet on which you’ve already mixed melted butter, brown sugar, and cinnamon. You then pour a milk and egg mixture over the bread, cover it, and put the whole thing in the fridge overnight. In the morning, all you have to do is put the baking sheet in the oven.

I definitely appreciated the ease of this recipe, especially considering it allows you to have several slices of French toast done at once, instead of leaving people waiting while you cook them in batches in a pan. This recipe uses the most eggs of the bunch, calling for an entire dozen eggs per loaf of bread (for context, Allen’s recipe uses four), but has a relatively low amount of milk by comparison (1½ cups; Allen’s calls for ⅔ cup). The bread soaks pretty nicely, but texturally, I found the result at the midpoint between Gritzer’s and Allen’s — neither dry nor wet. The mixture of butter and melted sugar added a deep, slightly caramelized flavor that made each slice enjoyable even before I added maple syrup.

The Winner: Serious Eats

For my taste in French toast, Gritzer’s recipe was the clear winner. The slightly dried, soaked bread had the custardy, tender texture I’m after, but the caramelized sugar crust sent it over the edge — textural variation! Both this recipe and Nilsson’s proved to me that it’s still worth using oven-dried or stale bread and giving it some time to soak. A truly quick version of French toast, like Allen’s, is possible, sure, but I think the results show what you lose in the process. As much as I liked Gritzer’s recipe, I’d probably reach for Nilsson’s if I really had to feed a crowd.

French toast photos by Bettina Makalintal

Eggnog is easy to make at home, and worlds better than the store-bought stuff

Most of us have a family recipe or two (or maybe a whole file of them) that we break out during the holiday season. For some people it’s cookies, for others it’s that perfect side dish that rounds out a holiday dinner. For me, it’s making eggnog from scratch.

Making eggnog at home is easier than it sounds. It also allows you to control the ingredients, which means you can personalize the flavor, adjusting sweetness, spiciness, and of course, alcohol levels all to your taste. You’ll also avoid preservatives and artificial flavors. Homemade eggnog is so far away from most store-bought versions that they’re barely the same drink.

I use a simple recipe that’s been in my family for a few generations (but I make no claims to its provenance). We’ve modified it over the years depending on which ingredients are on hand and taste preferences.

One tip I heard from my mom was to always use the freshest eggs possible, meaning the least amount of time from hen to recipe. She always said the yolks in farm eggs were “yolkier.” I have found using eggs from the farmers market yields a better nog, but was it because of yolkier yolks?

Not exactly, says Lisa Steele, a fifth-generation chicken keeper, host of the American Public Television series Welcome to My Farm, and author of The Fresh Eggs Daily Cookbook. “The fresher the egg, the less chance that any bacteria has gotten into it or bacteria inside it has had time to multiply,” Steele explains.

Eggnog also tastes better with fresh eggs (in this cook’s opinion), so if you can buy your eggs from a local farmer or farmers market, try to do so. Another option is to ask at your grocery store what days the eggs are delivered, and buy them that day. That said, the world won’t end if your eggs didn’t just fall out of a chicken.

“Adding alcohol is really important because it does extend the life of the nog,” Steele says. “Hopefully it will help kill some of the bacteria and then you can let it sit for a couple of days. And I think the flavors definitely develop as it sits. Like anything else, if you put it in the fridge for a couple of days, it’s just going to taste better than when it’s first made.” It’s important to note that alcohol’s ability to kill any bacteria is debatable, so if you have major concerns, you may want to try a recipe that calls for cooking the yolks.

One of the best things about eggnog is that while the base flavors are pretty classic, modifications are really easy to make. Steele suggests adding vanilla beans, or vanilla bean paste (which has a thicker consistency than extract), or sprinkling a little cardamom instead of nutmeg. I’ve also added good vanilla extract or a splash of maple syrup. Cinnamon or maple cinnamon sugar sprinkled on top of each serving are nice options as well.

It’s also fun to play around with the flavor by switching or adding different types of alcohol, such as swapping rum for a splash or sherry or brandy. I’ve also skipped the bourbon entirely and made a batch of eggnog with a dark rum, which gives it a sweeter flavor.

If you want to try your hand at making your own eggnog, here’s the basic recipe my family uses. It yields about five or six good-sized cups of nog, and it won’t last long. Be sure to have plenty of candy canes on hand for garnish!

Easy Eggnog Recipe

Serves 5-6

Ingredients:

6 eggs
¾ cup sugar, divided
1 pint heavy cream
1 pint whole milk (2 percent is okay too, but the recipe needs some fat to work)
1 ounce dark rum
1 pint bourbon
Grated nutmeg (for garnish)

Instructions:

Step 1: Separate the yolks and whites of the eggs into separate bowls, and beat each (I use a hand mixer) until the yolks are ribbony. Add ½ cup sugar to the yolks while you’re beating them. Then, add the remaining ¼ cup of sugar to the whites after beating them until they’re stiff and airy. Then mix the whites into the yolks, pouring slowly, and stir in the milk and cream. Finally add the bourbon and shot of rum, and stir until blended. The eggnog is best if chilled for an hour.

Tanya Edwards is a freelance writer based in coastal New England. Her work has appeared in the Boston Globe, Refinery29, CNN, Better Homes & Gardens, Food Network and more.

Simmered in tomato sauce, these simple meatballs are the gift that keeps on giving

The premise of this column is to teach you how to make a delicious single-serving dinner. Consider these tender, herby chicken meatballs a great exception.

The beauty of these meatballs, which are cooked in a dead-simple tomato sauce, is that they can be repurposed into a few different meals.

I like to serve some over polenta the night of and then use them later in the week in a variety of ways: tossed in pasta, sliced on a sub-style sandwich with melted mozzarella, even served for breakfast over rice with a fried egg. The sauce ensures that the meatballs don’t dry out when you reheat them, which you can do gently in a skillet or saucepan. And they freeze and defrost particularly well, too, if you want to keep extras on hand to eat down the line.

Start by drizzling a small bit of extra-virgin olive oil onto a quarter sheet tray or large plate. Then finely chop ⅓ cup of flat-leaf parsley, larger stems removed. (This will be almost the entirety of a small head, another bonus if you often find yourself with wilted herbs at the bottom of your crisper.)

Whisk 1 large egg, ½ cup of panko breadcrumbs, ⅓ cup of grated Parmesan, 1 clove of grated garlic, 2 tablespoons of olive oil, 1½ teaspoons of kosher salt, some freshly cracked black pepper, and the parsley in a medium bowl. Add 1 pound of ground chicken (ground turkey works, too) and mix everything together with your hands.

Next, grease your hands with a bit of that olive oil from the sheet tray or plate. This will make it easier to form the meatballs. Roll each clump between your palms so that it’s about two inches in diameter. Place them one by one onto the tray. You should end up with about a dozen.

At this point, I like to stick the meatballs in the fridge for a few minutes while I clean up the kitchen. They’re quite wet, so even that short amount of cooling time will help maintain their shape as you fry them.

Place a large stainless steel skillet over medium and let it get hot. Pour in enough olive oil to lightly coat the bottom and let that heat up for a few minutes. Add the meatballs and cook them for 10 to 12 minutes, turning a few times, until they’re browned all around.

Push the meatballs to one side of the skillet, lower the heat to medium-low, and dump in a 15-ounce can of crushed tomatoes. Season the tomatoes with salt (a task made easier with the meatballs now out of the way). Just a pinch should do it. Give the tomatoes a stir and then redistribute everything so that the sauce and meatballs mingle. Let this simmer for 15 to 20 minutes. If the bubbles are too ferocious, turn down the heat a smidge.

Tomato sauce doesn’t need much to be amazing. Just think of Marcella Hazan’s iconic version, made with only salt, butter, and an onion. Here, I do even less: Just the short amount of time it simmers with the meatballs will make it plenty delectable. It’ll get saltier and meatier as it cooks, taking on some of the browned bits from the bottom of the skillet.

If you want to eat these with polenta — which I highly recommended — start cooking the grain right before you dive into the meatballs. Everything should be done around the same time. (A ratio of ¼ cup of polenta to 1 cup of water is perfect for a true single serving, with a generous pinch of salt and a knob of butter added at the end.)

But however you serve them, know there will be more tomorrow.

Emma Wartzman is the kitchen and dining writer at New York Magazine’s the Strategist.
Additional photo illustration credits: bowl photo by Emma Wartzman

Thanks to the so-called Slavic Diet trend, buckwheat is the latest cultural food staple to be cast as a TikTok fetish object

Two things in life are inevitable: the march of time, and FoodTok gentrifying any given culture’s dietary staples.

The latest traditional food to fall victim to TikTok’s machinations is buckwheat, a wholesome grain (well, technically a seed) that proponents of the “Slavic Diet” trend are touting for its health benefits, pairing it with decidedly non-traditional, non-Slavic foods like avocado — another humble staple given a bougie makeover. The Slavic diet has been making the rounds since September, when it was first posted by user Anuutavg (the video is now unavailable). “Slavic girls know the ultimate trick to staying skinny is buckwheat,” read the caption. The post appeared on the heels of the “Slavic Doll” trend, which celebrates fetishizes “Slavic beauty.”

As a (half) Slavic girl myself, I have thoughts about this, and complaints.

My mother is from Poland, where buckwheat is a staple. We call it kasza, which is technically the term for any grain, including buckwheat, which, again, is not technically a grain but a seed. Buckwheat was first cultivated in China, then spread to Central Asia and Eastern Europe. It’s believed to have been brought to Poland in the 15th century via the Tatars. It is heart-healthy and rich in fiber, potassium, protein, iron, and vitamin B6. It cooks like rice, is surprisingly versatile, and works both as a side or on its own as a porridge. It’s amazing.

But it’s awful. On its own, buckwheat is unapologetically dry and has an aggressively nutty taste. I feel like it tastes like hardship. Each bite is a culinary equivalent of a rugged, Old Country mindset: Food, like life, is something to be endured, not enjoyed. Buckwheat is — I’m sorry — a chore to eat. It’s something that’s good for you, but not necessarily good.

To me, buckwheat feels like one of those foods you jettison as soon as you leave the old country. Why would you eat buckwheat for breakfast when you have access to sugar cereal? Buckwheat is a reminder you’re not assimilated. That your normal friends have the privilege of eating boneless, skinless chicken breast flavored with Lipton soup packets, but your mom eats head cheese and sends your dad to work with kabanosy that stinks up the office so bad it draws complaints.

That said, buckwheat is my go-to quick breakfast. I boil one Kupiec brand bag for 15 minutes (convenience beating fear of hot plastic), add cheese, a super-runny poached egg, and dill, all of which do nothing to get rid of that sharp buckwheat-y tang. I hate it, but I love it. Because it makes my body feel connected to centuries of my Polish and Ukrainian ancestors surviving on buckwheat and determination. It tastes like home.

I’m genuinely curious whether people who didn’t grow up with kasza will enjoy — or at least endure — it. Despite being eaten across a wide net of cultures including those of Central and Eastern Europe, China, Korea, and Japan, buckwheat hasn’t really hit the mainstream in America — perhaps the closest it’s come is in the form of soba noodles. But now that it’s being touted as a superfood with health and weight loss benefits, it might have its breakthrough.

But it bumps to see this cultural staple turning trendy on TikTok, like some kind of post-Soviet French Women Don’t Get Fat. The real “Slavic Diet” my mother grew up with often didn’t include food. My family struggled under communism, and my babcia would pretend to eat from a pot so my mother and uncle didn’t know there wasn’t enough food for all three of them. She’d feed them bread before bed to try to make them not look so bony, because skinny wasn’t chic. It was a reminder that my family’s farms were taken away at gunpoint.

I’m wary of what it means for buckwheat to take off in the Western Bloc. Kasza is hard to find in Los Angeles. My visits to the East Coast always end with me lugging back boxes of it from the Polski sklep, then getting stopped by TSA because they have to inspect each one. I once shared a knowing look with a Polish woman at JFK waiting for her boxes of kasza to get their personal pat downs, because it’s so aggressively Old Country to travel with grains in your bag that it’s suspicious, I guess. I get excited by the idea of buckwheat groats conveniently sitting next to quinoa and farro at Whole Foods — until I realize that convenience will come with a mark-up. What currently costs $4.99 a box at European Goodies is already $8.99 on Amazon.

Whole Foods forecast buckwheat as one of its Top 10 Food Trends for 2024 because of its growing popularity; as has been the case with many, many foods before it, greater popularity promises to move buckwheat away from its roots. It bothers me because Polish cooking has been my way to connect with my roots. The TikTok girlies who just want to be healthy or lose weight haven’t had phone conversations with their mothers about the way babcia used to make it. How could they possibly appreciate it in all its dry glory?

But food, like water, is fluid. It circulates and takes on new forms. I doubt the Slavic Dolls of yore intellectualized buckwheat when the Tatars brought it to them. So I can’t really get mad that people who haven’t spent hours mixing it with twaróg and stuffing it in pierogi are eating it now.

So have at it. I’m sorry it’s so dry. Try it with fried onions. Put it in chicken soup (rosółl), like my mom does. I will begrudgingly let you gentrify buckwheat as long as you stop putting an “s” at the end of pierogi. Smacznego!

Heidi Lux is a screenwriter and satirist based in Los Angeles. Her feature, Crushed, is streaming on Tubi, and her work has appeared in McSweeney’s, Reductress, the Belladonna Comedy, and more.