December 31, 2022

As 2022 comes to an end, I have been reflecting on the year and enjoying the happiest of holiday festivities throughout Massachusetts. It has been just over a year since Kev and I moved from Ohio and settled into the burbs of Massachusetts. The holidays this year has been especially exciting since it was Z’s first Christmas. She is in her seventh month now and has reached new developmental milestones. Kev and I have been so amazed by her growth each day and still cannot believe how quickly time has flown by. We were able to spend some much-needed time at home with Z eating tons of food on Thanksgiving and watching Z open presents for the very first time during Christmas. Before we knew it, 2022 was coming to an end. I have been so lucky to be able to spend time with family this holiday season. We cooked up a storm during Thanksgiving and continued cooking and baking straight into Christmas. Christmastime is my favorite time to visit local towns nearby and check out their lights. We brought Z to ZooLights at Stone Zoo in Stoneham, Festival of Trees in Methuen, Winter Lights in North Andover, and even ventured east to Salem for a day trip. There is no joy like watching Z’s face light up in amazement. In between all our winter festivities, I have been hard at work learning some of my mom and dad’s most cherished recipes. My mom makes the absolute best turkey vegetable soup. I started referring to it as mom’s thankful turkey veggie soup. Mom uses a variety of vegetables and cooks it along with turkey legs to yield the perfect blend of east and west flavors. Dad makes a truly stunning ginger scallion steamed whole fish. He always starts with a fresh fish from the fish section of the local Asian grocery store. He would clean it, prep it, and whip everything together in 30 minutes tops. It pairs perfectly with a steaming hot bowl of jasmine rice. Along with these cherished dishes, I also baked up a super simple bûche de Noël weaving in flavors of matcha and chocolate. I started making my version of a bûche de Noël a couple years ago around the holidays as a fun way to celebrate the season. With my parents celebrating the holidays with us this year, I decided to remake my matcha chocolate Yule log cake. This time though, I made it extra festive by decorating the bûche de Noël with holiday lights made of sprinkles. I used two kinds of sprinkles to make the holiday lights, a beautiful shade of blue oblong-shaped sprinkles for the wires and round colorful sprinkles for the light bulbs. The cake itself was easy to make and assemble. All it took was some patience and a light touch to artfully assemble the cake. Just take a look at the visual steps from the recipe I shared in 2021. We served up the matcha chocolate bûche de Noël as a sweet end to a wonderful Christmas dinner. My mom did not even want me to cut into the cake because she thought it was too pretty to eat. While the outside was pretty to look at, the inside also did not disappoint. Z is still small so she isn’t quite ready to enjoy some of the cake, but when next year rolls around, she will be ready to enjoy this sweet dessert along with other festive holiday treats.