I have a complicated relationship with chocolate. I spent the first 20 or so years of my life not liking it at all. Marbled birthday cake? I’ll just eat the white parts, thank you very much. Oreo cookies? Yup, I was the type to lick out the centers and try to pass off the slobbery wafers on unsuspecting siblings. Chocolate ice cream? Honestly, I’m still not into it.
But at some point, a little chocolate seed in my food brain started to sprout and now I find myself craving it from time to time. You don’t see a lot of chocolaty recipes around here, because my cravings tend to require immediate action–no time for recipes or pictures. When I need chocolate, there’s usually not time to wait around for butter to soften or ovens to preheat, it’s more of a how-can-I-get-half-a-bag-of-chocolate-chips-into-my-mouth-as-quickly-as-possible sort of situation.
Well, I found myself in a days-long chocolate mood last week. My pantry was in rough shape–not a chocolate chip or baking bar in sight. I cleaned out my freezer, hoping to find a forgotten brownie or slice of cake. No luck. I tried concocting a frothy/sludgy iced mocha with cocoa powder; didn’t work. I needed intense chocolate, something I could hold onto, chewy, fudgy, and decadent. I needed to do it right. I needed a big batch of cookies.
These cookies are everything I could’ve asked for and most definitely worth a trip to the grocery store/waiting for the oven to preheat. They are intensely chocolaty, fudgy in the center, chewy around the edges. I snuck in a handful of rum-soaked cherries but I imagine chopped walnuts or candied ginger being equally delicious.
Just when I thought I was done baking for a good long while, I discovered a carton of buttermilk a few days away from expiring and half of a pack of almond paste in the back of the fridge. What to do, what to do? Well, we can’t be wasteful and since we’ve got almost a week to go before we start thinking about New Year’s resolutions and whatnot, what do you say we make one last holiday treat?
Shaved fennel with orange slices and black olives is far and away my favorite winter salad. It’s a very non-recipe recipe that I’m about to share, but it’s a combination that I adore, so I must sing its praises to you. The flavors play so well off one another: the crunch of raw fennel is highlighted with sweet juicy citrus and cut with briny black olives. It’s a salad that makes such a refreshing counter to heavy winter braises and roasts that I find myself making/craving this salad all the time. 
I have a theory on how the humble little quick bread became everyone’s favorite homemade holiday gift: no one has time for anything in December. Life goes from busy to absolutely chaotic. I’m supposed to be where, when? You’re on your way over…um, great! Throw in shopping, pre-entertaining deep-cleaning, the fact that you must double the amount of time it takes to go anywhere, and you get the picture. If you’re going to have something in homemade in hand when you show up at that party, the only viable option is a loaf of quick bread.