I love making Melissa Clark’s dreamy, crunchy-skinned porchetta, marinated and trussed the day before, then roasted in the oven, making my whole house smell like rosemary and garlic and pork drippings. Sandwiches with leftovers the next day are a huge bonus. TEJAL RAO
Recipe: Porchetta Pork Roast
The holidays usually mean we have at least a couple packages of those grocery-store-soft-sugar-cookies in the house. But this year I’m especially excited to make Eric Kim’s homemade version! Love the addition of the freeze-dried raspberries to color and flavor the icing! SCOTT LOITSCH
These potato latkes from Joan Nathan are positively transcendent, and my first bite convinced me that there is no better way to consume potatoes fried in oil. They are impossibly crisp, edging into hash brown territory, but have the purest potato flavor since they’re prepared without egg, flour or other fillers. Best yet, they can be patted into patties the night before cooking. ALEXA WEIBEL
Recipe: Pure Potato Latkes
One of my favorite holiday traditions is hand-delivering cookies and thank you notes to people around the neighborhood I interact with a lot throughout the year, like the pharmacist, the butcher, the ladies of the laundromat, the dog’s vet, the guys at the bodega … the list is long. These Italian ricotta cookies are so easy to make in big batches, but they are still festive looking and very delicious. I change up the sprinkles and colors year to year. EMILY FLEISCHAKER
Recipe: Italian Ricotta Cookies
My husband’s family is Italian, so we always do a big lasagna for Christmas; Samin Nosrat’s big lasagna is a good one. For a special vegetarian New Year’s Eve dinner, I’ll be making this mushroom Wellington. It was a big hit last year. It’s such an impressive dish to put on the table and the taste is so rich and delicious that it satisfies both meat eaters and vegetarians. It’s so good! KIM GOUGENHEIM
Recipes: The Big Lasagna | Vegetarian Mushroom Wellington
For me, the hands-down holiday winner (usually for a New Year’s Eve dinner) has been the baked alaska by Amanda Hesser, based on the recipe from Stacie Pierce of Union Square Cafe. I love making individual ones, though I must confess I’ve frequently varied the flavors, going tropical one year with coconut cake, mango sorbet and rum. Then along came Gabrielle Hamilton’s version, a spectacular beauty with a core of homemade semifreddo that uses the yolks left from separating the whites. It’s the best finale for ringing in the new with some good bubbly alongside. FLORENCE FABRICANT
Recipes: Stacie Pierce’s Baked Alaska | Gabrielle Hamilton’s Baked Alaska
December is generally when I get on a plane to visit relatives (none live where I do), and therefore my holiday food rituals tend to involve food cooked by other people. That said, both Melissa’s potato leek gratin and David Tanis’ potato salad nicely complement the stone crab claws that are a Christmas tradition at my in-laws’. When there isn’t a pandemic, we usually throw a holiday party centered around an aged Benton’s ham. Among the things I set out to eat with it are plates of endive, using a recipe loosely based on this salad from Martha Rose Shulman (I use pecans instead of walnuts). BRETT ANDERSON
