Happy Friday!

Merry Christmas! I hope you had a wonderful holiday with those you love. I know I had a really nice one here at home with my family eating good food, playing Scattergories and Chinese checkers, opening gifts and attempting to take a big family picture of all of us. I love the second picture of us laughing. I told them the camera took ten frames in this certain setting but no one believed me and luckily the camera caught us in an impromptu moment.

There were tons of amazing recipes out there this week but here are a few of my favorites and a couple of other links, too:

I love grits and these baked cheese grits look like the next dish I’ll be making with the bag of grits I have in the fridge.

After I introduce my family to Union Market this weekend, we’ll be heading over to DC Brau Brewing Company for a tour. They have tours on Saturdays at 2pm, 3pm and 4pm.

The Washington Post had an article about why you feel so lousy after a huge holiday meal around Thanksgiving, but I bet this applies to a lot of people right now.

“But if we talk among ourselves and properly love one another the best we can, we will prevail. A just and wonderful world can be ours, as long as we do not relinquish our citizenship.” –Mark Bittman’s Christmas dream.

Brian Feldman’s project “BFF” is running January 1st- December 31st in 2015. I highly encourage you to go! Brian is a wonderful and talented guy and he explores important questions about friendship through this unique and interesting show. If I seemed biased because I know him personally, check out his reviews and buy a ticket here (side note: I shot his poster! It was really fun and I also got great shots of a protest that sprang up in front of us while we shot this).

There were so many cookies arriving in the mail these past two weeks! They’re all part of the Great Food Blogger Cookie Swap. On Monday you’ll be able to see more pictures and links to these cookies above and the cookie recipe I contributed to the swap. In the meantime, links:

Do you know how to drink like a proper Korean? Let’s head to Kogiya and practice.

This week I put pomegranate arils into a salad but now I wish I had used them to make pomegranate guacamole like Kate.

I LOVE Lindsay and Bjork from Pinch of Yum. They are my personal food blogging heroes. I loved Lindsay’s post called 15 Ways to Avoid Blogger Burnout. I feel like she is my personal guru! Also, these spicy sofritas veggie bowls look so tasty. How lucky that I happen to have all these ingredients in my fridge at the moment.

Learn how to cook a perfect steak from Marcella and enter her giveaway to win some beautiful meat from Snake River Farms!

Nik has some of the most beautiful photos I’ve ever seen on a food blog. Look at these beautiful buckwheat and oat flour christmas cutout cookies (especially that first gorgeous photo… magical).

I’m always interested in planning for breakfast the morning after a big holiday at home with my family. I may have found the ultimate breakfast for the morning after Christmas.

I might only have a little rosemary bush shaped like a Christmas tree decorating my house but Sini’s beautiful winter wreath making post really gets me in the mood for celebrating Christmas.

Okay, so this isn’t really a Thanksgiving recap. I wasn’t very handy with the camera last week. My mom’s arm is in a sling (don’t worry, she’s doing better!) so the task fell on my dad, brother and me to cook everything so we were quite busy. It was a pretty calm day of food prep though, with very little last minute scrambling. I did manage to injure myself by splattering molten hot cranberry sauce all over my arm, but it was nothing a quick soak in ice cold water couldn’t fix (honestly, nothing can top the burn I gave myself last night as I greedily bit into a pie crust cookie fresh out of the oven (recipe pending!) causing the hot jam filling to come out the other side and onto my hand). We enjoyed a honey brined turkey, brussels sprouts, a variation on sweet potato anna, and so many other things that made me feel full for a week afterwards. My brother made this pumpkin pie with bourbon and bitters. And the next day I threw some of that skin searing cranberry sauce into some baked french toast with challah bread.

On Saturday my brother flew back to Florida where he lives so we headed to Old Ebbitt Grill, a family favorite before he left. We took this family selfie (felfie?) while waiting for grilled oysters and Korean style pork belly tacos. I now feel like I need to eat shredded kale until Christmas dinner.

Meanwhile, this week in links:

I squealed over the cuteness of these gingerbread terrariums.

Shot glasses made out of toasted marshmallows. What.

I always love learning about new ways to improve on my blog. I can’t wait for Amanda’s ebook on SEO for Food Bloggers to come out!

A nice primer on some of my favorite comfort foods, Korean stews.

Sometimes I feel like there’s a blogging collective consciousness. My family had spiked spiced cider at Thanksgiving and then this morning I see this libation of beauty.

I only have the luxury of asking myself, “What Should I Eat For Breakfast Today?” on weekends, but seriously, Marta’s beetroot crepes are something eaten in dreams.

And on a serious note, some heavy things are happening these days. I don’t want to get political on here and I can’t express myself eloquently enough about this issue. Lindsey expressed it beautifully.

Last weekend I went to the Emporiyum in DC. It was an event that featured a sort of food market with purveyors from all over the country. Held in the Maurice Electrical Warehouse just down the block from one of my favorite places in DC, Union Market, ticket holders filed into the warehouse and walked around to each vendor’s table, tasting samples as they followed the line of tables. You could also buy any of the items you sampled and also buy dishes from any of the restaurants featured there. There was ramen from Toki Underground, chocolate bars from the Mast Brothers, and past from Sfoglini. After a while the crowds were a bit overwhelming so we headed to Union Market to get some Rappahannock Oysters and pork buns from a Toki Underground pop up.

I’m excited to see what they do for the next Emporiyum scheduled for April 2015 but I hope they do something about crowd control!

Here are some links from around the web:

The New York Times posted an article on my favorite neighborhood in Richmond, Virginia- Church Hill.

Amanda McClements, the owner of Salt and Sundry, a lovely shop selling home goods and food finds in Union Market (and now 14th Street) posted a list of holiday and hostess gifts on the Etsy blog.

I love this video featuring Molly Yeh out on her farm in the Midwest making lefse with her fiancé’s family. Don’t know what lefse is? I didn’t either but I learned a lot from this video.

Laura over at Blogging Over Thyme is celebrating brussels sprouts this week. I looove crispy greens and these fried brussels sprout leaves with lemon and chili flakes looked amazing.