One Sweet Cookie | Rizzoli, 2011 | Makes about 60 small cookies

Flower-shaped cookies are a lovely alternative to a pricey bouquet for your sweetie on Valentine’s Day and are elegant after-dinner sweets. The versatile dough can be rolled out and cut into any desired shape. You can also omit the sugar topping and decorate them with the icing of your choice.–Tracey Zabar

LC How Sweet! Note: Few flowers, even a bouquet of stunning long stems, can stand up to the splendor and thoughtfulness in a batch of these tender, subtly sweet...

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Miss Dahl's Voluptuous Delights | William Morrow, 2010 | Serves 4

“Whore’s pasta.” Was ever a name so perfectly suited to a dish? This is edgy, spicy, and just the right side of wrong, conjuring up visions of Neapolitan streets and dangerous women in tight dresses.–Sophie Dahl

LC Hurry It Up Already! Note: When time constraints scream for takeout, consider tossing together this weeknight-friendly pasta instead. The truly impatient should note that this quick recipe can be made even more quickly by relying on a pinch of...

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Tea with Bea | Ryland, Peters & Small, 2011 | Serves 8 to 12

This chocolate cake is vegan but we don’t tell people it is, and they love it. That’s how good it is.–Bea Vo

We’ll Second That…: We second the author’s sentiment. That is, we don’t tell people this is a vegan chocolate cake, either. And yet folks tend to go back for seconds…and thirds…

Active time: 20 minutes | Total time: 1 hour, 30 minutes

Vegan Chocolate Cake Recipe

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Baking Basics and Beyond | Agate Surrey, 2011 | Makes 32 jumbo or 96 standard cookies

We call these “dishpan cookies” at my house because if you make the whole recipe, you need a dishpan to mix all the ingredients (or a very large bowl). These cookies traveled with my kids on many team trips and were always “winners.”–Pat Sinclair

We Interrupt This Recipe…: Put down that wooden spoon. The New York Times just reported that this Sunday’s Super Bowl XLVI will introduce yet another animated M&Ms...

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At the risk of flattering myself, I like to think I’m an enthusiastic cook, educated shopper, and informed eater with reasonably good, organic, local, seasonal, sustainable, minimally-processed intentions. Yet a mere mortal am I, and in the dark recesses of my soul there lies weakness.

For junk food.

Roll your eyes or cast aspersion if you must, but I know you know what I mean. We all have occasional—or maybe persistent, nagging, all-consuming—cravings for things filled with empty calories, be they sugary or salty, tender or crunchy....

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I come from stirring stock. That is to say, my people are stirrers. It’s how my grandmother, avó Costa, cooked. She stood facing the stove for hours in her pink housecoat and pink slippers, her tiny pink hand planted on her hip, singing in her thin, reedy voice. She stirred all kind of Portuguese comestibles: spicy stuffing with chunks of homemade chouriço sausage; her famous pink (of course) chicken, rice, and potato soup; and vats and vats of kale soup.

When she grew too old to stir her soups and stews for long, I’d do it...

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