Life was a whirlwind of activity these past few weeks and blogging took a bit of a backseat while I prepared things at work for my maternity leave. People kept on telling me that first babies are “always late” and that I shouldn’t worry about having everything ready to go before our due date on the 27th, but I had a feeling our little man wasn’t going to wait that long to make an appearance… and I was right. As was my husband, who predicted our baby would be early less than a day before I went into labor.

On January 19th – a full nine days before his due date – our munchkin arrived after 36 hours of labor. Looking back on the experience I can’t believe we did it, and now I understand what other moms meant when they told me that – no matter how hard the labor ended up being – in the end it would all be worth it. They were right. I never knew it was possible to love another person this much. Our little guy weighed in at 7lbs 14oz and measured 20 inches long. He is now my official blogging buddy as he sleeps curled up on my chest while I write this post.

Back to the regularly scheduled blogging program as soon as possible!

*Huge thanks to Beth Madison for all the gorgeous photos she took of our baby, including the one shown here.

Although I haven’t posted in about a month, believe it or not my days have been filled with foodie thoughts. I’ve been leafing through old issues of Saveur, bookmarking recipes in Everyday Food, and spending far more time than is healthy ogling things in my newest cookbooks: Savory Baking and Rustic Fruit Desserts. But when it came time to take these inspirations and make them manifest in my kitchen? That’s when I ended up in the nursery sorting baby clothes, or searching the internet for the perfect nightlight, or freaking myself out by reading books about caring for a newborn – all of which include a chapter on the dreaded colic. I pray our son does not visit this scourge upon us. Please. God.

Gingerbread is one of those holiday treats that shouldn’t be restricted to the months of November and December. Don’t you agree? And yet, it does have a special appeal during the cooler months. There’s nothing quite like beginning a crisp November morning with a confectioner’s sugar dusted piece of gingerbread, perhaps served with a dollop of whipped cream and a hot cup of coffee. Mmm mmm.

I sometimes wonder how foods became associated with particular seasons. Gingerbread, for instance, originated in the kitchens of ancient Greeks and Egyptians for ceremonial purposes and was brought back to Europe by 11th-century crusaders returning from the Middle East. How did it go from exotic foreign food that only the rich could afford to a scrumptious staple on the Thanksgiving – and especially Christmas – table?

Quick announcement: My Apple Cobbler recipe (the one the won my husband’s heart even though I set his kitchen on fire) is among the many delicious entries in Bon Appetit’s Holiday Bake Off contest. Would you vote for it in the Miscellaneous Dessert category? In order to submit your vote simply log into Bon Appetit (or create a free account if you don’t have one) then click here to be taken to the voting page. Thank you!

Thanksgiving is right around the corner and for me that means two things: lots of baking/cooking and watching holiday movies on infinite loop. Holiday films are something of an addiction for me from late November thru New Years Eve, and luckily my husband finds it more amusing than annoying when I watch Elf or Home Alone for the umpteenth time. I can’t help it. Buddy the Elf cracks me up when he writes a note to his father that says, “I’m sorry I ruined your lives and crammed eleven cookies into the VCR,” and when he tells his dad that plans for the day involve making snow angels for two hours, ice skating, eating a whole roll of Tollhouse cookie-dough as fast as they can and then snuggling.

Do you dunk your cookies in milk? I don’t, but my husband does, and though I’ve never given much thought to this tiny difference in tastes it was all I could think about last night while we were enjoying the outrageous chocolate cookies shown here. With only 81 days left (!) until our due date I couldn’t help wondering whether our baby, once he’s old enough, will prefer to dunk cookies like his daddy or eat them separately like me. Then this morning, as I was eating cereal, I thought about how I eat my cereal right after cold milk is added to the bowl, lest I lose an ounce of crunch. My husband, on the other hand, lets his cereal sit for at least 10 minutes so that it has a chance to get mushy. Personally I think his treatment of cereal is a little scandalous – but what if our son one day shares this proclivity? I’d be outnumbered in the crunchy vs. mushy food debate that’s been raging in our household for the past eight years.

I know this doesn’t hold true for everyone, but I really can’t get enough of pumpkin flavored goodies – especially in the Fall. In fact, I’m so enamored with pumpkin that I made the Pumpkin-Apple Muffins shown above not once, not twice, but three times before the recipe was just right. When it comes to pumpkin my determination knows no bounds and I just had to have a morning like this one, where I could munch on a moist, tender, autumn-spiced pumpkin muffin while sipping on a decaf honey-vanilla latte.

I’ve been a little obsessed with pumpkin lately, making things like pumpkin muffins, pumpkin spice lattes (decaf, of course) and pumpkin spiced pancakes whenever I have a free moment. My husband jokes it’s like I did a search in the Baking and Books archive for the keyword “pumpkin” and then just made everything that came up in the results… and he’d be right if I’d made the vegan pumpkin currant cookies I posted back in 2007. But I didn’t. So he’s not.

Some people say Summer is the thing, but for me Autumn is where delights are to be had. Only then can you alternate between bouts of baking in a toasty, aromatic kitchen and sitting outdoors, watching the leaves turn on a cool afternoon, perhaps with a homemade Pumpkin Spice Latte or a mug or Mulled Cider in hand. Can you imagine a better way to spend the days a little this side of the snow?