I believe that birthdays are meant to be festive occasions. There is nothing wrong with getting older. Even though it may mean a few more fine lines on my face, or indicate that my youthful 20’s are truly over, I don’t mind. I always try to live life to the fullest, and on my birthday I like to spend my time celebrating the good, not worrying about the bad.

Of course, I don’t mean to sound like Pollyanna, my life isn’t all wine and roses. Just yesterday I burned my finger on a hot pan, and this morning my toddler daughter threw a four alarm tantrum when I wouldn’t allow her to wear party shoes to the playground. Oh well. I am still going to embrace my happy birthday and celebrate by eating lots and lots of chocolate cake.

This year, when contemplating potential birthday desserts, I decided to pay homage to everyone’s culinary hero and make myself a delicious cake by Julia Child. Many people I know share the dream to follow in Julia’s footsteps and become food professionals and, even, icons. This is especially true after the release of last summer’s blockbuster, Julie & Julia. Since I started my own culinary career a mere two years before Julia did I think I am off to a good start in retracing her career path. Only, I live in New York, not Paris or Cambridge, my husband is taller than me, and, I was never a spy. I guess this means we have a few differences, too. However, despite these, I am confident that we share a similar culinary point of view. Like Julia’s, mine includes a love of butter, sharp knives, eggs, roast chicken, and, of course, cake.

I’ve baked quite a lot from MtAoFC and to honor my birthday this year I chose to bake Julia’s Reine de Saba. A delicate chocolate cake made with almond flour that is subtly sweet, with a tender crumb and pure chocolate flavor. It seemed perfect to celebrate with a classy dessert that is simultaneously decadent and restrained.

I know Julia didn’t have children, but with this cake she definitely wrote a recipe that is Naptime Chef-friendly. I was able to bake this while my daughter napped yesterday. Then I let it cool for the afternoon and iced it this morning. (There is no way I would ice it in advanced and offend Julia!)

Shortly before I posted this article my husband declared the cake too good to look at, and we served ourselves big slices for breakfast. Some people would consider it sacrilege that I intend to eat my birthday cake all day long, but, I pay them no mind. There is nothing wrong with eating delicious food all day to celebrate my birthday, and, although I didn’t know her, I am pretty sure Julia would feel the same way.

Growing up in Cooperstown my family ate at community suppers with the same regularity we did restaurants. Hardly a month passed when my mother wasn’t whipping up a batch of these homemade meatballs to cart off to the Church, Girl Scouts or Lions Club. Sometimes she would ask the organizer if she could bring a beverage or dessert, but the answer was always no. People wanted their meatballs.

It turns out that she shouldn’t have been surprised by their popularity. These meatballs had already achieved community supper-fame many years before when my paternal grandmother made them for my father’s children’s choir dinners. In fact, they were so popular that she wrote down the recipe and named it in honor of the choir boys who so happily devoured them.

Over time I have discovered that meatballs are incredibly handy in the kitchen. They freeze beautifully, guaranteeing that a tasty meal is always at my fingertips no matter how hectic my day. And, when I need to make them in bulk for a community supper – like my mother and grandmother before me – I simply double or triple the recipe. I’ll admit, there are many occasions when people tell me they don’t see the point in making homemade meatballs since perfectly good ones can be purchased at the market. As a fellow parent I completely understand the need for convenience, but making a large batch of these meatballs to keep in your freezer is twice as delicious and efficient as anything you will find at a store.

One of the keys to making these meatballs is to start with good ingredients. I always buy meats with a high ratio of fat. This keeps the meatballs moist and tender, and prevents them from having any sort of golfball-like texture or flavor. Once all the ingredients are gathered, making the meatballs while my daughter naps is a cinch. I simply place them in a large glass bowl and mix with clean hands until everything is evenly incorporated. Then I form the mixture into 1-inch balls, making sure they are molded firmly enough to stay together when they are seared in the pan.

Come dinner time I serve them piled high on top of a big plate of piping hot spaghetti. Suffice it to say, when they hit the table – whether it be at a family gathering or community supper – there is instant silence as everyone ceases conversation and begins eating.

Storage space in my New York galley kitchen is precious. Yes, I do have more room than most people in my building since our apartment was recently renovated, but it still isn’t much. Like most New Yorkers I store my pots, pans and cookie sheets piled precariously on top of one another in two deep cabinets. All of my plates and glassware are stacked in order to save space, and I nestle my bowls and tupperware in order from small to large.

With storage space at a premium, I must be ruthless when it comes to keeping food. Since I tend to cook with mostly fresh ingredients my apartment size fridge can generally accommodate my purchases. I have a well-edited selection of spices on my lazy susan, a shelf dedicated to essentials like dry pasta and condiments, and a corner for my daughter’s snacks. In order to save space I steer clear of store-bought jarred soups and sauces. Instead, I make a lot of them in large quantities and freeze them. Though this sounds inefficient, it is actually a space saver. By making large batches of tortellini soup or tomato sauce I always have some at the ready to thaw, which is just the thing when I am dead tired at the end of the day and need to throw together a quick, delicious meal.

Three weeks ago I returned from our trip to Martha’s Vineyard with five loads of laundry and a huge bag of tomatoes. Traveling had been a blast, but with summer coming to a close it was time for me to get back into the swing of things at home base. On our first day back I put my daughter down for her nap and started in on the laundry. Then it was time to start in on the tomatoes.

I set aside two of them for a caprese salad for dinner, and got to work with the rest making tomato sauce. Over time I’ve made up this tomato sauce recipe based on one I found in Bon Appetit a few years ago. I like my tomato sauce to have an intense tomato-y flavor that is not overshadowed by heavy spices and seasonings. I find that a basic marinara is the best thing for me to have in my freezer, that way I can season it later depending on the dish I am cooking.

To prepare the tomatoes I begin by roasting them for about an hour along with some garlic cloves and lots of olive oil. Then I give them a quick blitz in the blender, and put the sauce on the stove to simmer. I also add the roasted garlic cloves, oil from the roasting pan and a little extra tomato paste to intensify the flavor. Once everything has thickened I simply store it in a sealed tupperware and pop it right in the freezer to save for later.

Stockpiling tomato sauce in the freezer is one of my favorite, and most efficient, tools for having dinner at the ready. Just the other day I was in need of an emergency meal and was able to thaw some sauce in a pinch to make Buccatini All’Amatriciana. A little pinch of red pepper, some onion, garlic and pancetta, and voila, dinner was served. Yes, the space in my freezer is precious, but I am confident that storing this sauce is the most efficient, and delicious, way to use it.

In September 1992 I started 10th grade at Emma Willard School. Attending boarding school, let alone an all-girls institution, seems unusual to most people. A very small portion of the teenage population in the U.S. actually elects to live away from home during high school. And I was part of that minority.

Though I had enjoyed my education in Cooperstown, by the time I reached 9th grade I couldn’t wait to flee small town America. I fully embraced the idea of being independent of my parents, studying in an environment where academia reigned supreme, and living on a campus where each room had Ivy league-esque vaulted gothic ceilings.

I loved every minute of my time at Emma Willard. For three years I filled my days with studying, writing, eating, playing sports, hanging with friends, and studying some more. In fact, to this day I could hardly tell you one thing I didn’t enjoy about my time there. I made my best friends in the world, learned more about arts, culture and science then I ever thought possible, and gained a healthy dose of self-confidence to boot. But, I’ll be honest, there was one thing that was absolutely awful about boarding school life: the food.

As one might expect, like most cafeterias pre-food revolution, the culinary selections at Emma Willard were dreadful. Each day my options consisted of watery overcooked cod, dry rice or rubber chicken. For most meals I would unhappily consume a bowl of cereal alongside an english muffin pizza, assembled from the measly salad bar pickings. In fact, I surmise that I ate this for lunch or dinner at least once a day – if not for both. My classmates didn’t think much of the fare offered either. So much so that at the end of each week the kitchen would lump together all of the leftovers from the past seven days (there were a lot!) into one grotesque casserole coined “Shepard’s Pie.” When a friend’s family served me Shepard’s Pie in Scotland during college I thought I would have to choke it down out of politeness, until I realized that real Shepard’s pie is actually delicious. What we ate at Emma Willard bore no resemblance to the British dish whatsoever.

However, there was one thing that we loved in the Emma Willard cafeteria: Chinese Chews. Like all normal teenagers, what we didn’t eat for dinner we made up for in dessert. (Thank goodness we participated in mandatory sports programs!) And this one had been a favorite with Emma girls for several generations. I don’t know how they were given their name, but the Chinese Chews we ate were deliciously sweet, chewy and chock full of wonderful ingredients like toasted pecans and sweetened coconut. Sometimes, when the cook was feeling generous, he added chocolate chips as well. Luckily, a foodie to the end, I was able to score the recipe for Chinese Chews from Nancy, a fellow alumna, several years after I graduated.

I made these Chews recently and even my in-laws agreed that they are delicious. They are rich, buttery and as close to a candy bar as I am ever going to make at home. One of the secrets is the large amount of brown sugar that is used. When the coconut mixture is poured over the crust it puffs up while it bakes forming a layer of coconut chocolate blondie, on top of the already buttery crust. I know one of the reasons I loved these as a teenager is because they were so intensely sweet that they made my fillings ring. I am sure this is the same reason my daughter loves them today. Like most baked goods I have no trouble preparing these while she naps. Then I let them cool and serve them for dessert with a big bowl of vanilla ice-cream.

I am happy to report that the Emma Willard cafeteria is in much better shape these days. Last year I returned to campus as was thrilled to see that the chef is committed to serving organic food, sourced locally whenever possible, as well as organic milks and beverages. Additionally, last year the impressive environmentally conscious students elected to forgo using trays in order to save the water used to clean them, as well as committed to using only two napkins per student per meal to avoid wasting paper. Every time I visit I am thrilled with their progress and the selection of gorgeous food available at each meal. And, I’m also glad to find that Chinese Chews are still on the menu.

I believe it’s alright to eat any kind of food in moderation. I have no qualms about eating one or two cookies each day, or enjoying a slice of bread with dinner. Instead of counting calories and swearing off certain foods altogether, I try to balance the good with the bad.

When I occasionally go overboard (read: Christmas cookie season, and the day my yearly order of Girl Scout Cookies are delivered) I offset my indulgent behavior by cutting back on sweets the following week. Most of the time I have to keep an eye on my cookie intake, since I tend to bake a lot. But lately I’ve also had to keep tabs on my bread consumption. No, I didn’t get a bread maker, I finally perfected my favorite recipe for No-Knead Bread.

Two years ago Mark Bittman single-handedly revolutionized the baking world when he published Jim Lahey’s recipe for No-Knead Bread. Upon his declaration that everyone could kiss away hours of tedious hand work, thousands of home cooks happily dusted off their cast-iron pots, committed to lives of thievery – snatching creuset knobs out of window displays – and popped their un-kneaded dough into the oven without a care in the world. Of course, I was doing this right along with everyone else, (except for stealing part – my knob was a gift from my friend Jeanne). I loved the ability to bake bread while hardly breaking a sweat. I also enjoyed the fact that Bittman’s revised bread baking process fit into my then professional workday schedule. I would simply leave the dough to rise in the morning when I left to work and bake it at night after dinner.

Over time I’ve worked on several flavor variations and even kept a few in my permanent binder. Recently, at the suggestion of a friend, I made this flavor in order to take advantage of the fresh rosemary in the garden. If this ingredient pairing tempts you in the least I highly suggest you make some. Right. Now. To say that my family and I enjoyed this bread is an understatement. We devoured it like hungry peasants on the side of the road during a famine. Our consumption was decidedly not an example of eating in moderation.

Now that I’ve made this a few times we’ve learned how to exercise a bit of restraint: it takes us 36 hours to polish off a loaf, instead of the initial 12. I also have worked out any kinks in the recipe to make sure the flavor is consistently light with a hint of bright citrus. The rosemary adds a wonderful floral tone to the dough, making it delicious to eat with a spread of butter or homemade apricot jam. Now that I’m working from home I’ve mastered making this during my daughter’s naptime. I simply begin the dough in the evening after she goes to bed and let it sit overnight. Then, during naptime the next day, I finish the remaining steps and bake it in the oven. This way it is always ready for a late afternoon snack. After that I wrap it up and put it away for breakfast – if we can wait that long for our next slice.

Welcome to “Apple Mania 2009,” my new seasonal food focus. Similar to the format of last summer’s ice-cream festival, this fall I will be highlighting delicious recipes made with my favorite seasonal fruit, apples. Look for new recipes all this season showcasing delicious ways to incorporate apples into your everyday cooking and baking!

When the seasons change so does my cooking style. Though I love the sunshine and warmth of summer, fall is truly my favorite season. Maybe it is because I was born in September (my birthday is – hint hint – a week from today), but there is something about the crisp air, cooler breezes and autumnal colors that make me feel alive and inspired. Just this weekend I tucked away my light summer salad recipes to hibernate for the winter. In their place I pulled out ones for hearty cold weather fare like stews, lasagnas and dishes loaded with root vegetables and fall fruits.

New York State is one of the top five leading producer of apples in the country and, since I grew up right smack in the middle of the state, it is no surprise that I love to incorporate apples into just about everything I make. For the next few months I’ll be Naptime Chef-ing many of my favorite apple foods from sweet cookies, pies, breads and muffins, to savory pork with homemade applesauce, tart salads, and these, my favorite scalloped apples. When I came across this recipe a few years ago I was immediately drawn to the way it echoed a favorite childhood snack, apples slices with cheese. In this dish the apples are baked until soft, with only a pinch of sugar and spice for flavor, and topped with a light layer of sharp cheddar cheese. It is a snap to prepare and is a wonderful addition to any fall lunch or dinner.

Preparing this meal it not time consuming so I am always able to complete it while my daughter naps and re-heat it later in the evening. Or, sometimes, I make it a half hour prior to dinner and let it bake while I get everything else on the table. Everyone I’ve ever served this to loves the savory sweet contrast between the baked apples and sharp cheese. It is slightly reminiscent of another favorite, apple pie with cheddar cheese crust, only without the heavy butter pastry. Last week I served this with roasted sausage from the farmers market and a slice of rustic bread. I was pleased, but not surprised, to discover that my daughter loved it, and I was more than happy to serve it to her since it contains high-quality fresh ingredients with nothing extra. Watching her enjoy the food made me excited that fall cooking season as arrived, I can’t wait to see what inspires me next.

My friend Mary has many fond memories of her Aunt Ethel. Ethel was, in fact, not her aunt, but her neighbor in Haverford PA who helped Mary’s mother care for Mary and her sisters while their father was fighting in WWII. During these tough times Ethel and her husband, Hamilton, who had no kids of their own, would frequently cross the street to Mary’s house to happily help out and teach their mother how to cook.

The fact that these days Mary is an excellent cook is due to Ethel’s expert tutelage. Ethel not only taught Mary’s mother the ways of the kitchen, but instructed Mary as well. Luckily, Mary has preserved many of her beloved neighbor’s amazing recipes, many of which have become family favorites in her household over time.

Last month Mary dropped off a fresh batch of blueberry muffins that were so delicious my mother and I were speechless after just two bites. They were perfect. Unlike so many muffins I find today, these didn’t have a sickly sweet cake-like texture, and they were the size of a small apple – not a softball. Mary’s muffins were light and a little flaky, with just a hint of sweetness and lemon. In fact, if they had a little more butter and less sugar they would probably be considered a scone.

Naturally, I asked Mary for the recipe and she was more than happy to send me a copy. Even better, she sent me the original copy in Aunt Ethel’s handwriting (pictured below), along with a picture of Aunt Ethel herself (pictured above, she is on the left). I loved the personal story that came with these tasty treats. Discovering this recipe only furthered my conviction that tried and true home cooks often possess some of the best recipes of all time.

I am excited to share these muffins with you because they really are as delicious as they sound. They also are a snap to prepare. I make the batter in one bowl and can do it easily while my daughter naps, or on a Sunday morning when we are the mood for fresh baked goods. I have already tried these once with cranberries and they are delicious, I bet they would be great with raspberries, too. Whatever fruit you choose I hope you enjoy them. I didn’t know Aunt Ethel personally, but I know enough about her to guarantee that she would be happy to know you are cooking with your family, too.

It is just as important to celebrate the end of summer, as it is the beginning. In my family we choose to celebrate these occasions with good food, great people and lots of time outdoors. On Memorial Day it is our tradition to throw some swordfish steaks on the grill and enjoy a delicious seafood meal. In many ways this is the kick-off of grilling season, as we proceed to cook most things over an open flame all summer long.

When it comes to our celebration style, Labor Day is no different. We roll out the cold salads, put a few bottles of beer on ice, rev up the grill and it is time for grilled chicken.

I love it when readers write to me with questions and comments. In fact, some people even send me some amazing recipes. When I received this lemon chicken recipe from my “virtual” friend Ashley in Chicago I knew I had to give it a try. I loved the ingredients at first glance and especially appreciated the part where she recommended marinating the chicken in a Ziploc bag. I know it isn’t elegant (as evidenced by the picture below), but I firmly believe that marinating meats and poultry in Ziploc is always the most effective. By placing the meat in a bag it can be surrounded by liquid, as opposed to sitting in a pan with marinade poured over it.

Since I was nearly certain that Ashley’s recipe would be a hit I put it to the test last weekend at our pre-Labor Day cookout. To ensure maximum flavor I used fresh organically raised chickens from our farmers market, and rosemary sprigs plucked fresh from our herb pots. Before I placed the chicken in the Ziploc bag I pierced the breasts several times with a fork, this allowed it to absorb a lot of the delicious marinade. I prepped the chicken and marinade while my daughter napped, and left the Ziploc in the fridge for about 5 hours before we were ready to grill. This amount of marinating time might have been extensive, but it was worth it because the flavor was amazing. However, if you don’t have that amount of time on hand, I am sure 1-2 hours in the fridge would work just as well.

As we expected, the chicken was juicy, moist and bursting with a sweet lemony-herb flavor. Preparing it had been a cinch and eating it was just as easy. In fact, I had to write down the recipe for several of our guests. After we devoured all of the chicken, we agreed that the taste of this marinade rivaled that of our previous favorite, Brooks BBQ Sauce. There is room for both in our pantry, and I’m sure Ashley’s recipe will stay on my go-to marinade list for quite a long time. I hope that this recipe serves you well for your upcoming Labor Day cookout, I know that this is what I’ll be making next Monday afternoon.