I’ve been shamefully derelict in updating my blog lately. A lot has happened: I’ve moved back home to Kansas City for the time being, I formally completed my master’s degree and have the paperwork to prove it and I’m currently job-hunting.

One thing I’ve been doing a lot to stay busy and productive (sadly, though, not “thin”) is cooking and baking. Like two years ago, I made all of the family’s Christmas goodies with my mother this season. This year’s menu consisted of red velvet cupcakes (the Hummingbird’s recipe from “Cake Days”), vanilla-and-spice whoopie pies (also from “Cake Days”), chocolate-and-caramel shortbread bars and peppermint macarons. For Christmas Eve, I put together a Linzertorte, a German pastry made with almond meal, lots of butter and raspberry jam.

I have a few cooking feats I want to achieve in the next few months. Sometime later this winter, I’m playing host to an Indian dinner party for my family, serving homemade chicken tikka masala, naan, bombay potatoes, pilau rice and pistachio rice pudding. The chutney and papadams, I’ll probably buy. I also want to improve my macaron technique (I’ve made better cookies than most food bloggers’ efforts that I’ve seen, but I’m no Ladurée), field a decent risotto and make a Battenburg cake, the gold standard British teatime treat.

Despite this baking, I’m still not a food blogger (if you want to read a great one, read my friend Brenna’s). But I love doing it for fun, it gives me something to do and I enjoy it. More importantly, I also hope to start regularly updating my blog again, now that I’m in a more stable living situation. The Republican primaries are coming up, there’s a lot of social media topics to be discussed and lord knows I need to keep up with my writing.

In the meantime, I can make more of these.

Not bad for a first effort, no? They have feet!!

Chocolate macarons with chocolate-and-coffee ganache