Every holiday season we ask a few friends to join us here at The Kitchn for a series of guest posts. The topics range from favorite holiday recipes to family memories and traditions. Today's guest: Jess Goldman, Sodium Girl, talking about health during the holiday period. Yes, I know Christmas is over, and Hanukkah nearly is as well, but there is a whole week of feasting left through New Year's, and these tips may come in really handy.

Most of the year, we eat for sustenance. Yes, of course, we eat to socialize, too. But in general, we snack to cure rumbling stomachs. We lunch to break from the work hours. We dine at night to close the day. And we breakfast in the morning to fuel up for the new one ahead.

And most of the year, if you're on a special health or allergy-related diet, you navigate these food-focused engagements rather easily. You stuff your bag with treats to keep full. You eat where and when you can. You make satisfying meals at home to curb cravings, all while keeping tabs of those nutritional goals.

But during the holidays, that's a different beast. More

Every holiday season we ask a few friends to join us here at The Kitchn for a series of guest posts. The topics range from favorite holiday recipes to family memories and traditions. Today's guest: Nancy Singleton Hachisu. A native of California, Nancy now lives and works on an organic farm in Japan. I have been so inspired this year by her blog, Indigo Days, and by what I have seen of her forthcoming book, Japanese Farm Food. Welcome, Nancy.

I spent my first Christmas Eve in Japan eating hand-rolled sushi and sipping sweet sparkling wine. Oh, and I had a slice of the obligatory Christmas Cake, a cloyingly sweet concoction of generic sponge cake smeared with whipped "cream" and adorned with winter strawberries. At least we didn't have the bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken that many Japanese eat on Christmas Eve (instead of turkey?). The family I was visiting knew me better.

They knew that my love of sushi had inspired me to want to learn Japanese, thus propelling me to Japan the summer of 1988. My friend prepared a large platter of freshly cut sashimi, along with some other garnishes that I have forgotten (shiso leaves, daikon sprouts, green onion?). More

Every holiday season we ask a few friends to join us here at The Kitchn for a series of guest posts. The topics range from favorite holiday recipes to family memories and traditions. Today's guest: Terry Boyd. Terry is a longtime reader and community member of The Kitchn, and he writes his own blog, Blue Kitchen. I always learn something when I visit there!

Fresh rosemary adds a subtle, mysterious something extra to Hazelnut Rosemary Jam Cookies. And unlike so many holiday treats, they're not overly sweet. So they're perfect with a cup of tea — and when holiday guests drop by. More

Every holiday season we ask a few friends to join us here at The Kitchn for a series of guest posts. The topics range from favorite holiday recipes to family memories and traditions. Today's guest: Domenica Marchetti. Domenica is a widely-published food writer and columnist, and she has published some wonderful books on Italian cooking, including this year's favorite, The Glorious Pasta of Italy. Welcome Domenica!

Fried dough.

That is what our house smelled like on Christmas morning when I was growing up. Even as my sister, Maria, and I attacked the presents piled under the tree, our mother dashed back and forth from the living room to the kitchen, where she fried batches of calcionelli.

These golden-brown crescent-shaped pillows of sweet dough, filled with ground nuts and honey, are a specialty of my Italian mom's native region of Abruzzo. I imagine that as she stood there at the stove at our house in New Jersey, the aroma of honey and orange zest and fried dough brought her right back to her own childhood Christmases in the hilltop city of Chieti.

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Every holiday season we ask a few friends to join us here at The Kitchn for a series of guest posts. The topics range from favorite holiday recipes to family memories and traditions. Today's guest: Cheryl Sternman Rule of 5 Second Rule. I am a huge fan of Cheryl's writing and photography, not to mention her cooking.

At my college, the annual Latke-Hamantaschen debate drew standing-room only crowds. Each year, two popular philosophy professors held forth on the relative merits of these holiday foods so central to Jewish tradition.

At the time, I found the debate comical (it was intentionally lighthearted and funny), but mostly rhetorical. After all, it was obvious to me that hamantaschen were far superior. With tender, triangular pastry and sweet, peekaboo fillings, hamantaschen won my heart in a way greasy fried latkes never could. More

Every holiday season we ask a few friends to join us here at The Kitchn for a series of guest posts. The topics range from favorite holiday recipes to family memories and traditions. Today's guest: Germaine Leece of Some Home Truths, an always thoughtful and inspiring blog. (We've peeked inside her own home kitchen in Sydney, too!) Welcome Germaine!

All families have their own Christmas traditions, some left over from childhood and carried through to the next generation and some that may have only recently appeared but feel just as important.

For my children, a new tradition began three years ago when my son came home from preschool with a bag full of 'Reindeer Food'. More

Every holiday season we ask a few friends to join us here at The Kitchn for a series of guest posts. The topics range from favorite holiday recipes to family memories and traditions. Today's guest: Jess Thomson of Hogwash. Jess is a friend and terrific writer and recipe developer. She recently published a book on doughnuts, and she brings us this recipe for sufganiyot, those fried, jelly-filled pastries so beloved at Hanukkah.

Consistency has never really been my strong point, so it's not surprising that when I think of December, I think of three very different things. I think of skiing on Christmas day, when the crowds are thin and Santa's finally been able to bag off work and take a few quick runs. I think of the menorah I must have forgotten to clean last year, like I always do, with a week's worth of wax crammed into the little candle holes, waiting patiently for an hour of my time and a Swiss Army knife. And I think of my freshman year in college, when my friend Abby gathered a bowl of little Satsuma oranges, studded them with whole cloves, and put them on top of her bureau. I thought she was Martha incarnate; I didn't grow up with décor. The sweet, spiced smell from that one bowl snuck under her dorm room door, and wafted down the hall, and planted itself deep within my psyche as the smell of Christmas. More

Every holiday season we ask a few friends to join us here at The Kitchn for a series of guest posts. The topics range from favorite holiday recipes to family memories and traditions. Today's guest: Anne Zimmerman of Poetic Appetite, and author of An Extravagant Hunger: The Passionate Years of M.F.K. Fisher. We also toured Anne's kitchen this past year.

Have you ever spent Christmas away from home?

M.F.K. Fisher did in 1929. This was long before she was the famed food writer who composed evocative prose about the exquisite pleasures of the table. Then, she was a young bride who had just moved to Dijon, France with her new husband, Al. The two traveled South for Christmas, to a little town on the Mediterranean Coast called Cassis. On Christmas Eve, the couple drank rum punch and waited sleepily to go to Midnight Mass at a little church on the top of a high hill. More

Every holiday season we ask a few friends to join us here at The Kitchn for a series of guest posts. The topics range from favorite holiday recipes to family memories and traditions. Today's guest: Melanie Widmann of Coffee Tea Gastronomy. Melanie is a true tea aficionado, and I loved this small sweet project she had to share.

Last year, I purchased this amazing tea but the thought of putting it in a fillable tea bag and handing it to someone just seemed to lack presentation. The idea of how to share tea in a beautiful way then became the basis of a book that will be released in 2012, titled Gifting Tea. The tea tag is one of the most versatile ideas found in the book and is really just simple origami with a few embellishments. More

Every holiday season we ask a few friends to join us at The Kitchn for a series of guest posts that range from favorite holiday recipes to family memories and traditions. Today's guest: Erin Scott of Yummy Supper, a blog I have really admired this year. Welcome Erin!

Our holidays have gotten more and more simple, and I couldn't be happier.

Instead of rushing around trying to buy loads of stuff we really don't need, we try to savor time with our kids, our friends, our family - the simple pleasures. Like so many others, a huge part of my family life revolves around food; and with kids home for winter break, we get even more time in the kitchen to play. More