Much like training for a 10k, planning a dinner party looks manageable from afar. Decide on the menu the week before, clean on Tuesday, buy groceries on Wednesday, and so on until Friday night rolls around and the party has practically come together on its own. However, just like that first long training run that leaves you huffing and puffing, wondering if you'll ever see the race start, let alone the finish line, more than once I've found myself an hour into the menu planning, surrounded by cookbooks and blogs, having underestimated the feat ahead. This is why I turn to braised beef. 

I love entertaining, whether it's a small group on the porch, a crowd for Frogmore stew in the kitchen, or an all out bash with 150 of our closest friends. (That last one only happens once a year.) All of our parties have one thing in common: my favorite blue pottery chip-and-dip dish. Nothing says "party" at our place like pulling that dish out of the cabinet. Along with most of my fellow southerners, I believe every gathering needs food for dipping! That dish has seen a lot of action.

At the start of spring, the whole world seems to be bursting with tiny, irresistible signs of new life: green leaves sprouting from branches, fuzzy kittens popping up in my Facebook feed, and tender, sweet new potatoes making their brief annual appearance at the market. They may not last long, but when preparing ingredients this fresh and fleeting, the upside is that you don't have to do much to make them stand out. Simply boiled and tossed with fresh herbs and anchovy-flecked butter, new potatoes are a savory, soul-satisfying way to celebrate spring.

Going for a quick drink after work or checking out a new restaurant is always a treat, but many (most, really) Friday and Saturday nights find us making a cocktail at home, for ourselves or for friends. And even though there are no pretenses that it will be a dinner party, I always like to have something simple on hand to snack on beyond the ordinary crackers/cheese/olives scenario. 

One-dish dinners are so called because one big scoop contains everything you could want or need to fill your belly. Everything from the veg to the meat gets layered into the same skillet, pot, or casserole dish, and cooked together. Sometimes they're ready in a matter of minutes and sometimes they bubble away for hours. Either way, these are big dishes that will easily feed a crowd — all without a pile of pots and pans to clean up afterward.

A Visit with Woodblock Chocolate in Portland, Oregon

As Dessert Week draws to a close (aren't you sorry to see it go? We are!) let's talk about chocolate for a moment. Chocolate inspires the most passionate responses — I know people who say, hyperbolically, that they could not live without chocolate, that their ultimate dessert is a wedge of the darkest chocolate cake imaginable. But chocolate doesn't really do it for me; I like it in small amounts or swirled with peanut butter. What about you? Is chocolate the best thing ever, or could you take it or leave it? 

If Dan Lepard's new cookbook Short & Sweet is the one-stop shop for homey everyday sweets and baked goods, Patisserie is the one-stop shop for all things classic and French. Want to become the master of puff pastry? Craft your own pulled-sugar roses? Drap petits fours with fondant? With over 3,200 step-by-step photos and 210 recipes in 800 pages, this book will show you exactly how to do all of these things and more. Wowzas.

Every now and again, I stumble across something online that makes me smile. Sometimes it's an incredibly well-written article; other times it's a preview of an album I've been wanting to hear. Then there are the times when all it takes to put me in a good mood is the thought of a single-serve soft chocolate chip cookie in a cup. 

There’s something exciting about dessert in our house — shocking, even. Dessert rarely appears at the table, even though we have no specific rules about sweets. Every now and then one of the children will make a request — usually cookies, a love they inherited from their dad — or I'll feel nostalgic for something like cobbler, vinegar pie, or homemade Magic Shell over ice cream. Dessert is not a required course and we definitely don’t need it to survive. However, because my husband and I come from different cultures (I am all South Carolina, while he is half Serbian and half French) he’s been known to claim his Gallic heritage as the reason he must have dessert. But he comes by his love of dessert honestly...

Madeleines.  That little French butter cake that most (non-French) people think of more as a cookie.  They have a classy, literary reputation, having served as Proust's muse in his famous Remembrance of Things Past.  Like most muses, however, madeleines appear to be simple but actually require a fair amount of patience and careful following of instructions.  In the end, though,  you are rewarded with a truly unique little cake, browned and crispy on the outside and spongy and soft on the inside.  A perfect accompaniment to your afternoon cup of tea.