I just want to give a plug to the photographer who took these shots of us – Carolyn Fong. She was sent by Hyphen Magazine to photograph me for an article that came out in print a few months ago (yeah I know, I am all kinds of bad for self promoting any press) and we also used the photo above on this article about creative couples on the Etsy blog.

Thanks Carolyn for these great photos. There are so few pictures of Mark and I that it’s a relief to have a nice photo for PR purposes.
 

Lots of press this week (and a few more coming soon too). The New York Times included our biscotti in their Holiday gift guide this year (yay) and Dwell Magazine put our pink peppercorn sandwich cookies in their picks for holiday entertaining. Apartment Therapy’s The Kitchn featured our conversion posters in their 10 useful and Inspiring Gifts for New Cooks and our marshmallows are in Ebony Magazine. Thanks to everyone who spotted our stuff and gave us the heads up.

So…can you believe Christmas is only 2 and half weeks away? It’s not over yet, but I do believe that this holiday cookie season might pass without one of us in tears. It’s been busy, but downright civil. We’re actually really looking forward to this weekend too. On Saturday, the whole family will be selling at the PS 321 Holiday Shop in Park Slope. It’s a nice event with kids activities and great vendors so if you’re in the area, stop on by. We also have a tap recital, a holiday party and we’re devoting all of Sunday to family holiday fun time, yay! Have a great weekend!

We’re missing the lakehouse this year, which has sort of become a 4th of July tradition with our friends, the Jensens, over the last couple of years. I know they’re missing it this year too.

Acura, the car brand, publishes a quarterly lifestyle, travel and design magazine for their customer base (a distribution of 850,000 – hey, not bad!) and asked me to submit some photos for consideration for one of their photo essay stories. The lakehouse story was chosen for a 4 page spread and was published this Spring (along with a nice paycheck. Yay for paying photographers for their work!).

Happy 4th of July! We’re going to try and catch some fireworks.

Did you guys see this yet? I don’t get too excited over press (no, don’t take this the wrong way. It’s always a thrill to see your name in print, but when it comes to translating to direct sales, press isn’t what it used to be), but I have to admit I was really excited when I saw how our Valentine collaboration with West Elm turned out! It’s SO fun. And they did such a terrific job styling the 3 recipes we gave them: a cardamom spiced hot chocolate with orange whipped cream, star anise panna cotta with ginger poached pears, and a meyer lemon cake with blueberry lavender sauce. I LOVE it, so be sure to check it out.

Also in biz news, we have more new retailers who will be carrying our products. This Wednesday we’ll be delivering to Foragers Market in Dumbo and The Plaza Food Hall by Todd English, inside the Concourse level of The Plaza Hotel (yes, *the* Plaza Hotel).

Our marshmallows are also on the shelves at the just opened Haven’s Kitchen, a specialty food shop and cooking school, on 17th Street in Manhattan. Don’t forget we’re also at Gourmet Guild over at 110 Broadway in Williamsburg – all locally sourced products.
 
I think that about covers it, whew!

I thought I would have to work right on December 26th on a new project, but in fact I didn’t end up working the entire week. To be perfectly honest, I didn’t do much at all.
 
I went to sleep very late almost every night (3am!) but slept in till 9 or 10pm. The girls did not wake me up.
 

The Wall Street Journal picked up a story about our calendars online and in print over the weekend and I sold a bunch of calendars.
 
I finally bit the bullet and bought a new and bigger dining room table and chairs that I’ve been wanting to buy for the past 3 years. Sure, the table ended up being backordered, but after 3 years, what’s another 5 weeks?
 
I went and bought our plane tickets to our annual August Seattle trip because I found a good deal. I bought trip insurance for the first time because geez, that is more than half a year away.
 
TOY PURGE!
 
The weather stayed mild and sunny and it was a pleasure to walk around Central Park and climb big rocks and watch ice skaters at Wollman Rink (even though it’s now TRUMP Wollman Rink – when did this happen, have I been living under a rock) and watch tourists snap all sorts of pictures of themselves in front of…trees.
 
Despite swearing we’ll never go to midtown during the month of December if we can avoid it, we found ourselves doing just that very thing because we forget that it’s special kind of hell reserved only for the holidays, but this year, not only do we survive the crowds and walking against a wall of people coming at you down Fifth avenue, it’s bearable because of the nice weather.
 
Continuing on with the “why are we doing this” line of holiday activities, we ducked into Trump Towers (what) for a little ice cream break in the cafe. Sure, Claudine had a mini tantrum when she realized that what she really wanted was lime sorbet and not coconut (grrr), but other than that, it was almost pleasant to sit there, stare at the Christmas tree and listen to holiday music even though I was asking myself “why are we here” pretty much the whole time.
 
The tree at Rockefeller Center, which in past years has always been a bit of a let down when we go see it in person, looked more enchanting this year. Maybe because as we were walking away towards the Subway Station the tree started *twinkling*.
 
By the way, doesn’t Claudine look fancy in her shiny new silver coat? She looks like a little lady.
 
Happy new year.

Oh, December…you are here. And we are in the throes of Holiday!Cookie!Madness! for our 4th year. Thousands of cookies will be baked per day, hundreds of bows will be tied (have you ever had to tie 200 little ribbons? It always takes longer than you think. 4-5 hours to tie 200 ribbons, for real – and by the 50th ribbon, your fingers forget what to do. I have looked up “how to tie a ribbon” videos on youtube, true fact), paper will be trimmed, folded and stacked for wrapping, and hundreds of packages will be made and stamped. It’s true, every Fall fills us with a little bit of dread as we head into 16 hr work days until the Christmas holiday, but at this point in our 4th year of business, we know what to expect and how much we can handle so we can minimize the crazy at least just a little bit.
 
This year we’re lucky to have a little more help than the past 3 years as two of Mark’s old pastry staff from his restaurant days are coming in 2 days per week on their days off all month to help him bake those thousands of cookies (although Mark can and does bake up to 2000 cookies himself and I still don’t understand how that’s humanly possible, I really don’t). Hopefully that means that we can extend our ordering deadlines by a few days and not turn away some of the larger orders that we sometimes need to in order to maintain our sanity.
 
And the holiday fairs! The season is here and we’re kicking it off by participating in the West Elm/Etsy Handmade Holiday Fair tonight at the West Elm Dumbo store in Brooklyn from 6-9pm.
 
Next weekend, Dec 10 & 11, the Bust Magazine Holiday Craftacular expands to 2 days with a new location in Soho, and we’ll be back at the Brooklyn Flea One Hanson for 5 dates starting December 16th. We’ll have calendars, prints and tea towels available at all 3 events (and thanks to Epicurious for featuring our calendar in their gift guide)
 
The holidays wheeeeeeeeee……zzzzzzzzzzzz