Claire Saffitz

Lemon curd is one of the first things I remember cooking when I was old enough to use the stove without supervision. I looked up a recipe in my one of my mom's Martha Stewart cookbooks and went to work, stirring anxiously and monitoring closely for signs that the mixture was thickening so as not to curdle the eggs. ”

Cooking has always been work. ”

I've always just operated with the attitude that if I work just as hard as I can, everything will be fine. ”

For a while I thought I would work in museums, so my first job after college was an internship at the 9/11 Museum. I quickly found out that I did not want to do that. So I signed up for culinary school, and directly following culinary school, I went to graduate school at McGill. ”

Cooking for a crowd during the holidays takes a lot of time and effort, so we understand the desire to outsource as much of the work as possible. ”

Quince may resemble pears and apples, but unlike their fruit brethren, raw quince are inedibly tannic and sour. This means you do have to cook them, but the transformation is dramatic, and well worth your efforts. ”