Earlier this month my husband and I hosted a cozy-glam winter cocktail party for friends in our Boston apartment. Yesterday I shared the party plan and menu, and now it’s time to get a peek at how it all went down!

Buoyed by our friends’ festive mood and attire (I encouraged everyone to wear something that made them feel “dashing,” and was thrilled to see sparkles and bow ties around the room!), we lit candles and popped sparkling wine bottles; we played records, snacked on sugared cranberries, and ran out of the cheddar olives. It was a little crazy pulling it all off, but also exhilarating. After all, this is it — the final episode in our Gatherings from The Kitchn for the year — so why not go out in style, with a glass of boozy punch in one hand and a bacon-wrapped date in the other?

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It’s tough to make a drink that can please both those who abstain from and those who imbibe alcohol. Many mocktails are no more than sugary juices with a bit of soda water added. For Cambria’s winter glam cocktail party I was tasked with coming up with something a little more interesting — a mocktail that had the edgy notes of a grown-up drink without any of the alcohol. But it had to accommodate a splash of stronger stuff, too, for those who wanted a boozy punch.

My solution? This festive cranberry fizz — which I’m told was a hit. Want to see what’s in it?

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When the weather outside is frightful, you throw a cocktail party. (I’m pretty sure those are the original lyrics to that song.) Last January when the other editors and I planned The Kitchn’s Gatherings for the year, it fell to me to host our very last party of 2013 — a winter cocktail soirée with bubbly drinks and appetizers.

So with a Pinterest board full of glitzy party decor ideas and a menu of bite-sized indulgences, my husband and I set out to create a sparkly, slightly retro, cozy-glam evening for our friends, all of whom work very hard and deserve a night to dress up, get out, and get down with a good drink and a lamb meatball slider. Today I’ll share the party plan and the full menu, which may or may not include chocolate cake bites, bacon-wrapped dates, and perhaps the greatest cranberry-ginger-rosemary punch ever. (Ok fine! Those are all included! I have a terrible poker face.)

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We all start our days in different ways: a breakfast pizza with sunny-side up egg for me, a green smoothie for you, and ham-cheddar egg bakes for a friend. (Unless, that is, we’re all sharing a plate of lofty buttermilk pancakes doused in maple syrup.)

This past year, we talked about all sorts of ways to super-power our mornings with an extra dose of protein and nutrition, and here are fifteen favorites. These are the breakfasts that make us excited to get out of bed and leap into the day!

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What did you want to cook, eat, and read about through the months of 2013? We always find it instructive and entertaining to look back over the past year and see what you loved.

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From professional chefs, to wildly popular cookbook authors, and also TV food personalities – they all find time to cook at home. Even though home cooks might not necessarily be their target audience in their professional life, we can learn a lot from their kitchen wisdom.

The 15 posts included in this roundup are the popular posts in the Expert Essentials series from the last year. From the importance of keeping your knife sharp, to aiming for simple, nurturing cooking at home, each expert gave 5 (and sometimes more) essential lessons for the home cook.

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Q: I made a fabulous ruby port and fig cranberry sauce for Thanksgiving. I must have done something a little bit wrong, because I ended up with a very saucy sauce. I drained off some of the excess and saved it, and now I have this super yummy thin winey, figgy, cranberry sauce. Any ideas for turning it into a yummy meal?

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We love products here at The Kitchn, and we never cease to get excited when we test one out and discover our lives changed. (Our reviews of Fissler’s pressure cooker, Breville’s wafflemaker, and the Vitamix come to mind.) Here’s a look back at some of the kitchen tools we reviewed this year, as well as a few of our favorite product roundups, from salt cellars to butter keepers, ceiling pot racks, timeless tea kettles, and more.

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We are always on the hunt for for tips that are fresh, a little surprising and truly helpful — in short, the kind of advice you get from an expert. This year we talked to pastry chefs, food scientists, cookbook authors and others, gathering their best tips for perfect turkey roasting, easier party planning, better pickle-making, and much more. From tips for taking better food photos when you travel to Wylie Dufresne’s gravy guidance, here are ten of our favorite bits of expert advice from 2013.

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