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Chicken with mustard cream sauce and grapes, served over some egg noodles.

Lardo, served on a perfectly toasted piece of rustic bread.

I have a peanut butter cookie recipe that I got from my mom, who got it in 4H during the 1950s. The cookies are always picture-perfect, and I'm famous among my friends and coworkers for them.

I make an assortment of cookies to give away every year as gifts. I have to scale back this year because I'm moving at the end of the month, so I don't have as much time, but I know I'm going to make at least six different kinds: speculaas, maple-macadamia nut sticky bars, lemon ginger bars, chocolate peppermint thumbprints, vanilla bean spritz, and rugelach. I'd love to do a seventh, but I don't know if I'll have the time...

Martha Stewart's "Surprise" Cookies: soft, cake-like chocolate cookie base, with a half marshmallow pressed on top near the end of baking, then covered with a layer of rich chocolate frosting to hide the marshmallow "surprise." They tasted like hot chocolate's solid form, and were a huge hit at the office, where a coworker exclaimed, "Oh my God! They're like classy Ho-Hos!"

Tamarind in Chicago's South Loop. Phenomenal dumplings and other Asian-fusion inspired appetizers.

When we were in Paris, we had spent our trip eating elaborate, multi-course meals at a smattering of Michelin-starred restaurants, and I was starting to experience palate fatigue like nobody's business. (There is such thing as too much of a good thing!) On our last day, we were out sightseeing at Versailles, where we met up with a friend who was a local. He took us to his favorite neighborhood brasserie, where I ordered a humble bowl of lentils with lardons of bacon and finely chopped vegetables, topped with a perfectly poached egg. The dish was hearty, and it transcended its simplicity to be the best thing I ate on the entire trip. I've subsequently recreated it in my own kitchen, and I make it whenever I want to remember our time in France.

I think it all looks delicious to me, and if I had a car, I'd be there in a heartbeat. Man, all these people must be stressed out in anticipation of the holidays, because everyone is cranky and has nothing nice to say. @Nick Kindelsperger, if your wife likes turkey burgers, she should check out the one at Epic Burger in the South Loop: it is by far the best one I've ever had, and I'd more or less given up on them as a genre. And a lot of people like their fries, although I like mine thinner-sliced. But everyone's entitled to their own opinion! Geez!

Seriously? You schlepped all the way up to Highwood, and you had pizza at Nite 'N Gale, when you could have eaten at Buffo's across the street? Bad call...

And if you're looking for classic Italian American food in Highwood, you could do a lot better as well. Washington Gardens comes to mind...

My favorite combo = caramelized bananas, vanilla ice cream, and chocolate sauce.

This was great! By far the best new sauce recipe I've tried in months. The saffron is a perfect secret ingredient!

I'm going to have to go with the chocolate sorbet from The Perfect Scoop. It's smooth and creamy, but with no dairy ingredients to distract you from the pure, unadulterated chocolate flavor. It may be a sorbet, but it's so rich I can only handle a few spoonfuls at a time, and that's a good thing!

My mom likes exactly one type of frosting, the frosting that goes on my grandma's Texas sheet cake recipe. Since my mom isn't a baker, I decided to try to make it for her for her birthday. I timed everything perfectly (the warm frosting goes on top of the cake as soon as it gets out of the oven); I thought the frosting looked a little anemic, but I poured it on anyway. Once everything was cool, a taste test revealed that I'd written the recipe down wrong. Instead of five tablespoons of cocoa powder, I'd put in five teaspoons. Mom was so disappointed, she hasn't wanted me to try making the cake again ever since.