She cooks and writes from a farmhouse in Vermont. Some of those tales made it into her bestselling memoir, Mud Season.

Her table is usually overflowing with friends, family, and folks who have come just to listen to her stories. About the AuthorĮllen Stimson is a bread-and-butter homecook…possibly more butter than bread. This is a book to treasure and one that I will be referring back to again and again. I especially enjoyed the seeing the photos of the family’s Christmas ornaments featured in each chapter and reading the stories behind them. It’s about family and traditions – celebrating old ones and making new ones. This is much more than just a recipe book. There is much comfort food here, not only for the holidays, but throughout the cold northern winter. A few dishes I am looking forward to trying are Decadent Mac ‘n’ Cheese, Root Beer Pulled Pork, and Buttermilk Fried Chicken. Recipes for Loaded Mashed Potatoes, Deviled Eggs, and Apricot Horns are calling out to me to be added to the Thanksgiving Day menu. The author has included dozens of her own family recipes: Some simple and some a little more challenging (for me anyway) and many accompanied by color photos of the final dish. It’s all tied together with gorgeous photos not only of the food, but also the holiday decorations and beautiful Vermont scenery. Part memoir, part cookbook, An Old-Fashioned Christmas is filled with food, fun, and holiday memories from the Stimson family. Here she shares recipes that have been in her family for generations, mixes up a cocktail or two, and invites readers to make their own traditions. It’s most of the reason author Ellen Stimson made Vermont her home.

It’s got your Christmas goose and the maple syrup with which to glaze it. With its trademark snow, piney forests, sleigh rides and wood smoke curling out of village chimneys, New England was practically invented for the Christmas postcard.

Mud season by ellen stimson