About

Welcome! Starting in December is a home cooking site filled with your favorite things to eat and new recipes to try. Fussy ingredients and elaborate techniques rarely make their way into the pages of this site, but every once and awhile I get sidetracked and enlist others to help me make homemade cheese or croissants from scratch.  Recipes for ice cream, roast chicken and herbed baked eggs are a better example of what you will find here everyday.  There is a recipes page organized by season and category, and a search box on the homepage to help you find what you are looking for.

The Starting in December kitchen is a tiny one, an L shaped space tucked into one corner of a circa 1910 apartment in Sacramento, California.  A window above the sink affords me a stunning view of my neighbor’s bedroom and the alley  between our buildings, but is also the source of the warm afternoon sunlight that shines across the single counter top.

My name is Marguerite Noteware and Starting in December is an idea I dreamed up, you guessed it, in December of 2009 but didn’t actually get started until June of the following year.  This was very uncharacteristic of me.  I am someone who feels great satisfaction following recipes word for word, but has no qualms about improvisation after the first go ’round.  My perfect Saturday morning involves watching Avec Eric on the couch with a cup of coffee and a splash of milk, followed by a trip to the farmers’ market.  I would really, really like to meet Tina Fey and Amanda Hesser someday.  Homemade sausage, finding sour cherries anywhere in Sacramento, perfecting my pizza crust recipe, butternut squash, salted caramel, Champagne and cheese (glorious cheese) are just a few of my long standing fascinations. In my refrigerator you can usually find sparking water, sparkling wine, walnut oil and five different jars of mustard (although I am partial to this one).

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