christmas dinner @ the barn
cranberry meringue pie, beef Wellington, cheddar chive biscuits, & more!
Hi Friends
I’d like to start this newsletter off by lodging formal complaint to the 2024 calendar for putting Thanksgiving so criminally late in the month of November. It truly feels like December came and went in .02 seconds. Thankfully for me I’ve been celebrating since before Halloween :-)
ICYMI
Season finale of Dinner with Friends went live on Sunday where I curate my dream Christmas dinner menu, tablescape, and more! Video is linked here and below <3 I am so incredibly proud of these most recent episodes of Dinner with Friends, and they have me reflecting on the past few years and how far we’ve come.
5 years ago, I wanted to pursue a career in professional cooking outside of the restaurant world, so I started my private chef business and secured my first real clients. I went on to work for them for 4 years, and I now consider them like family.
4 years ago I wanted to be a recipe developer, so I started my blog wishbonekitchen.com and my instagram page @wishbonekitchen.
3 years ago I wanted to write a cookbook, (keep in mind, I had about 200 followers at the time) so I curated a selection of holiday recipes, typed them up in Canva, found a printing company online, and sold little booklets out of my parents garage to friends and family (and strangers on the street). I sold 200 copies. 6 months later, I put together my second self published “cookbook” with a collection of summer recipes. The week I was set to send it to the printer, I hit 100K followers on TikTok. I sold over 2,000 copies.
Also 3 years ago, a publishing house approached me for a real cookbook deal. When I expressed that I felt the offer was too low, they stated “Now that summer is over, people are going to loose interest. What are you going to post about any way?”. I declined the offer.
2 years ago, my dream publishing house, Ten Speed Press, approached me for a cookbook deal. I could tell the editor saw my potential and truly believed in me. Their offer was 10x that of the previous. I accepted.
1 year ago I wanted have my own cooking show, so I bought a nice video camera, a heavy duty tripod, some fancy lights, and I started filming. That silly little self produced cooking show now has almost 1 million total views. Which doesn’t sound like a lot since were used to TikTok numbers, but if you think about it each episode is 30min-1 hour long so thats equivalent to like 510,000,000 TikTok views in total watch time. Either my math is wrong or that’s a lot of views.
Alls this to say, where theres a will theres a way, don’t take no for an answer, make your own magic, and KEEP GOING <3 I have learned so much through these past few years, and I’m so excited to see what’s next!
What I’m Cooking
Cranberry Meringue Pie
This recipe is a doozy, but so worth it. I’ve broken it out by each component. I recommend starting this project at least the day before you’re planning on serving, or up to 3 days before.
Pâte Brisée Pie Dough
(makes enough for 2 single crust pies, or 1 double crust)
2 ½ cups AP flour
1 tsp salt
1 tsp sugar
2 sticks unsalted butter, cold and cubed
1/3 cup ice water
1 egg, whisked for egg wash