Unfortunately, my first memory of cloves is associated with excruciating pain. I must have been about 10, with a horrid toothache. My father wrapped two cloves in some cotton and told me to bite on ...

Serve this with roast pork, duck, turkey or lamb. It makes a great Thanksgiving side, too.

My Christmas fantasy always involves dispensing with gifts, stopping the music and replanting all those doomed trees. But there’s no way I would pass up baking cookies with ginger, doctoring eggnog ...