Christmas feasts from the top-five food magazines.

Each year the food magazines whip together their own distinct Christmas fantasies, filled with big pink roasts, clever side dishes, and fluffy desserts. I've often looked at these menus and wondered, who cooks them? Oh, I'd pick up a recipe here and there, but I'd never ventured to complete a magazine-generated meal. This year, in a fit of folly I set out to cook one Christmas menu a day from the top-five cooking magazines, with the hope of defining the ideal cook for each one. After one huge, draining day of grocery shopping, I got to work. My tasters? My mother- and father-in-law, who love food but are not especially adventurous eaters, my always enthusiastic husband, and my two-month-old son, whose nursing schedule has a knack for postponing our dinner hour.

Wednesday, Dec. 15 Food and Wine What I cook: mini Alsatian tarts, escarole and fresh herb salad, pecan-crusted beef tenderloin, endives with roasted prosciutto, prune custard tart.

What I omit from the prescribed menu: smoked-salmon stuffed puffs, mushroom soup with chorizo, salsify gratin, frozen fruit nougat.

Food and Wine delivers a chic New-York dinner party hosted by restaurateur Danny Meyer and Chef Gabriel Kreuther. The spread strives for a modernist vibe, with black, white, and crimson décor, a white Christmas tree in the background, and monochromatic burgundy flower arrangements marching down the table. I fail to reproduce the tiny paper models of modern buildings that adorn each place setting in the magazine.

This F&W meal is urbane bistro fare, with a whiff of Kreuther's native Alsace. It's not too complex, and a clean meal like this underscores the importance of a good butcher. The Alsatian mini-tarts would be ordinary if our local butcher's custom-smoked bacon weren't the highlight, but they are, in fact, scrumptious. The bacon, onion, and sour cream are poised on wonton skins instead of a buttery crust—a timesaving trick I'll use again. Since filet is the quickest of roasts to prepare, it's ever popular—each magazine except Saveur includes a recipe for beef tenderloin of some sort. In F&W, the pecan crust, attached via a peculiar mix of ketchup, mustard, and egg yolk, takes the filet in a more festive direction, as does the piney aroma of juniper in its sauce. Though tender and rosy, this filet is a little neat for my conception of a holiday meal. Tenderloin lacks the voluptuous grandeur of other roasts, like a standing rib roast. I'm not sure my audience agrees, though: The beef is a big hit.

Endives with prosciutto are an easy side, illustrating the kitchen saw that everything is better with a little cured pork. The prune tart is a deconstructed take on an Alsatian classic: a stratum of cinnamon custard, a layer of prune spread, and a crown of whipped cream. It's nice, but I'd prefer the more down-home version where the prunes and the custard are cooked together, mingling the flavors.

Who should cook this meal: chic urban DINKs who read the Design Within Reach catalog with fervor.

Thursday, Dec. 16 Bon Appetit What I cook: cumin-roasted potatoes with caviar and smoked salmon, duck breasts with pomegranate-wine sauce, roasted Brussels sprouts with cauliflower and orange, spiced sugarplum and caramelized apple tartlets with calvados cream.

What I omit: bronze and red lettuce salad with Serrano ham and goat cheese spirals, toasted Israeli couscous with pine nuts and parsley.

The Bon Appetit dinner (one of several menus in the issue) is all over the place, with Mediterranean touches like cumin, pomegranate, and couscous, contrasting with northern flavors present in the duck, Brussels sprouts, and calvados. The table setting is similarly complicated—the monotone maroon-colored dinner is placed on fine china of teal and gold, and sprigs of blue spruce dot the tabletop.