I was pretty happy with my New Year's Day brunch get-together. I gave a nod to Italian and French cuisine by making a prosciutto and goat cheese strata, Sicilian orange and fennel salad, and crepes (chocolate or lemon and sugar). The strata is assembled ahead of time, and crepes are easy. Knowing I'd have little time to cook much else thanks to work, I bought some frozen potato pancakes at Trader Joe's, which are actually really good (and so much easier than ricing and squeezing tons of potatoes!), and croissants. For drinks we had mimosas with both Champagne (well, sparkling wine) and prosecco. A friend brought some Hoppin' John so we even had black-eyed peas for good luck and prosperity. Another friend bought an absolutely amazing coffee cake filled with sweet cheese, which I am slowly, very slowly, nibbling away at. It was a good group of friends both old and new, although as always when hostessing I was sorry I didn't get to talk to people at length.
In further imitation of Italo-French culture, I am now attempting to eat like a little European bird to offset the holiday binging as well as the creeping on of poundage thanks to my desk job. My assistant in this endeavor is an iPhone app called Lose It! I'm soon off to to the Napa Valley for a weekend of wine and food, so the next couple weeks really have to be lean.
My phrase for 2010 is "faith"--not in the religious sense, but rather to have faith in myself, in other people, and that things will work out somehow (and if not entirely to my liking, to have faith that I can accept them).
No comments:
Post a Comment