There’s so much pressure to make changes, start new habits and reinvent one’s self with the start of a new year. I guess it’s the perception of a clean slate but really you can make any day, any moment really, a fresh start. Why relegate it to just one day of the year? In many ways my 2023 is looking much like 2022 in terms of routines. I’ve been spending the early morning hours before work transferring recipes and posts from my old site to here,
This past New Year’s Eve it occurred to me this is the twelfth new year I began that Mikey will never be a part of, at least not physically. We only knew each other 16 years, and the time we spent together is suddenly grow smaller as the new years accumulate, eventually shifting the balance of years lived together and apart.
Reading through some older recipes bring back a part of my life so vividly, especially the posts I wrote when he was still alive like this mother-daughter moment in time captured days before we left for (unknowingly) our final trip to Cape Cod together. I enjoy revisiting these old posts. They remind me how much I’ve changed while still remaining the same, and how my grief journey has taken shape over the last eleven and a half years.
The week before Christmas I picked up yet another book to add to my bedside stack by Temple Grandin, Visual Thinking: The Hidden Gifts of People Who Think in Pictures, Patterns and Abstractions. I’m hungry to dive deeper into this book, having only finished the introduction. Being the parent of two neurodivergent children, I know firsthand how our educational system is at odds with the way they think and learn.
New Year’s Eve dinner was a foraged feast of bite-sized appetizers. I found two small sirloin steaks in the freezer, hardly enough to make a meal but perfect for crostini and BBQ beef sliders. I cooked the steaks in the air fryer to avoid splatter all over the stove, and wow does the air fryer do an amazing job of cooking them.
Some leftover roasted chicken in the freezer became tiny chicken pot pies baked in mini muffin tins using store bought crescent dough I had lingering in the fridge. Mushrooms in dire need of using up got sauteed with shallots, rosemary and a splash of cream, then topped on toasted rounds of baguette. The extra russet potatoes I found got turned into baskets of shoestring fries made in the air fryer. There was also champagne and struffoli for dessert–fried tiny nuggets of dough tossed with honey that my aunt used to make growing up.
I’ll be teaching three classes this month, the first being this Sunday, January 8th. Join me in making some Sunday sauce, homemade meatballs and a very quick & easy chocolate mousse. You can register here. There’s also a challah baking class at the end of this month for anyone who missed the one I taught in December.
Some new, old recipes you’ll find here:
Chocolate Egg Creams - did you know Lou Reed wrote a song about them?
Homemade Pop Tarts! There’s my master dough recipe, plus variations to make peach and blueberry ones.
Are you celebrating the Epiphany this Friday, or just curious how to make a French King’s Cake? Try this galette des rois or this sweet, yeasted version from the south of France.
Happy New Year, and may it be filled with moments of peace. Be well and be kind.
–xo, j.
Field Notes 1.5.23
What a spread you threw together with things that needed to be used up. I wish you could spend a class on this, I hate to admit I am terrible and coming up with ideas. Your NYE table looked amazing! (But that’s hardly a surprise) ♥️
Loved this.
Also: I’ve been wanting to try a steak in the AF but was scared it would cinderize/overcook it! M loves steak but I’m not a fan of the meaty smell of cooking one, and the splatter....going to give it a whirl.
You are one of the only people I know who shares my love of egg creams. I’ve probably told you this story three times already (but maybe not?): in high school I wrote for our “underground magazine” and my editor assigned me to a Best Egg Cream story--I drank so many--and so many bad ones--that I couldn’t drink them for a while. (I feel like Veselka was the winner but now I can’t remember!)
We almost always keep a jar of your chocolate syrup in the fridge here.
I need to look up that Temple Grandin book. Have you seen the movie made a while back--Clare Danes plays her beautifully. Worth a watch.