Happy Flippin' New Year

I could eat this and see what happens. That could be fun.

Ah, New Year's Eve. Has anyone ever had a truly great New Year's Eve? I feel like everyone puts so much emphasis on this one night - it's like adult prom, except it happens EVERY YEAR.

Seriously, if I have to hear another "It's going to be the BEST F*CKIN' NEW YEAR'S EVER, MAN. Like, really good," I think I'm going have a nervous breakdown, Anne Heche style. If you see a naked woman wandering into your backyard mumbling about her alien spirit guide, it could be me. Be nice. Maybe give me a blanket.

In all honesty, I have never had a truly great New Year's Eve. In fact, mine usually suck. Big time. The best one ended in a boyfriend's ranch catching on fire, and the worst ended with me crying drunkenly in Lesley Schornack's bathroom over that same boyfriend, followed up with me eating an entire plate of Tostino's pizza rolls and passing out at 11:37 p.m. Good times.

This one looks like it'll be okay, albeit low key. And by low key, I mean spent on my parents' couch, watching Sad People television, drinking sparkling shiraz (probably the highlight), and counting the hours until I return to D.C., my friends, and civilization in general.

I can tell you one thing, though - Tostino's pizza rolls will not be involved.

Oh! And if you have a heinous New Year's Eve story, please do share with the class.

Tip

Hi, happy day after! Just wanted to share that Lush (purveyor of AMAZING handmade bath products) is having a huge sale. Almost everything is buy one get one free - including holiday gift sets, bath bombs, soap, etc., so check it out!

DC Area Locations:

Georgetown

3066 M Street N.W.

(202) 333-6950

Bethesda

Montgomery Mall

7101 Democracy Blvd, Unit 2410

(301) 365-7444

Repeat the sounding joy

A merry merry to you and yours! Even if your family is a little bit ragged at the seams this holiday, and the person you most want to see is literally on another continent, I hope that each and every one of you are able to tap into the joy that's in the world today, if just for a moment.

Life is absolutely, complicatedly beautiful right now.

Holiday To Do List: Purchase 14 cats, lots of Funyuns, and "Anne of Green Gables" on DVD

"Do we have to? Her house smells like dehydrated onions and Fancy Feast."

You may be wondering why I am posting so much during the holiday season, as much as 2 posts a day, at a time when most people are busing being festive with family and friends. Here's why: my parents moved to the Flatlands (Missouri) shortly after I graduated high school, meaning that when I come "home," I have my mother, father, brother, and dog to hang out with and absolutely no friends, making me the 22-year-old equivalent of a loner cat lady. One can only watch so many episodes of a scantily-clad Sandra Lee pouring various bottles of booze into a blender and calling it a cocktail before it comes time for other pursuits to safeguard one's sanity. This includes taking shots with parental figures (read below) and throwing various spices into a bag of Pop Secret to see what they taste like.

Also, about the Funyuns, I don't even know, it just seems like something a cat lady would eat.

Party Popcorn
It's a party in your mowth, eh.

6 cups popped popcorn (light butter flavor is fine)
couple drizzles olive oil
1/2 teaspoon chipotle chile powder
1/4 teaspoon paprika
1/4 teaspoon cinammon
1/4 teaspoon ground cumin
1 Tbsp. light brown sugar

1. Drizzle a bit of olive oil onto the popcorn and then toss to coat.
2. Mix together all the spices and the brown sugar in a separate little dish, then sprinkle on the popcorn and toss.
3. Eat it, but probably don't share it with your cats.

Mama's got a brand new bag

Hi! I changed some things, like the logo up top. I like the little cupcake guy.

Also, I was fully intending to post a recipe I made up for this popcorn mix, but my Dad and I are making lobster bisque (fucking hard and time consuming, by the way), and we were getting stressed out, so we each took a shot of Goldschlager. I have no idea why my parents have that lying around their house, or why I did a shot with my DAD. My parents are the kind that go to bed at 9 p.m., for crying out loud. Regardless, that plus a couple of glasses of wine means that I'm not feeling entirely competent to write up and post a recipe, albeit a simple one.

Check back in a couple of hours.

But, if I don't see you, have a merry merry day-before-Christmas-Eve!

P.S. Sorry for saying "fucking" up there. Don't want to alienate my rather large fan base of 6-year-olds. I apologize. The Demon Rum gives me the mouth of a sailor.

Old peoples is funny.

Elderly lady in the Spring Valley SuperFresh:

"Oooh look, Walter. SpongeBob chocolate coins." (Pause.) "I didn't know he was Jewish!"

Hookd on foniks werkd fer mee!

The beautiful thing about the end of school is that I now have time to READ! For pleasure! The mind reels. Really, were I a professor, I would institute a reading break in the middle of class. Seriously, just, everyone take 15 minutes and read something that you actually care about, not Foundations of Marxist Thought or Tools for Translation. And smoke if you got 'em.

People would love me.

First on my list is Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert. I always know it's a good sign if I start reading a book and immediately want to be Best Friends with the author. You know, the kind of friends who each wear one half of a heart necklace from one of those quarter machines, that comes in a plastic egg - one is BE FRIE, the other, ST NDS.

Just realized that I wore a necklace for all of fourth grade that was one letter away from saying "STDs." Neat.

I digress.

I'm only on chapter 13 (very short chapters), but the writing is witty and fresh, and she's already hooked me into her journey traveling to three different countries in pursuit of spirituality and pleasure. This book may just appeal to me because I can think of no better job than traveling the world and writing about my experiences, but I'm pretty sure it's a wonderful story regardless, and I'm excited to read on and see what Gilbert has in store.

Early Christmas dinner with the Roommates

We stole the flamingo glasses from a retired couple in Ft. Lauderdale.

Whatever, soup is way more interesting.

Not the prettiest one at the prom, but...leave me alone.

Here is some onion soup that I screwed up (recipe called for chicken stock, I used beef because I was thinking French Onion, not Cream of Onion, etc. etc. but it turned out okay nonetheless, maybe because I added noticeable amounts of wine for shits and giggles.)

Just had a meeting with myself, and I promise never to say the word "shits" when discussing foodstuffs again.

Cream of French Onion Soup

Recipe accidentally adapted from The Cook's Encyclopedia of Four Ingredient Cooking

1/2 cup unsalted sweet cream butter

2 1/2 pounds of yellow onions (about 1 large and 2 medium)

3 1/2 cups beef stock

1/2 cup of light cream

1/2 cup of red wine*

1. Slice the onions and cry harder than when Leo died in Titanic and you went to see it with your best friend seven times in the movie theater and cried every. single. time. like your seventh grade world was ending as you knew it. Go ahead. Judge me.

2. Melt 6 tablespoons of the butter in a large pan on the stove. Set about 1/3 of the sliced onions aside and add the rest to the pan. Stir so they get coated in the melty butter.

3. Cover the pan and cook the onions on EXTREMELY gentle heat for thirty minutes. Don't want those babies to burn. They should be very soft and tender. That sounds dirty, but it's not.

4. Add the stock and the wine to the cooked onions and some salt and pepper to taste. Bring to a boil, reduce heat, and simmer for 5 minutes, then remove from heat.

5. Let the soup cool (or if you're like me, be a renegade and just DON'T), then put it in a blender or food processor and pulse that baby until it's smooth. This will make it very creamy. And good. Return it to its original pan.

6. Meanwhile, in another pan, melt the remaining butter and cook the remaining onions over low heat until they are soft but not brown and are a golden yellow color.

7. Add the cream to the soup and reheat it gently until it is hot but not boiling. Add the other cooked onions and season with salt and pepper to taste, then serve.

*I used Pinot Noir because it was in my hand, uncorked, being consumed straight from the bottle, and I was like, hey, why don't I just pour a little, okay crap, a lot into this soup that I am cooking? Judge me a second time. Dare you.

Boo ya.

I am single. Balls.

Why is December always the month when someone decides to crap all over my heart?

Prosciutto and Fig Tart with Arugula

The recipe is from Mario Batali. I just added brown sugar to the figs as they cooked, and ate it with argula tossed with olive oil, lemon juice, and sea salt.

Like, seriously disturbed.

Soooo my roommate comes screaming up the basement stairs waving around a Cosmo (magazine, not drink), and lo and behold it is Ex Boyfriend Numero Uno on the Steamiest Confessions page giving a "MAN'S TAKE" on some girl ripping her panties off accidentally in front of her Crush or some such nonsense. I have no idea how he got in there, but it creeps me out enormously. That and the fact that he seems to have changed his name - it's really bizarre - on Facebook, too, so you know it's official, he's going by his name + an ending that isn't his, kind of like if I made everyone start to call me Katelyn, even though it is not and will not ever be my real name.

Don't know why I'm fixating on this - maybe it's the weird name change, maybe it's the fact that no matter how sleazy he acted, I always thought he was more normal and wouldn't end up being a genuine sleaze bag talking about TURN-ONS in a trashy magazine, maybe it's the fact that he snuck up on me in 2-D form when I haven't thought about him in a good long time. Don't know what it is, but somehow I'm writing about this instead of writing my term paper.

I told my mother this, my mother who sat through mind-numbing phone calls with the patience of a saint during the incredibly pathetic saga that was my sniveling, drawn-out, Breakup then Make Up then Breakup (for-like-real-this-time), and she said, "Maybe he's bipolar. This is the age it starts to come out."

I laughed until milk came out my nose, and then paused sadly while I wondered if it was true.

I'm shipping off...to find my wooden leg.

Was in Boston for the past couple of days visiting law schools, freezing my tuchus off, attending an office holiday party that wasn't mine, and you know, generally avoiding the mountains of work and term papers that accompany this time of year. Which, come to think of it, I'm still avoiding. I got up at 9:30 this morning ready to buckle down and just do it, and it's now 10 minutes until 5 p.m., and I have yet to write a word. No matter.

This post is about the best meal I've ever had in my life. Seriously. It was at Troquet, which is a wine bar on Boston Common. I don't know if it was the snow falling outside, being in an unknown city, the three glasses of port I drank before I went to dinner, or just the Heavenly Bed™ at the Westin Copley Square, but I was feeling damn festive, and this restaurant was just icing on the cake.

The restaurant is very much about the wine, and each course has an accompanying flight of wines to compliment it. The wines can be ordered individually in 2 oz. or 4 oz. servings, or you can order the tasting flight - one of each to go with your dish. I had the duo of foie gras as an appetizer, which was served with toasted brioche, and an accompanying flight of Sauternes and Muscat. It was absolute perfection. For dinner I had veal with polenta and swiss chard and various Merlots. I try not to eat veal if I can help it, but it was so tempting and was perfectly cooked. The wines it was served with were a bit overpowered by the dish, I felt. I much preferred the Marquis-Philips Shiraz that Date let me sip. For dessert we had six different cheeses - by this time the wine had definitely kicked in and I don't remember the names of any of them. There goes my career as a restaurant critic. In any case, the wait staff was so attentive and so helpful, the food was out of this world, and the setting was spectacular. Go there.

The best way is to stuff six in your mouth at once, Britney-style.

Then run red lights. Preferably accompanied by unbuckled toddlers and a parenting coach.