Looking back, looking forward

Oh, hello there.  

As my son likes to announce with gusto when entering a room these days... "I BACK!"

What have I been up to the past few days?  Celebrating, eating, drinking, hunkering through a blizzard, making airport runs and doing hospital waiting room duty for the last time in 2010 (and hopefully for a long time to come!  And all is fine, no worries!).

I've cooked: a 5 lb. brisket, racks of lamb, fresh pea soup with ham, chicken stew with white beans and artichokes, potatoes au gratin, radicchio salad with dried cherries, chopped pecans and panko-crusted baked goat cheese, and many, many eggs over easy.  Recipes for the best of these are coming soon!

I've baked: a batch of dinner rolls, a double batch of challah rolls, chocolate chip cookies and M&M cookies.  I also offered emotional support as the husband made an apple pie from scratch.

There have been more pots of coffee brewed than I care to admit, more dishwasher loads run in a week than in a usual month here, and lots of blizzard-related noshing.  There have been sisters stuck in Europe and the midwest due to the blasted snow, but beautiful walks in the stuff as well, with the little guy shouting "SNOW!" with such glee, you can hardly mind the inconvenience. 

I've assembled many appetizer spreads, as these fellows and my sister assembled quite an amazing second Christmas for our boy...

Thank you Nana and Grandpa for the most amazing play kitchen!

And thank you Pops and Ganma for the ultimate train table!

Is this guy spoiled loved, or what?  Along with the unpictured Aunt and Uncle-related goodies, we now live at FAO Schwartz, and couldn't be more happy about it.

We're now in some sort of weird non-existent time between 2010 and 2011.  Since the blizzard foiled our planned Christmas get together, we did our family gift exchange at the hospital yesterday, which was equal parts hilarious, surreal and kind of appropriate given the way this year has gone.  A lot of good has come out of 2010, but it has been a grueling year for us as well, and I can't say I'm sad to see it go.  I'm looking forward to one more fabulously rich dinner with perhaps a tad too much wine, a couple more days of 2010-related introspection, and then it is so on to the next.  I'm looking forward to ushering in a new year in our new home with old friends scattered about this lovely old city with whom we have many a memory to make in the coming year.  I'm looking forward to finding a new job, bringing some new things to the blog, and to a year with perhaps no moving vans.  Thank you for spending this year with me... can't wait to ring in the new one with you.

xoxo, SMJ