New Year's Day

Welcome to 2012.... as I type, I've got dough in the bread machine. As soon as it's mixed and kneaded, I will take it out and let it rise so I can form it into four separate loaves. After going to H&K's for dinner the other night and having H's homemade French bread with dinner, I am determined to make my own and see what happens. One thing I will always miss about NY-- the Italian bakeries with the delicious breads and pastries that you just can't get anywhere else.

The recipe that H used for the bread is in the book "French Women Don't Get Fat." (And why don't they get fat? Because they eat whatever they want, when they want, but they eat very very small portions. Plus they walk, walk, walk. And they don't eat processed foods that are being popped out by factories and displayed on grocery store shelves.... more thought is given to the design of the labels than to the nutritional value of the contents.)

So I thought I'd give this bread recipe a try....... and I also thought the bread machine could do a better job of mixing and kneading than I could do..... so we'll see what happens.

We had a very nice New Year's Eve dinner with J&J and J&G last night. The dining room table was covered in pink and red, silver and gold, with candles and mirror balls at each place setting. "Happy New Year" Mardi Gras necklaces for the ladies, noise-makers for the guys.... that table was dressed to kill last night. I think that's my favorite part of entertaining-- dressing up the table. We all contributed to the dinner, and once again, a 'pot-luck' dinner turned into a feast with turkey, ham, stuffing, mini quiches, lobster risotto, decadent chocolate cake and delicious macaroons.

We had a list of 1950s and 1960s trivia questions, and that turned out to be a lot of fun. Between now and the next party (Valentine's Day) we will dig up more questions/answers from different decades. After we toasted London's midnight hour, and then Paris's midnight hour, we had dessert..... and then my husband surprised everyone with fireworks. The weather was beautiful last night and we all sat outside on the porch steps and watched the Roman candles lighting up the sky with every color in the rainbow.

At one point, I ran back into the house to check on Houdini and Bluebell...... I wanted to make sure the parakeets' cage was covered... it doesn't take much to scare those little birds into flying around their cage and losing their feathers. And poor Gatsby-- I had forgotten he was outside, so I'm sure he was hiding under the cottage during the fireworks, and he didn't come out of there until an hour after everyone had gone home. As he walked into the back door, Gatsby gave me a loud meow ("How could you leave me out there?") and then he went into the TV room to drown his sorrows in his bowl of Meow Mix.

I cleaned up the kitchen after our friends went home..... and we watched the NYC celebration of 2012...... Dick Clark was there...... how that man remains wrinkle-free after all he's been through these past few years is just beyond me....... and then we called it a night. We didn't even stay up to celebrate midnight on Texas time. We saw The Ball drop in NYC, and that was celebration enough. And as we do each New Year's Eve, we talked about Guy Lombardo at the Waldorf. Neither my husband nor I ever went to the Waldorf to hear Lombardo's band, but we saw them on television years and years ago.

New Year's Eve needs another really good band. Not Lady Ga-Ga in all of her outrageous outfits..... not all the denim and rhinestone-covered 15-minute-wonder groups....... we need a real band with real musicians.

Until then, we'll just continue to watch The Ball in Times Square, and then call it a night.