New Year's Eve Breakfast with friends & Dinner at home

Fresh from hosting our holiday party last Friday,

We hosted one more event with friends...

Welcome 2018

It's here...

2017 has come and gone...

New Year's Day + Capirotada

Just a few minutes after midnight, TC and Bert lit up a box of these sparklers...

(sparklers from TJ, courtesy of Thor)

while we ushered in the New Year...

New Year's Eve dinner + a new dessert, Raspberry Pecan Blondies

This was another Christmas gift that I was happy to receive...

(Thank you D!)

The design is pure genious...every piece has at least two  edges!

Welcome 2015

New Year's Eve was a low key affair for us...

It was just three and the TV, watching the ball drop in Times Square...

Merry New Year!

As the cheerfully painted window says:

(as seen on the front window of the Peking Cafe Chop Suey restaurant in North Park, late December 2013)

Happy New Year - Welcome 2014!

I actually woke up early to watch the Rose Parade (I slept through it last year) and also to prep some dinner items for later today...

New Year's Day Lunch 2013

Lunch is traditionally at my parents' house for the holidays...

It was a more low key affair than the Christmas lunch with only my side of the family attending...

New Year's Eve dinner - Arroz Caldo

Ahh yeah...relaxing in Bert's DC pajamas...

So what if my socks don't match? I was up making our traditional New Year's Eve dinner as well as dessert...

Palitaw

As promised, the Palitaw recipe...

Just be glad you didn't have to suffer through my really old Filipino language class project where I made this dessert on video while speaking child like Tagalog!

2012 is here!

Well now, Happy New Year's (finally)!

Bert, TC, and  spent a quiet evening ushering in 2012...

Happy New Year

Cheers! I hope everyone had a good holiday season and a fun New Year's Day. I have a backlog of posts but haven't had the time or energy to post them yet...Lots of food pix from holiday parties and various restaurant visits, which include Sab-e-Lee, Romesco's revisited, Harar and Eclipse. My time off really went by fast. Too fast. I have one more week until I start work again. It's been 9 months since I've been off work. Although I could have returned a lot earlier, I chose to take extra time off to de-stress, recover and spend more time with my family especially my daughter.

During the majority of this year, I've experienced A LOT of life changes. For those who don't know, due to my breast cancer diagnosis in late March, I took time off to get a mastectomy, endured four cycles of chemo, plus the ensuing after-effects (like whacked out tastebuds, losing my hair, & experiencing major fatigue) and the process of regaining my strength. Things are looking up. My energy level is pretty much back to normal. I'm going to miss going to the gym everyday in the morning. With going back to work, I'll be cutting back to about three times a week instead of everyday. Other good news is that my hair is growing back pretty thick. I ditched my wigs two months ago because I got sick of them. While I'm rocking the pixie cut and having fun with hair gel and pomade, I'm looking forward to growing my hair back out to my former rocker chick haircut and using my flat iron again.

During this time off, I re-evaluated my friendships and priorities in life. I resolve not to associate with people who talk out of their ass/make false promises. I hate it when people say things then never follow up on what they've said they'd do. Having experienced one of the lowest points of my life last year showed me the hard way just who really gives a shit about me. Sorry to sound petty, but that's how I felt. On a brighter note, I resolve to be more positive and to do things that make me happy like being with my daughter, my nephews, making jewelry and soaking up as much pop culture trivia than humanly possible.

I'm going to miss my "free time". I had so much of it too. During this nine month stretch of time, I read a lot of books and watched a bunch of cool movies. Some of the stuff I watched included the TV Britcom "Spaced", the Japanese movie and TV series "Trainman", Season 1 of "Gokusen", "The Tudors- Season 1", to name a few, along with MTV's "The Young Ones", and Seasons 1 & 2 of "The Tick". I got hooked on Stephenie Meyer's cracklicious "Twilight Series"(insert fangirl scream here, but not too much for "Breaking Dawn"), and the "Southern Vampire Mysteries" (Charlaine Harris's Sookie Stackhouse series, upon which the HBO series "True Blood" is based), and read a lot of graphic novels courtesy of Superman. I also experimented with various recipes and ate at a lot of different restaurants with my friends. My new favorites are Latin Chef, Pho Hiep Grill and Sab-e-Lee.

I feel like I need to make the most out of this dwindling week, but I don't want to cram too much in....

P.S.
Aaaagh! Season 2 of the Tudors was just released! Here's my reason to watch "The Tudors"...I only have two words...

Henry

Cavill

(see photo below)

Huminah huminah!

New Year's Eve & Almeijoas

For the first time, we didn't spend New Year's Eve with our regular group of friends. No one had party plans this year. Our great neighbors across the street invited us over for the Portuguese version of tapas and light snacks before ushering in the New Year. Our neighbors bought their home in our neighborhood a few months before we moved in. We are both original homeowners and this year marks the 10th year of this neighborhood. They are a very fascinating couple with two beautiful girls. The wife is Mexican American, raised in Chula Vista and her husband is Portuguese, but born and raised in Angola (in Africa). They met in Armenia (through their respective jobs) and courted each other in Angola and other parts of Africa. They all speak three languages. They are not only good neighbors, but people we are glad to be friends with. We can trust them with our daughter and vice versa and we watch out for each other, like all good neighbors should do. Unfortunately, not everyone on our street is as nice as them, but that's another post or rant for the future. My friend bought some of her tapas appetizers at Fresh & Easy such as the sliced Spanish chorizo, the pimiento stuffed manzanilla olives (oops, not pictured) and sliced of Serrano Jamon.
There were also American buffalo wings, sliced provolone cheese and also an Armenian braided cheese (Fresh & Easy) which was cut up in smaller pieces here, smoked salmon with capers, and a small plate of crackers. This is the Rosca de Reyes cake which is eaten traditionally during the holidays by Latinos. In Spanish, it is called Rosca de Reyes, but according to my neighbor's husband, they call it Bola de Rey in Portuguese. Normally the baby Jesus is baked inside the cake, but this one was outside. If you get the piece with JC, then you are supposed to host the next party. The colored strips you see on top of the pastry are dried fruit strips (guava and I forget the other flavors). The bread is kind of like Brioche. We've never had it before and we actually didn't eat it that night. Bert enjoyed it a few days later with his coffee.

Now this was a dish I really enjoyed. She made a Portuguese shellfish dish called "Almeijoas". These are supposed to be made with a certain kind of clam, but since they're not found here in the U.S., she used Manila clams instead. First you heat extra virgin olive oil in a pan with garlic slices.

Once the oil and garlic are a bit browned, add the clams and cover until they open.

Before serving, squeeze lemon juice on top and sprinkle chopped Italian flat leaf parsley. Serve with bread to mop up the sauce!

I've also seen version of this recipe where you can add white wine to the dish while the clams steam. In this version, it's just clams simmered in oil. I'm sure it's good both ways! We had white wine with this (as a beverage) and later on, a small shot of Porto.

While the adults were yakking away (yes, that's us), enjoying the food and all, the girls were at times, playing the Wii or ensconced in one of the bedrooms making a "tent" with chairs and blankets and playing Explorer. We watched on TV as the crystal ball dropped in Times Square, wearing silly hats and waving noisemakers. The girls had a blast. TC is normally never up this late and we all crashed when we got home. Luckily it was a short walk and we weren't drunk or anything. Here's to 2008 and hope that this year was better than the last! I resolve to try a new recipe at least once a week! Either that or a new ingredient. Let's see if I can do it.