What Are You Having For New Years?

Me?
I'm making four different kinds of fondue with all the dippin's and trimmin's! Two savory, two sweet. I have an awesome fondue cookbook written by Ilana Simon called, "The 125 Best Fondue Recipes" that I highly recommend. The recipes I'm trying are:

Cheddar Cheese and Beer, p. 33

Italian, p. 42

Sweet Brie, p. 50

Cheesecake Fondue, p. 163

Can't wait to try 'em!
What are you having?

It is my tradition to make cassoulet every year. I make it from scratch and I make my own sausage and confit. I have stocked up on many bottles from the Languedoc. We will probably start with some pate and finish with something decadent but those courses are delegated to others. I start the confit tomorrow (I am working on New Year's day this year so we are pushing the celebration back to the 3rd)!

It is my tradition to make cassoulet every year. I make it from scratch and I make my own sausage and confit. I have stocked up on many bottles from the Languedoc. We will probably start with some pate and finish with something decadent but those courses are delegated to others. I start the confit tomorrow (I am working on New Year's day this year so we are pushing the celebration back to the 3rd)!

Hey Rob,
Traditional duck confit or something else?

Snow.

We will be skiing on New Years Day

We had planned on pork roast, mashed potatoes, and sauerkraut, but hadn't yet shopped.

I guess we are having whatever is in the house, because we got nearly 4 feet of snow last night at my place, the roads are all closed, and I don't think I could dig out before then anyway.

Ironically, my best friend's parents were on the last flight they let into New Mexico last night.... they came from a fairly balmy, snowless Buffalo, NY!

With all the talk about it here, we're thinking prime rib.

Lots of protein, fat, and fungi.

One dish from Thanksgiving that I'm repeating is a slightly international take on winter squash ravioli: the filling is the usual roasted squash, but with some queso fresco and queso seco blended in. The butter/sage sauce has a bit of an acidic white wine and once plated, the ravioli are drizzled with some Styrian kuerbiskernoel. The Styrian oil, made from roasted pumpkin seeds, does some magic stuff with the squash.

New Years Day...

Charcoaled bone in rib-eyes w/ sauteed asparagus & garlic, oven roasted new potatoes w/ cippolines. Paired with a 2001 "Il Grigio" CCR.

Richard

Butterflied, marinated leg of lamb, grilled. Parmesan baby red potatoes, roasted. Stir fried broccoli, white mushrooms, with garlic, red pepper flakes and, lemon. Will have to see what red wines we have left to serve with dinner.
I really wanted to make an old family recipe of roasted spare ribs, but forgot to go to the meat shop. So, I visited the freezer! Good thing because I had meat/poultry/ fish in there that I bought for other recipes. I'm so bad.

Cream of chestnut soup with black truffle
Terrine of Duck foie gras on toast points
96 Grande Dame

Roast boneless beef rib roast w/ au jus
Golden beets
Sauteed butternut squash w/ sage and Styrian pumpkin seed oil
other misc. veggies and starches
95 Le Petite Eglise Pomerol

Dessert is homemade wild cranberry tart with linzertorte crust and whipped cream.
Westerly LH Viognier Pasito-style

96 Grande Dame

I had the '96 Grande Dame last week - I liked it very much, though I think it has miles to go.
I look forward to your opinion of the wine.

We had planned on pork roast, mashed potatoes, and sauerkraut, but hadn't yet shopped.

I guess we are having whatever is in the house, because we got nearly 4 feet of snow last night at my place, the roads are all closed, and I don't think I could dig out before then anyway.

Ironically, my best friend's parents were on the last flight they let into New Mexico last night.... they came from a fairly balmy, snowless Buffalo, NY!

Piffle, that's like only a snowflake or two if you're from Minnesota. My wife's brother from Pennsylvania called yesterday because he saw some clips about New Mexico on the tube and couldn't believe it. Pennsylvania was in the 40s and had no snow at all.

Yesterday afternoon I got a call from the restaurant to play the piano, so I dug out my pickup and slowly made my way there on icy streets after dark. When I got within a couple of miles, I noticed vertical shafts of light here and there shooting up into the sky. These were the results of something even more rare in Albuquerque than snow: fog, freezing fog. Wherever there was a sodium vapor streetlight there was the searchlight effect. It looked like something out of a science fiction movie.

After I got home, my neighbor invited me over for a prime rib dinner. I'm a lucky boy; that's twice in a week I've had prime rib.

Typically, we have sauerkraut on New Year's Day. My neighbor has also invited us over for lunch (I'll believe it when I see it because he was partying hearty last night).

Depending on what happens to the snow today, I may be driving my favorite wife to work tomorrow. And there's supposed to be more snow later in the week....

We were at a friend's house. In keeping with the middle-of-winter timing, we went with a luau theme. Whole roasted pig, poke, lau lau, Spam sushi, inari sushi, mai tais, etc. Plenty of wine and champagne to go with. For breakfast this morning, we all had french toast stuffed with raspberry cream cheese.


Mike

Hey Rob,
Traditional duck confit or something else?

Traditional. But I am making my sausage with thyme and black truffle salt. I think that will be subtle but good.

rwj

Hello All and Happy New Year Best Wishes from Toronto, Canada

Although I've enjoyed reading the many informative posts on this forum this is my first.

For New Year's dinner, the main course was a bbq'd Ontario butterflied leg of lamb marinated with fresh rosemary, garlic, black peppercorns and red wine... a traditional Italian preparation many of you will no doubt be familiar with.

In the past we have enjoyed Californian merlot and cabs, Rhone syrah and a well aged Rioja with this dish. This year, however, to change things up a little bit, we decided to try a wine "off the beaten path" which I had read about but had never tried before. We had a wine from the little known north west Spanish appelation of Bierzo made from an ancient grape known as mencia. (ie. I have read that it is believed to be a cousin of cabernet franc.)

The wine we had was the Descendientes de Jose Palacios Bierzo Petalos 2005. Wow, what a match it proved to be.

The wine was deep violet in colour, fruit driven, medium to full bodied and wonderfully structured. The vibrant red berry and peppery aromas and dark berry flavours on the palate along with lively acidity and well integrated fine tannins married beautifully with the lamb. All the components seemed so beautifully balanced that one could not detect any heat from the 14% alcohol level.

I am sure a few of you have sampled wine from the Bierzo region and would love to hear your impressions and experience.

Cheers,
Dom D.

Greetings from across the lake and welcome to the forum Dom! Good to have you join us!