A Fifty-something's New Year's Eve

We’ve spent New Year’s Eve with the same people for as long as I can remember. Sometimes we do streamers and hats and noisemakers, but tonight it was just about fine food.

We started our night of non-stop eating at around 7:00 at L and M’s house. P and H joined us. All of our children used to be a part of this, but they are now celebrating on their own.

Appetizers consisted of shaved Reggiano parmesan, tapenade, smoked salmon and avocado with homemade dill sauce, and last but not least, 50's canapes. The canapes were the hit of the evening. They were slices of party pumpernickel topped with thinly sliced red onions, mayonnaise, and parmesan and then put under the broiler. All this accompanied by a great Penfold red wine.

Then we went to Bamiyan, a neighborhood Afghan restaurant, for dinner. I was already stuffed, but managed to eat an eggplant and a lamb appetizer. I’m not sure why we bothered going out to eat!

L had planned a little tasting test for us for dessert. She had cut up dark chocolate into small bite-size pieces, numbered 1 through 5. We were asked to consider appearance, aroma, meltability, and any other characteristics of our choice to rank the samples from best to worst. It was a tough assignment, but we all came out with a definite opinion. Here were the 5 samples, not revealed until after everyone had voted:

(1) Scharffenberger 60%
(2) Valrhona 85%
(3) Valrhona 56%
(4) Trader Joe’s 72%
(5) Trader Joe’s 56%

The 3 men all chose #5. L and I chose #1, commenting that it tasted much like cherries. H chose #3.

By this time, it was almost midnight. We gathered in front of the television set to watch the ball drop. We were shocked by Dick Clark, who still had the slurred speech of a stroke victim. This was the most sobering observation of the evening. Hugs around at the stroke of 12.


The finale was more food! This time we enjoyed outrageously good dates brought straight from California by H and P, clementines, Stilton cheese, and a Napa Zinfandel Port that was the perfect accompaniment.



The end of our New Year’s evening found us putting these photos on a DVD for me to take home and post.

So no crowded bars or big parties for us old guys. Just a few friends mostly at home and a lot of good food. We have our priorities straight!

Happy New Year to everyone! I hope 2007 is all you want it to be.

Credits to H and P for photos, L and M for hospitality, and D for being my "date"!