Ah, Annette, I think of you, too. Your frozen lemon mousse dessert has become part of my repertoire. :) I tried making Babas au Rhum for the first time on New Year's Eve. YES!!! Nancy, I must have a nice selection of cheeses at Christmas, simply must! I usually do shrimp, too. :) Schoolhouse, my garden is not too merry right now. Unfortunately. some of the dogs got in and ate most of my winter greens, roots and all. I still have a small bed of arugula producing, protected from frost by an old window propped up over the bed. Happy New Year, all!

I second that, and I also wish you the best in this coming year. This place would not be the same without you. May everyone have a great Christmas day. We are golfing so my wish to myself is to have my swing be strong.

Hi Judy, so good to see you posting again. I hope Greg's burns are healing well. You didn't say how you are doing? I believe you were having problems with your legs. Hope that is better. Ashley is quite a grown up beautiful young lady now. I'm glad she has a job that she loves, and hope she will stay with it. Nice looking young man, too. Don't be stranger here now. Sue

Belated Merry Christmas to all. Especially to Triciae, who was on my mind a lot this holiday and will be during future holidays. Dear Wonder Woman, I hope you are doing well, where ever you are. Thank you for showing me what courage and strength and kindness are. We drove down to the Bay Area for the holidays. Christmas Eve we had dinner with our good friends in Berkeley, raw oysters with mignonette, cracked crab, and the traditional Buche de Noel. Last night we had dinner with other good friends in Richmond, tenderloin, mashed potatoes and a warm cauliflower-brussel sprout salad. I made half of the tenderloin, cut pieces 1" thick and tied them into rounds, pan cooked, with a sauce of reduced white balsamic vinegar, Muscat wine, shallots and garlic, butter, sauteed mushroom stems, blended smooth, then simmered over whole mushroom caps. No recipe, just made it up. Our hostess roasted the rest of the tenderloin with a red wine and shallot reduction. We were supervised by a friend who is a head chef at a large hotel and, for the first time in many years, didn't have to work on Christmas day, but was nonetheless pressed into service which he did with good humour. I've been negotiating a stressful matter at work for the past few weeks. As of Dec 24, we were uncertain whether our little business unit would be shut down and I had prepared myself to be jobless come Jan 1st. That all got resolved satisfactorily at noon on Christmas Eve, final document review pending, so for the first time in a month, I was able to relax and unclench. It was nice.