It is a glorious New Year day over here at our house: beautiful white snow with great sunshine (still too cold to go outside though...). We had a couple and their 3 year old girl come over last night and I got the pleasure of hearing Emma play her heart out for a few hours, before they both collapsed exhausted. I also got to enjoy cooking a gourmet dinner (contents below), and today got to sleep next to Emma and MrH. I woke up to the bread that I had put in the oven all done (MrH took it out) and had a slice with homemade strawberry jam from this summer, and passionfruit tea, and life is heavenly. (Aside from the fact that the cat just puked on the floor, I wish she should stop eating palm leaves).
Four years ago, I was in the hospital with Adrian. On January 1 at night I started contracting, and had him on January 2 in the morning. We had such a crappy New Year, that for the rest of my life, that particular day will make any other celebration look glorious by comparison. Here, let's put them side by side: stuck in a very old hospital bed, in a tiny very old room, in absolute bedrest with my head lower than my body, suffering from diarrhea induced by the ultra high doses of clindamycin that were meant to prevent infection, hoping but knowing that my hope is probably foolish, and watching a baby move that I knew was doomed to die. Oh, and let's not forget dinner: I got an old stale tuna sandwich because the kitchen staff was off that night. The highlight was a small trifle from Save On that MrH brought, and that we shared. I can't bring myself to eat that kind of trifle since then...
By comparison, a New Year's where I am vertical, and have my whole family healthy and safe around me... well, it is just 100 to 1.
Now, onto my new resolutions for the year, I don't have that many:
- teach Emma Romanian language consistently every day.
- stick to healthy, wholesome eating habits (aka clean eating).
- learn German.
That's about it. Let's see how far I get.
Addendum: the dinner last night was as follows:
-cheese appetizers: blue cheese, aged cheddar, and Oka
-eggplant salad (finely chopped grilled eggplant with salt, oil, lemon juice, diced tomatoes and onion)
-shortcrust pastry "boats" (50g clean snow, 60g butter, 90 g flour, salt, parmesan) filled with goat cheese, smoked salmon and capers
Main course: beef shoulder blade simmered for 4 h in red wine/broth with aromatics, diced sweet potatoes boiled and finished in the oven with a bit of parmesan on top, green beans stir fried with toasted hazelnuts and finely chopped maple bacon, risotto with saffron and parmesan, and broccoli steamed and topped off with a peanut sauce that I just made up. In fact I pretty much made up most of this menu. I had no idea if it was going to work together, but mmmm....
Desert: rum balls. A little harder the second day after spending the night in the fridge than I would have liked. Next time I am adding rum for sure.
Highlights: Champagne (MrH got us Real Champagne...) and white/red organic wines (we had a pinot grigio and a merlot, both Italian), as well as Bailey to put in the coffee. I definitely enjoyed the Champagne. We still have some leftover, and I am thinking of how to use it, was looking at some recipes... Suggestions?
No comments:
Post a Comment