Happy holidays... yes, I'm late

This year marked my first real one in food during the holiday season. Coffee last year was busy, but not markedly different than the rest of the year. But macarons - oh my.

I sold a bunch of them. We sold out frequently. I was working seemingly all the time. My Christmas shopping took place mostly at local merchants mostly because I was doing it on my lunch breaks. Lots of cool locally made stuff out there though, so no complaints that I heard. Think I'm proudest of the the find, When French Women Cook, by Madeleine Kamman for my boss. A memoir about growing up in France and cooking, it also has a whole bunch of recipes including both US and metric measures. If you want to progress in a foreign language, find something you're interested in to try and read. It helps.

After a traditional Christmas Eve meal of nachos and watching funny shows, my house retired to sleep with visions of "a day off!" dancing in our heads. Nic headed down to LA for her family gathering a few days before, so Mike, Sarah, and I gathered around the tree in the morning (but not too early - Mike actually did wake up before 9 wanting to open presents but we can't get Sarah out of bed that early unless it's something like a fire. She regularly doesn't get home until after midnight from work, it's logical). Pot of tea at our side, we oohed and ahhed at the others treasure and then read our books some more. Restful.

The fun continued as we loaded ourselves and a bag of treats into a taxi and headed to Jaylan's house, our adopted aunt. I'd help her plan a bang up holiday party for Dec 12 (a roaring success on all counts - catered by Sally & Sarah, bartending by new friend Anthony, music by pianist Michael. Chocolate fountain, duck terrines, meatballs, cheeseballs, crab dip, the whole nine yards) and we had some leftovers carefully frozen for celebrating Christmas (though none of us are practicing Christians: I'd make some clever comment about Turks and Baha'is here but none spring to mind). So it was party dedux on a smaller scale of 4 - crab, cheeseballs, other snacks with bubbles (or not, as one liked). Sarah showed us how to make a bunch of lamb chops out of cooking a rack altogether; rich and delicious. The ladies took Jaylan's dog Ziggy (a hilarious Scottie with a prancing walk) out for a Christmas constitutional down to the waterfront and looked at all the tourists out looking themselves.

After our delicious candlelit dinner, we set up the projector and watched The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, one of the better movies I've seen in a long time. Bogart gives a realistic and gripping portrayal of man slowly going mad, a friend told me it's like a crime noir set in the mountains. That's it exactly. Perhaps a tad slow in the middle, but then the pace takes right back off again. I was pleasantly surprised at the ending - not cliché in the least and quite fitting wrap up. Watch it. The new Wallace and Gromit short wasn't near so good - I was disappointed.

It was a lovely day spent with lovely folks; seemed fitting to pause in the middle of the crazy season. In the next installment: New Year, New Travel Destination. Stay tuned!