Happy New Year! We hope everyone had a lovely holiday. We spent ours with friends and family and boy did we have a great time. We visited, played games, hiked, cooked, laughed, shopped, got pedicures, and had an overall fun and mellow break from it all.
But mostly, we ate.
Kevin's mom arrived from San Antonio on the 18th of December and we immediately took her up to The Herbfarm in Woodinville, WA for her birthday celebration. The place was decorated full-tilt boogie for the holidays, complete with Dickens Carolers. The food was delicious and expertly presented, as usual.
Then, back in Portland we did our version of kicked-up Southern BBQ for Christmas dinner (pulled pork, baby back ribs, hot links, chicken, salads, homemade BBQ sauce, cornbread, maple bacon bourbon cookies, candied bacon, truffled truffles, etc.). Fun, casual, and something for everyone.
On the 26th, as a holiday gift to our family, we took everyone out to Noisette for the chef's tasting menu. Lovely time and fantastic food.
On the 27th our friends Jake and Patti arrived from San Diego, and on New Year's Eve Jake and Kevin and I cooked up a doozie of a meal: six courses with wine pairings. I can't believe I didn't take any photos (I was busy), but here's our menu:
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Pretty fancy, eh? We rocked it, too! (Oh yeah, and a few days before this, our dishwasher quit, so for the full picture, imagine us doing dishes between each course!)
On New Year's Day, Jake made us a beautiful mushroom and cheese soufflé. I did manage to get a photo of that one.
I've been wanting to try making ramen at home (after going to Ippudo in NY), and Jake was game to help, so we headed over to Uwajimaya for supplies (after a TON of research). I read and read and read about all the different broths (shio, shoyu, miso, tonkatsu), and although the ramen I had and loved at Ippudo was a tonkatsu broth, that was the most difficult and time-consuming, so I opted to just wing it with a combination of my 24-hour chicken stock with some fish stock and miso. The broth was good, and solid for a first shot (if not traditional), but I have to say the toppings were the most fun. We did a braised pork belly, sliced fish cake, marinated soft-boiled eggs, sauteed corn, scallions, pickled ginger, sprouts, spinach, Tokyo negi, maitake and enoki mushrooms, wakeme, and bamboo shoots. (We quite possibly went a bit overboard with the toppings, but whatever.)
Here's what it looked like:
Luckily, we still managed to squeeze in regular hikes in the arboretum to burn a few calories. Here's a nice shot from the trail one foggy morning:
Tell us about your holiday meals! If you've got any good recipes to share, or want any of ours, just let us know!
*Oh yeah, the first shot at the top of this post is from Sauvage in Portland. I forgot to mention…we took Jake & Patti there on the 2nd. So. Much. Good. Food (and wine).
