Happy 2008!

Hello? Is anyone still here? Sorry I've been such a bad little blogger lately. Thank you so much to everyone who e-mailed me to see if I am still alive and to wish us a Happy New Year! Happy New Year to all of you too, my dear readers. I wish you health, happiness, and more than anything -- joy from the little things in life. Whether it's a smile from your child, a good book, a dish that came out better than you expected, or an exciting trip. Enjoy every minute of it! And please no overambitious resolutions. Mine was to blog more often, but I got over that in about 5 minutes. I just realized that sometimes in life you have to go with the flow and slow down to enjoy what's happening instead of adding more to a never-ending to-do list.

What's been happening here? First of all, my little bundle of joy is getting bigger. This Monday, January 7th, she turned 6 months old. She is smiling, laughing, rolling, and listening to songs and books with great interest. She is also making crawling attempts, which make Mommy and Daddy very nervous and terribly busy with attempting to Sammy-proof the house. We started solid foods and have a great time getting it into our hair, eyes, and under our chin. On occasion a little gets into our mouth too. Sweet potatoes are our favorite. Yum!

The second big thing is that I survived the insanity of Christmas gift certificates. No more staying up till 11pm processing urgent cooking class requests. No more endless phone ringing. No more answering questions of concerned husbands who think their wives are too good for regular classes and absolutely must have 1-on-1 instructions. No more panicking because I ran out of envelops, stamps, or address labels yet again. I can finally get back to my normal life of cooking and teaching.

As you can imagine, with all this stuff, and a trip to Maryland to visit family over the holidays, blogging was put on the back burner. But I am hoping that in the new year I'll get back into the rhythm of blogging again. Too many dishes to share with you guys. My new obsession has been braised whole monkfish tail. This might be a good first post for 2008.