New Year's Eve: Culinary Resolutions

"Should old acquaintance be forgot and never brought to mind?" It's out with the old and in with the new year--how do you plan to celebrate?

By Khalil Hymore

I hope everyone had a peachy Christmas and Hanukkah. I have to say, it was rather hectic celebrating both holidays in the same week. There was lots of gift giving, cooking and schlepping, not to mention we never seemed to have enough Hanukkah candles.

Our Christmas Eve dinner went off without a hitch, mainly because I stuck with easy to prepare in advance dishes. The Sticky Toffee Pudding was a huge hit. I adapted a recipe from The Joy of Cooking, using Lyle's Golden Syrup and dark brown sugar instead. It was quite crowd pleasing, and, well, sort of exotic, even though it is an old English dish. I also prepared a lovely Lemon Tart via the Tartine cookbook made with Meyer lemons sent from my Aunt Bonnie in California.

Now it's time for New Year's Eve, which has never been a holiday that I plan for in advance. I am not one of those people to book a reservation at a fabulous restaurant or club months in advance. Don't get me wrong, hootin' and hollerin' at midnight at a fabulous party is a perfectly wonderful way to ring in the new year. It's just not my style.

I prefer a quiet New Year's Eve at home with friends. I suppose it stems from when my mom and my aunt and uncle and their friends would go out and hoot and holler at midnight at fabulous parties in San Francisco, and my sister and I would stay home and watch movies--and gorge ourselves on Christmas leftovers. We would always pause whatever movie we were watching at midnight and run out onto the balcony of my aunt and uncles house and listen for the revelers screaming and yelling.

Last year, Scott and I turned our apartment into a Wii bowling alley and invited a bunch of our friends over for appetizers and bubbly. Incidentally, New Year's Eve is the one holiday that I do not cook for--I make it a potluck and everyone brings an appetizer or a dessert, although I did come up with a delicious party recipe here. This year, I will probably break my "No Cooking on New Years Eve Rule" and prepare a simple little supper and stay in and watch the whole she-bang on television.

There is one culinary resolution that I would like to make for 2009. It's something that has nagged me for years--I resolve to learn how to prepare Asian dishes, properly and authentically. I've realized that as a chef, my culinary training is never over and I still find Asian cuisines quite intimidating to prepare. From soup dumplings to Pad Thai, and especially scallion pancakes, I vow to master Asian ingredients and create real and authentic Asian dishes at home, by years end. Wish me luck!

A little preliminary research has already resulted in my first "assignment"--to prepare a meal in celebration of Chinese New Year, which falls on January 26th, 2009. Steamy Kitchen Modern Asian has a lovely menu from last years Chinese New Year that looks simple and delicious--it may be a good place to start. Another good place to start? Flushing, Queens, right here in New York City. Now if I can only get one of my Chinese friends to go with me--if only to help with the translations!

Happy New Year everybody!