Monday, January 4, 2010

Down South...Day Thirty-Two...Thursday, Deember 31, 2009...New Year's Eve





Everybody is up early this morning...lots of work to do. Molly has made one her great little breakfasts...bacon, bagel, scrambles eggs with cheese...fuel for the day's work.
Soon we're peeling potatoes, trimming Brussels sprouts, taking out the prime rib (20 lbs., three weeks dry-aged) and tending to other prep work. The prime rib goes in the neighbors oven at 1:30PM on 225 degrees to slow-roast all afternoon.
I'm hoping to get a nap in, but soon it's late afternoon...no nap today. The first guests/neighbors start arriving around 7:00PM or so...and out go several loads of empanadas and stuffed mushrooms. We've got fresh oysters in the shell, but that seems like to much work tonight, so we defer them until tomorrow.
Now it's approaching 8:30PM, and things are moving at a frenzied pace...cooking crab cakes, caramelizing the creme brulee, potatoes and Brussels sprouts in the oven, "blasting" the prime rib at 500 degrees for twenty minutes or so.
But...it's all coming together...everything is cooked just right and served on time. A lot of hungry people are mighty happy.
And...then...it's New Years...out with 2009...in with 2010. I'll miss 2009...it was a great year

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