There was substantially less food at our house on New Year's Eve, but what we did have was awfully tasty! Allow me, please, to share a little more food porn with you while the last of my laundry (for today) churns in the washing machine.
I had to work until 3PM again on NYE and Jay was lucky enough to be able to work from home - his official day ended around noon. When I got home he was playing the Wii Animal Crossing City Folk game that we've both been addicted to this week (yes, Gina; you were right ... those are our mii's in the game).
My first order of business was to whip up one last pitcher of milk punch - the leftover cream was just going to get all gunky and chunky in the refigerator if we didn't do something useful with it.
Pretty as a pitcher ... except for that spot where I spilled cream all over the place
Would you believe me if I told you that of all the cheese we had on Christmas Day, this is all that was left? Well, there was still some Fromager d'Affoinos leftover, but it wasn't worth taking a picture of.
Some cheese is better than no cheese at all!
This evening's main course courtesy of Dean & Deluca: Lobster Mac & Cheese. Here's how it looked out of the box:
Hmmmm, definite potential here!
And here's how it looked after baking for about 30 minutes:
I swear I cooked it!
One of the things I liked about this was the packaging - both servings arrived in 8 ounce ceramic ramekins which will definitely come in handy down the road. As for the food itself ... wow! Big, succulent chunks of lobster meat were hidden in and around pasta shells and creamy mascarpone-cheddar sauce. The dish was topped off with crunchy panko bread crumbs, herb butter, lemon zest, and Parmesan cheese.
I don't even like lobster all that much and I thought this was incredible. The ultimate comfort food for grown-ups!
Jay also cooked a French baguette to accompany our dinner. We smeared some pieces with goat cheese and others with my Fromager and ...
sigh ... is there anything better than hot bread smeared with meltingly beautiful artisan cheese?
Glorious bread!
There's dinner ... enjoy!
We washed our tasty food down with some Schlafly's Barleywine. Schlafly's is a local independent brewery here in Stinktown and they make a mighty fine product. We enjoy many of their brews and when feeling really adventurous we will drive all the way to downtown Stinktown and visit their restaurant: The Tap Room. If you're a micro-brew lover and ever have the misfortune to travel to Stinktown, try try try to get yourself over to The Tap Room. You won't regret it.
The Barleywine was good but I think I like Schlafly's Bier d'Garde better. Still, this is a nice alternative to a standard beer and I believe it has a higher alcohol content ... which might account for some of the silliness going down in Animal Crossing. You have never experienced the true hilarity of a talking animal pulling a carpet or piece of furniture out of its pants until you play this game with a strong buzz. The potential downside to playing the game in this reckless manner is that we apparently helped the animals create new "catchphrases" and they are now walking around calling each other and us "Prune Face", "Dingus", "Buthole", and "Bilge Pump." They are also using greetings such as "Whoopee Twang", "Goo-goo-ja-joob", and "Bite Me."
As midnight grew near we broke out some chocolate truffles ordered all special like from Williams Sonoma (the last smoking remnants of my gift card).
So what the heck was that I just posted? Those are Blanc de Noir Truffles created exclusively for Sonoma by Michael Recchiuti (I don't know who he is but I think he must be a confectionary god ... ). These truffles were made with 65% El Ray Venezulean chocolate ganache and infused with Schramsberg Blanc de Noir Sparkling Wine. They were then rolled in fine Pernigotti cocoa powder, coated with a blend of El Ray 65% Sur de Lago and Etienne Guittard Madagascar chocolate, and finally dusted with confectioners' sugar.
How did they taste?
Indescribably incredibly unbelievably good ... if your mouth can have an orgasm than I promise you this chocolate will produce it. Deb, if you're reading I'd recommned these babies hands down over those dominoes from Christopher Norman - not only were these better than the caramel filled dominoes but they were less expensive, too.
You wanna know what made this lovely little taste-treat even better? Everyone's favorite sparking pink wine ... Rosa Regale!!!
And there you have a Stinktown New Year's Eve! No crowds; no smoke; no noise, no bad food or cruddy service; no smoke; no stupid drivers.
Once again ... a Happy Happy New Year to you all! May it be filled with joy, peace, and prosperity!!! Oh yeah, and good food and booze!!
I'm sure that there are peeps here younger than me ... 
It's really really good, but very rich! Even I couldn't eat much of it, and that's saying a lot!
