Happy New Year everyone!
I celebrated by making sock bunnies with Juuitsu Watanabe and watching a documentary called "Darkon" about people who fight with foam weapons and dress up like stuff. If you are curious, here is the wikipedia entry.
We all then joined M. in the front yard to shot off fireworks. We were chided by the police and told not to do it anymore. M. equated this warning to being yelled at by his mother as a youngster. I was very satisfied with my evening. Oftentimes I feel that NYE is a let down. Some of my more memorable NYE of past years include:
* A fancy costume party for the Millenium where I was bascially the only person there without some poor man dragging behind me.
*Sitting in a Denny's in Amarillo TX on my way to New Mexico.
*Falling asleep before midnight on the island of Palau because we were exhausted from snorkeling all day.
That last one is probably the best one I've had since I was 13.

Last weekend I also tried my hand at making chocolate babka. My co-worker had been going on and on about chocolate babka since she is a huge Seinfeld fan. After a few false starts and bad yeast, I made two loaves of delicious, buttery babka. This is the recipe that inspired me to try making Chocolate Babka from Smitten Kitchen's yummy food site. This recipe called for way too much butter. How much butter you ask? 5sticks of butter plus some extra to butter the pans. I decide to go with this recipe from Epicurious instead. The first recipe makes 3 loaves with a steusel top (Made with butter). The second only makes two loaves with no steusel. Since I have only had babka once before at the 2nd Ave Deli in NYC, I couldn't remember if theirs had steusel or not, so I left it off. I really should have taken pictures, they turned out so well. Just check out Smitten Kitchen's page instead and then imagine me in an apron and big fluffy slippers with dough on my hands, probably some flour in my hair and no artsy pictures of dough being taken or even thought about.
Also excited this week about a small mini break/vacation coming up to somewhere west and warmer than Chicago. Also getting geared up for the annual Chinese New Year party we attend at the end of January. So many things to look forward to in the cold cold winter.