Goals for 2010

I'm hesitant to use the phrase New Year's Resolution since I've never stuck with one.  But goals I can meet.  So here are a few of my culinary goals of 2010.

1.  Find a good knife, then buy it.  We bought an okay knife set when we arrived, but I'd love to have a good chef's knife to slice through the big hunks of bacon that my current knifes rip apart.  Key for this knife is a safe carrying case so it can follow us during our next move.

2.  Join Meeta's Monthly Mingle.  I'm not going to set a goal for meeting 12 mingles, but I'd like to at least do eight.  January's theme is Winter Vegetables and Fruit and is due by January 14.  Wish me luck!  (I'm also taking suggestions)

3.  Introduce one new fruit or vegetable a month.  We have a tendency to get stuck in a green beans or broccoli rut, so I'd like to liven things up a bit on the dinner table.  I've also cooked Brussels sprouts a few too many times for them to count as "new" as well.  Perhaps I'll make it a feature on my blog!  "Exotic of the Month"

My other goals are the normal boring ones (eat less fried food, etc).  But I've decided if I can reach these three goals, I'm well on my way to sticking with a (gasp) New Year's Resolution.  But I'm not calling it that.  :)

Die Feuerzangenbowle

Loosely, die Feuerzangenbowle translates to Fire Tongs Bowl.  I was introduced to this beverage by several coworkers.  They were discussing the upcoming Christmas party for the younger crowd within the department, and I got to hear all about this crazy drink.  And, of course, fire perked my interest.  


Die Feuerzangenbowle is also a movie.  It's a strange movie about a poet who pretends to be a student again in order to play tricks on all the teachers (he was schooled by tutors, so never had the chance to be a prankster as a kid).   Anyway, the movie opens with old men surrounding a Feuerzangenbowle, and the joke is that most Germans don't know the end of the movie because everyone is too drunk from their own Feuerzangenbowle to remember the end.  Hubby and I had the joy of experiencing die Feuerzangenbowle at the Christmas party, both the movie and the beverage.  The movie is in German (with no English subtitles), but one of the PhD students found the subtitles in English online and actually put it together with the movie.  From my little German, I could tell that the subtitles were either slightly ahead or slightly behind throughout the movie, but that just added to the drunken fun.  Okay, so actually the beverage isn't that great in taste, so none of us were drunk.  We watched through the whole movie, so I actually know the end!  But I guess that makes me a bad German...

Good Ol' Mac and Cheese

I grew up on Velveeta Shells and Cheese.  I loved the stuff.  Gooey, smooth, a cute shaped pasta... I was in heaven.  My friends' moms were serving blue box with the powdered cheese.  Edible, of course, but it just didn't call to me... besides, it was a boring old macaroni noodle, not a shell!  And then my grandmother served something completely different.  A baked macaroni and cheese.  I just couldn't understand why she had to put it into the oven.  With boring old elbow macaroni as well.  I couldn't stand the stuff.  That's right, my grandmother made from scratch macaroni and cheese and I didn't like it.  Give me shells and cheese any day.