As I perused my usual glom of blogs, I read a piece on bbcgoodfood.com that suggests the big trend for 2008 will take local and seasonal back to the future with preserved foods - jamming, pickling, curing, drying… Many restaurants here in New Orleans (and everywhere I think) are really diving into “putting up” various seasonal fruits and veg that re-surface, out-of-season, in a variety of dishes and even cocktails. Like the authors of the BBC Good Food piece, I see this trend getting bigger this year and taking off in the mainstream.

At a sweet dessert boutique in New Orleans, the chef made these mini Twinkie look-a-likes. While Twinkies themselves are a good thing, these “Twinkles” are sublime - tender vanilla-laced cake, creamy, light filling - they’re the American cream puff.

Twinkie creator James Dewar supposedly ate 2 Twinkies a day until he died in 1985. Making creme-filled cakes is an easy and fun thing to do at home with the kids and there’s no limit to the flavors that can be created. Adults might like the addition of rum to the basic cake or filling recipes or how about subbing some Mesquite Flour (for a sexy, malted flavor) in the cake and filling with chocolate creme? Cake molds in that unmistakeable Twinkie shape and pastry bags for filling the cakes are easy to come by at kitchen stores everywhere.

Today is National Shortbread Day, which in my very own secret language means “don’t bother eating it, just stick it right on my hips.” The nerve of someone to give me delicious, buttery, crumbly shortbread straight from the UK, knowing full well that shortbread is my kryptonite, that my “diet” is now for nothing and that I could spend a lifetime on my new stationary bicycle, but then I’d have to put down the shortbread to check my heart-rate. Oh the heck with it; I’ve pinned a note to myself that reads: Dear Husband, should you find me slumped over the handle bars of my bicycle in a shortbread-induced stupor, please remember to wipe the cookie crumbs from my lips before you take the photo to send to the Fug girls or “The National Enquirer.

Yes!! When Metromint water first launched, I was very excited. A no calorie, extra minty water was right up my alley. Now this genius company, obviously considering my needs, has launched a chocolate mint water that is “…a blend of chocolate and mint flavors, which results in something along the lines of a peppermint patty but without the sugar. The unsweetened formula is extremely rich in flavor, which is impressive for a zero calorie product. Aside from the chocolate flavor, the product has a less pronounced mint flavor than the other varieties…” Metromint chocolate mint water is available on line and their site has a nifty retail locater. I’m hitting the Whole Foods tomorrow morning.

Just in case you don’t read French, this sign says that smoking is no longer allowed at restaurants in France. Fantastique!!! I got the above picture from one of my favorite bloggers, David Lebovitz.

I’m trying to think of something profound, introspective, smart and funny, but honestly nothing particular springs to mind. I have nothing charming to say and no wrap-up or “best of” for 2007. I’d love to say that this evening will be a simple, flickering candle-lit evening with my husband all to myself, a plate of prosciutto and fresh melon, bubbly glass Prosecco and a quiet ushering in of 2008.

However, that is not to be. There are other plans afoot. In addition to the slew of hors d’oeuvres I’m cobbling together, there will be a home-cooked dinner of STANDING RIB ROAST, roasted Austrian fingerling potatoes, BRUSSELS SPROUTS WITH GARLIC, NUTS AND BROWN BUTTER, a cool salad of fresh hothouse tomatoes, buffalo mozzarella and home grown basil. For New Year’s Day I’ve made CASSOULET and by speical request, a retro Napa cabbage salad with green onions, sliced almonds and a sesame-soy vinaigrette.

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERY ONE - May you have peace, love, joy and really good food in 2008.

I adore this. Free Rice is a site where you play a vocabulary game and for each correct answer, 20 grains of rice is donated to the United Nations World Food Program. I will admit I’ve done well and have “donated” a good amount of rice thus far. What a fantastic way to do something great to cap off 2007 and/or begin 2008. On December 27th alone, over 150 million grains of rice was donated. We can kick that up a notch, eh?

As a voracious reader of all things food or culinary related, I was fascinated by the interview of author Diana Abu-Jaber on www.culinate.com. Shamefully I haven’t read Diana’s books, but I have read her work in national magazines; I fully intend to change this situation after I get through the books piling up next to my bed. This is the stack I got for Christmahannakwanzaakah:

The Elements of Cooking by Ruhlman (I’ve almost finished this one)
Food, A History of Taste
Kitchen Mysteries by This
My China, by Kylie Kwong
Trail of Crumbs by Kim Sunee

If this isn’t the strangest thing to appear on the web…it’s certainly the cheesiest. With a global audience of more than 1.5 million in less than a year, folks from around the world have been logging on to CHEDDARVISION, a website in huge numbers to watch a 44lb handmade cheddar cheese slowly mature. Over the last nine month addicted viewers have watched “Wedginald” and now the big wheel has been shipped off to his new owner at Mud House Winery in Marlborough, New Zealand. To get a slice of his progress you must now go to www.whereswedginald.tv. According to the Cheddarvision website, “Cheddarvision will return in the New Year.” I think this has gone whey too far.

A debate erupted over Panettone. Are the best crammed with candied fruit, Peruvian style (and closest to…ugh…fruitcake) or the complex cupola-shaped loaves with a wee bit of dried fruit? What is Panettone you ask? The quintessential Italian Christmas cake created by a poor baker named Tonio, who could not afford a dowry for his daughter. Tonio created a special cake, pan de tonio, that was such a hit, he made a fortune and thus a good match for his daughter. My favorite cake is Sorini Panettone which comes from Williams-Sonoma. The tin is spectacular and in this version of panettone, the dried fruit is replaced by glazed chestnuts; it’s those chestnuts, they’re addictive. This cake is insanely good. Sorini is expensive stuff, but worth every bite. No matter which style of panettone you favor, the cake is terrific toasted and served with tea or coffee, turned into French toast or baked into bread pudding and, well, it’s at least a bit more traditional for Christmas than say…liver.