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Pavlova with cream, blackberries, raspberries and a raspberry coulis.

When we rented a car in Iceland, everything was in Icelandic, so the first evening (after driving to the hotel) was spent downloading the manual...

Ok, last one of the year. Wife made funnel cake for the youngest kid after we left Busch Garden quickly last week and skipped the funnel cake stand. This is without any remotely relevant experience. Motherhood is a mysterious and powerful thing.

I woke up earlier that expected, mainly because I was hungry, I think. Luckily the congee was ready so I chopped some century egg and fried some lean pork mince, added it to the congee and let it warm up. Did the job. Now going back to sleep!

Thanks for that recipe, @Maison Rustique. Looks Delish. How did you eat it? With spoons? Or crackers? Or cheese?

New Year’s Eve dinner. Splurged and bought two pounds of Dungeness Crab. Made garlic bread from a leftover loaf of my sourdough, and popped a bottle of Mumm’s. Leftovers will be a grilled crab sandwich.

Decided that tonight we were going to keep it simple. So I decided I would bake bagels, mostly cocktail size and Moe and I would have smoked salmon and cream cheese, with the typical garnishes for New Year's Eve. Most were topped with poppy seeds, because that is what I prefer and Moe and Matt are good with whatever I top them. But I also did some bigger size with dried onions, poppy seeds and sesame seeds per a request from Matt. I've been making this bagel recipe since 1981. Today's bake was a sourdough version. They freeze well.

Last rental I had - I pushed a button and everything was suddenly in Japanese - including the instructions for trying to get it back to english!

The nut recipe was a real hit today with my sister and BIL. I definitely have to make it again. And after it sat a while, it didn't seem so salty.

I have to preface this by saying that the Goûter panettone is SPECTACULAR! It’s like eating a cloud. Even with the abundant chocolate inclusions in the three chocolates version, it’s still so light and airy. I’m also a huge fan of chocolate and orange so the citrus note is just divine. I rate it a whole constellation of stars. Maybe even a galaxy! Thank you all again for the helpful advice for my friends gathering. I decided to go with the minimalist approach of unadorned slices. I brought my good bread knife and a skillet but I found it challenging to cut this lovely cloud into even slices and couldn’t imagine toasting them on my friend’s stove, that I haven’t used before. When I presented my platter of somewhat uneven slices, my friends, who are unaccustomed to dining on clouds, deemed them to be too big, too much! O ye of little faith! Everything I cut was devoured and more was cut to take home. This morning, I decided to try the pan toasting method. I unboxed the leftovers and admired it: I made coffee, cut a slice, softened some butter and heated a pan but couldn’t do it and enjoyed that slice as is. I suspect I’ll eventually try to crisp up a cloud but not quite yet! My friends were all interested to hear how I’d heard about Goûter. One is from northern Ontario and 2 others have family in the Toronto area so I did my best to drum up business!

Early remorse vegetable dinner before the real diet begins following new year. Crysanthemum with sesame miso dressing and baby Chinese broccoli in oyster sauce. Happy New Years All. Looking forward to seeing what you cook in 2026

@AlaMoi, we're just old. As it so happens, my car is a Saab (2007). Whenever I have to take it to the garage, I get a rental. And I have to sit in the parking lot for 15 minutes to see if I ought to drive it out of the lot! 🤣

We opened the Apple Pie panettone last night. Just divine! For four people, I used about half the panettone. I offered additional slices but all but one demurred. They did scrape up all the bits stuck on the paper though.

Shrimp with a fried spice paste of shallot, garlic, Fresno chiles, cumin, cloves, and cinnamon stick, seasoned with fish sauce and black soy sauce. Frying the paste brought out the flavors nicely. Mustard greens stir-fried with garlic, Fresno chiles, oyster sauce, and fish sauce. Cucumbers to go with.

buttons and buttons and buttons . . . . did a vacation, rented a car. turned out to be one of the upper tier Japanese imports. buttons for everything. sang a tune when you got it, moved, got out . . . where's the button to turn on the headlights? nuts - where's the button for the windshield wipers? oh, and the washers . . . where's the stupid button to turn off this stupid auto-stop/start 'feature?' oh, and then there's the pressholdbutton to add 30 or 40 additional functions to the button . . . my 2014 car has lots of buttons - but the important features are knobs/mechanical switches/etc. for the rest, I've stuck felt sticky pads on the buttons I really need to operate when driving - at least I can find them without pulling off the road and ducking under the dash . . . attempting to turn on the reading light for the passenger side, I managed to call "Emergency Service" multiple times - and once you press that button, it cannot be 'unpressed' DW was looking at new cars - all the "big screen" with icons - and menus and sub-menus and sub-sub-menus . . . not much different than an iPhone - anything you want to do starts with an internet search on "How do I . . ." - the most simple stuff buried menus-menu-menus deep. . . . .and every time they come out with a absolute must have security upgrade, , , , they change all the stuff. like Windows - same seats, Microsoft simply rearranged the deck chairs on the Titanic so it's "new" we need a new definition of "fun stuff" - the icon crowd just ain't gittin' it.

Do u find first pizzas are like the first pancake.. your later pies looked better?

That’s absurd to me. I have to show my dining history to dine somewhere? That’s a hard pass.

That first recipe with salami, dates and pecans sounds like a strange one to me...but then I put chocolate, almonds, olives and fruit in my Picadllo which tends to 'freak' folks out. And I remember the first time I fed the young man working on the farm...one of son Ken's buddies... a grilled cheese sandwich and he asked where the maple syrup was.

Shrimp, poblanos and onions over cheesy and creamy polenta.

I cut into the triple chocolate panettone from Gouter today for brunch. I decided to try @ElsieD's trick of buttering, toasting in pan, and flipping over to toast on that side too. I buttered both sides. I over-toasted, alas. I like the crispness from the pan-toasting, but would have preferred it not to be quite so dark...and, in truth, I put on too much butter. I wouldn't have thought that possible, but there you are. Overall it's good, but an unnecessary augmentation of the original for my tastes. @blue_dolphin, what did you end up doing for your party?

I couldn't find a topic about this so am starting one. I just made a small batch of this to see how it is. I had issues. First I burned the salami (not a problem for me). Then the salami didn't give off much fat so I had to add a splash of evoo. Then I used a salt I hadn't used before and over salted it. I'm fine with it and the recipe is tasty. I just need to pay attention next time. Yesterday I made my black eyed peas, but for the first time since RG began, I did not have their beans to use. I had to make do with supermarket beans! We did not have ham over the holidays so I had to buy a little bit and was not happy with that. Couldn't get the mustard greens I wanted, so have collards and turnips greens. I decided on a whim to use Penzey's Ozark blend in it. Fingers crossed it turns out OK.

No lunch on New Year's Day. I was raised mostly in Scotland where New Year is the most important celebration of the year. We stay up all night, then sleep until afternoon for breakfast. Then a bit later straight to dinner.

Ten minutes to midnight in China. In addition to preparing breakfast (Breakfast 2026) I’m preparing New Year Dinner dinner now; it takes time. And I don’t want to be doing this tomorrow. First I have to half 50 grams of dried Sichuan peppers and shake out the seeds. The chillies are very light when dried so 50 g is a lot. Then I will debone some chicken legs and chop the meat into cubes. Then I will celebrate with a comfortable bottle of bubbly! Or two! 新年快乐！ Welcome to 2026 and congratulations on making it through!

It’s very nearly midnight here in China and so almost 2026! I’m ensconced in the kitchen, preparing breakfast for sometime later. I’m making 皮蛋I瘦肉粥 (pí dàn shòu ròu zhōu), Century Egg and Lean Pork Congee, which I like to cook for around eight hours in my slow cooker, so I have to start now, before the celebrations begin. I'll post the result tomorrow when I wake up, though that will be late. 新年快乐！ Welcome to 2026 and congratulations on making it through 2025!

Holidays panic! Family is with us everyday for 10 days. We decided to replace many appliances so nothing will go wrong while they are here. There is one thing that I didn't think of, besides recipes for lunches and dinners . All these new "smart" devices, appliances have remote controls and numerous buttons. They are mostly have tiny inconspicuous labels that you need a magnifying glass to read. Total new buttons to memorize Dehydrater – 6 buttons DVD – 43 buttons Microwave – 22 buttons Toaster – 14 buttons. Smart TV – 20 buttons LED projector – 10 buttons Backup sous vide cooker -5 buttons Espresso coffee machine -6 buttons Total 126 buttons ---------------------------------- Help ! How do I disable the door safety child lock so I can take the food out? Help ! which button to get to the channel for the football game? dcarch