bonne annee!

May the New Year be sparkling!  I spent Christmas and New Year with family - and days were centered around the glory of food. Slow roasted harissa lamb, baked ham with orange glaze and cloves, spiced festive red cabbage, smoked salmon blinis with wasabi caviar, pigs in blankets, pink macaroons, marmalade martini's and hibiscus champagne cocktails la de da!  It is the last family Christmas in England as my parents are returning to New Zealand and for the forseeable future their children will remain wandering.  So it was sort of bittersweet in the way that things happening for the last time are. But I think we have everything. We have each other, we are a strong family, we love and we eat. What more could one ask for in life? So here's to making the most of every little moment in life with the people we love.  And I like what an old lebanese cab driver said to me a few months ago in Paris when I asked the secret of life and happiness 'if you can't make yourself happy make other people happy!'.