Feliz Año Nuevo

Isn’t the countdown to midnight great? I always forget how much I enjoy the symbolic end to the old year and the beginning of the new until it arrives. I have to confess though that my New Year celebration isn’t really the most glamorous thing to write about. Every year (since the late 90’s) I happily spend it with family and the celebration usually entails eating, drinking (mostly tequila shots with lime throughout the evening and champagne at midnight), listening to music (with sporadic bouts of dancing and singing), sometimes playing games and generally just enjoying each others company. The majority of us are Mexican-American so the evening becomes a mixture of traditions. For instance, the game of choice is usually ‘La Lotería’, it’s a bit like bingo but instead of numbers and letters it’s played by matching people and objects. Things like ‘El Gorrito’ (the bonnet), ‘La Bota’ (the boot), ‘El Melón’ (the melon) and ‘La Sirena’ (the mermaid)…



But the food isn’t always very Mexican…



These two pretty dishes were made for the party by my culinary artist of a sister, Anna. The top are mushrooms stuffed with clams, panko bread crumbs, yellow and green bell peppers, chopped mushroom stems, red pepper flakes, olive oil and parmesan reggiano. The bottom are profiteroles with ricotta mascarpone, the recipe she used can be found *here* (so yummy).



Also, these are the earrings I made myself for the big day (red is my favorite color), it was my first attempt at oxidizing my silver and making my own hoops. I was really happy with the way they turned out!



And lastly, to celebrate the beginning of the New Year with music, I’d like to share the new video for the song ‘Ausencia de Cocina’ by Enjambre, the founding members (and the tremendously talented and handsome lead singer) are cousins of mine:



Hope your New Year is filled with many beautiful things and thank you to all the wonderful blog friends I’ve made this last year… especially the incredible Francesca (of CertainCreatures) whose fantastic giveaway started off my New Year with a lovely surprise! Thank you again Francesca, really can’t wait!