Happy new year, everyone! Had Jason, Mary, Howard over last night for a bit of revelry and steak frite, for I am a cooking fool, am I. Even now, as I write, I am smelling the wonderful smells of baking pound cake. It's looking puffy just like it should! I owe it all to Mary's gift of Cook's Illustrated Monthly, a very superior cooking magazine, with, as the name may imply to you, nice illustrations of what a "dutch oven" is...in the cooking sense. Gotta check my cake. It looks good!

Last night's pomme frite were also successful. Howard called them "the best french fries he has ever had." They and the pan fried steak filled the house with smoke, though, and covered everything with a microscopic film of grease. Including me.

Does anybody remember the commercials for bread that was split on the top and they poured butter into the crevasse? What the hell was up with that? And I totally believed it. Strange to think there was a time when I believed somebody at the bread factory hand split these baking loaves and poured golden butter lovingly into every delicious deliverable. I though that bread must have been the most delicious ever, I guess because of the wonderful added fat content. But I never tried it.