Happy New Year!

English Poet, Edith Lovejoy Pierce, once said, "[w]e will open the book.  Its pages are blank.  we are going to put words on them ourselves.  The book is called Opportunity and its first chapter is New Year's Day."  I really like that quote.  It expresses the thought that the upcoming year is a story that has to be written, and, we are the authors, with pens in hands, who will supply the setting, characters, plot, climax and, eventually, the epilogue for the year.  

As for Chef Bolek's "book," it will be a mixture of unfinished work and new experiences. For example, I have completed twenty of the eighty challenges that comprise my Around the World in Eighty Dishes (plus a special challenge).  I hope to complete at least twenty more this year, along with another special challenge.  I already have the next three challenges in the works.  In addition, I would also like to do one or two more Iron Chef Nights.  It is hard to believe that the last one was back in June 2011.  Finally, there are a lot of single dishes that I have been meaning or wanting to make for some time.  My hope is that, by the end of the year, I will have made many of them at least once. 

There will also be a lot of new work that will go into that figurative "book."  My beautiful Angel, Clare, and I are expecting our first baby in 2013.  My plan is to make our own baby food and to provide the recipes on this blog.  (Many thanks to my sister and brother-in-law for the baby food cookbooks to help me get started with that goal.)

I hope that you have enjoyed my posts over the past couple of years.  I am very grateful to you for your interest in what I post and for your feedback.  I hope that you will continue to follow me on my culinary journeys in 2013.  Until then ...

ENJOY!