Eating — and cooking — with friends.

Asparagus tart, tomatoes stuffed with pesto,
red pepper + red lentil paté with crackers.

Clickwise from left: Spanish torilla with chorizo, baguette, Mrs. Eng's ketchup shrimp, smashed mint + green peas for topping baguette, New York cheddar with granny smith apples, cave aged gruyére with qunice paste, more granny smith apples, Coach Farms goat cheese, Caschel Blue cheese, Jasper Hill Farms Constant Bliss cheese.

Tomato and fontina galette, latkes with creme frache and two type of roe.

Double chocolate cookies with fleur de sel, icebox sugar cookies rolled in gold sanding sugar and (hidden) mint chocolate shortbread.

Cooking together for our annual Christmas party with our neighbors, Kate and Doug, was the best part of Christmas — other than the gift giving part, and the having people over part. And I think that Kenny would agree. There were limited melt-down moments of me turning into a grouchy ogre because we ran out of time before the guest arrived. In fact, both Kenny and I were showered AND dressed before even the neighbors — who live in our house — arrived. This was a first. And it was more than being relieved that we did not melt down and snap each others heads off this Christmas. It was more about the fact that it was just fun to cook together with another couple. There was such a sense of "this is what the holidays are all about..." as we all stood around eating blueberry coffee cake and hollowing out cherry tomatoes together in our kitchen, and as we fried about 2 million latkes together over Kate's stove.

I hope that everyone had a happy holiday.