Forgive my lengthy absence from the blog desk. As those of you who also read Mike’s blog know, I’ve been up to my eyeballs for the last month finishing a couple of major business projects and wearing my SB Choral Society President and soprano-in-the-chorus hats getting our Verdi Requiem behind us (which, as he’s already blogged about, was a smashing critical success, thank you very much) and as such all work on my blog got pushed to the back burner. Mea culpa!

Then before you could turn around and catch a breath, we were off on this trip to China.

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This past New Year’s Eve, we had (as we often do) a number of friends over for dinner to ring in the new year. I had intended to post the menu, photos, and some recipes long before now, but life has been a bit hectic in our neck of the woods, with multiple projects with looming deadlines on my desk, so I apologize for my sporadic attention to this blog.

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We were recently invited to join our friends, Mike and Debbie, to celebrate their anniversary with a weekend of wine tasting and golf in Napa. The acme of the trip–the clincher that made me instantly agree to join them the second Deb’s email hit my inbox–was dinner at Thomas Keller’s French Laundry, about which veteran readers of my darling husband’s blog have already heard an earful…or two.

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Day after tomorrow, July 4, we Americans–most of us at least–will gather together in backyards and parks, on beaches and boardwalks, in small groups and giant crowds to celebrate our nation’s birthday with fireworks and music and, most of all, food.

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A favorite of Napoleon. Dubbed King of all cheeses by French epicure, Brillat-Savarin. So pungent that rumor has it even the French have banned it from being eaten aboard public transport. The star of our New Year’s Eve 2007 dinner’s cheese course. What is it? Epoisses, a delectable cheese that according to legend has been produced in Burgundy since the 16th Century.

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For the main course for our New Year’s Eve dinner this year, after much debate, Mike and I settled on roasted Cornish hens. When planning a do-it-yourself multi-course meal, a main consideration in choosing the entree is timing; it needs to be something that can either be prepared in advance and doesn’t suffer from reheating or something that can pretty much cook unattended during the earlier courses of the meal and be ready to serve on time with minimal fuss. Cornish hens fill the bill, since they cook, even stuffed, in a bit over an hour and don’t require more than a flip and a baste periodically during that time.

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As has become our custom, we gathered a small band of friends together to ring in the new year in culinary style. This year, we were at our place in Santa Barbara, where the weather was surprisingly chilly and the fireplaces were appreciated for more than just ‘mood lighting’.

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Mike and I flew into Santa Barbara late Tuesday night (after multiple SNAFUs going and coming on a trip to Dallas to visit with the grandangels). We’re here this week, because it’s concert week for me; the Santa Barbara Choral Society, with which I proudly sing, will be performing Brahms’ German Requiem this weekend with the Santa Barbara Symphony at the Arlington Theater.

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We had a dinner party last night at Casa Eades for a group of Mike’s golfing buddies and their wives/girlfriends. I knew some of the group, had casually met others, and didn’t know a couple of them before last night’s gathering, which can make for a bit of a challenge when devising a menu in this day and age of nutrition Nazis and food freaks who can’t eat this, don’t eat that.

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