Thanks, Elliott, nice New Year wish. And may the best talking heads lineup of 2011 be the worst in 2012.

Happy New Year, pups. Today we’ve got The Pasty Little Putz, Dowd, Bruni and Kristof. The Pasty Little Putz, in “Pariahs and Prophets,” says an unusual political trajectory has taken Ron Paul from the fringe to the caucuses. Well, that and the entire Republican party going bug-fuck insane… In “She Made Me Run!” MoDo explains egos in disguise: “humble” men and the women who “shove” them. Remember Flip Wilson? “The devil made me wear this dress.” Mr. Bruni, in “Iowa’s Harvest,” says extreme positions on the campaign trail in Iowa do damage to the Republican Party. Gee, Frank, ya think? Mr. Kristof, in “Angelina, George, Ben and Mia,” says as our elected “leaders” exasperate us with narcissism and paralysis, some Hollywood figures are actually showing a moral compass on humanitarian issues.

Here they are.

The coffee, tea and hot chocolate are ready, and I’ve got French toast made with challah this morning. I can’t come up with a better New Year’s wish than Elliott did, so that’s what I wish for you all. Oh, and that maybe in 2012 Congress will try to make better bad decisions. I doubt that really good decisions can come out of Congress, so just better bad ones may be all we can hope for. Have a great day.

Thanks, Marion. Do damage to which party? I don’t think the former republicans are anywhere to be found anymore.

Good morning all & happy new year.

Spanish toast; amor, salud, pesetas.

Hoping for a good year.

Back atcha.

I have no language skills, so I’ll have to stick to bloggerese.

Auld Lang Syne?

Close enough.

Speaking of bloggerese, I have 100 pages to go in Eisler’s novel Inside Out. So far there have been characters named Marcy Wheeler, Juan Cole, Dan Froomkin, Taibbi.

Gonna go see if I can finish reading the book before I cook my goose.

Be well.

I looked at Amazon and the description also includes a character named Scott Horton.

Is the book good?

Yeah, I finally figured that out last night. He’s called Hort in the book.

It’s a fun read.

Morning, after you brought up pork and sauerkraut, I heard from some other folks it was one of their family traditions too. So I looked up other new year traditions, and found some good, some quirky stuff.

(posted on it; http://my.firedoglake.com/ruthcalvo/2012/01/01/food-sunday-new-year-food-tradition/ )

Here’s the book description from Amazon:

Marooned in a Manila jail after a bar fight fatality, black ops soldier Ben Treven is offered a deal by his former commander, Colonel Scott Horton.

Nice diary, Ruth! I had my spareribs and kraut last night for NYE dinner, since I’m invited to an open house this afternoon where there will be lots of food. I have enough left over for another meal.

I’m not sure why I don’t make it at other times, because it’s simple and good, but I don’t think of it. Probably because it is so fixed in my mind with New Year’s day. However, if we ever had any discussion around the table about the reason for the particular meal, I don’t recall it.

Thanks. I found some reason for pork being New Year’s fare, but the kraut with it seems to be a matter of taste. I made Hoppin’ John for today, with the hope this will give the peas more will to succeed. :-)

Elliott, if you are looking, there’s a post in my RSS feed on the MN GOP, and a nav link to it at the top and bottom of this post, but “Comments are closed on this post.”

I’m not sure if it was published prematurely or something else is amiss. I used to see that occasionally, and the tech guys said it was a bug. But then I could always get the comments by clicking on the post title, and this time they’re off no matter what I do, so I figured perhaps it wasn’t supposed to be up yet.

EDIT: the post is listed in MyFDL and comments appear there. So just a glitch moving it to the front page, I think.

I’m glad blackeye peas (Hoppin’ John) came up yesterday, because I think I will make myself some like my friend used to make for us (peas, rice and salmon) one of these days soon. I’m always looking for something to add a bit of variety to my meals. Living alone, cooking can get in a rut sometimes.

I also make a lot of soup. We ought to have a soup thread…

I commented on the MN post by clicking on it in diaries.

Yep, I also cook for myself, am pushing myself to pick up interesting new things.

…post glitch…

I’ve lived alone since my divorce 20+ years ago, and I went through the TV-dinners and take-out phases pretty quickly. I decided if I wanted to eat the foods I enjoy I was going to just have to cut down the recipe to manageable size or freeze some, or both. There are some things I still don’t get to eat very often, but I have lots of good meals and lots of variety! And of course there’s always the individual-sized meals like chicken, beef and fish with starch and veggie or salad.

For me, it’s about twenty too, but at first my daughter was with me so I had that to keep me making things interesting. And my freezer is quite small!

I bought a 5 cu. ft. freezer three years ago, and I have it in the garage. It was offered at my local grocery for $99 with the purchase of $100 of food. Couldn’t pass up that deal (and it was amazing how LITTLE the $100 pile of food was in my grocery cart). At the time my fridge freezer was quite small, but I’ve since gotten a new fridge with the freezer on the bottom and it’s much bigger. I try not to get too far ahead with frozen food so I can use it up in a reasonable time.

Good New Years Morn, Ladies
I was a slug all day yesterday and never even went out last night. I just warmed up leftovers from the day before, which we ate while watching Midnight In Paris. I used to be a Woody Allen fan, but kind of stopped watching his stuff a while ago. I enjoyed this new film, tho. Owen Wilson actually makes a pretty good Woodyesque character.

Hmmm…the nav links at the top and bottom to the MN post are gone now. Guess it was a glitch.

I think you and I are the only ones here, Ruth. And I’m going to go shower and dress and make some breakfast.

Hey Demi! Happy New Year!!

That would be too much for me to handle, I’d wind up with food a year old. Think I’ll stay with the space enforced limits, at least for now.

Hi Molly. Don’t let me stop your breakfast. Hope the weather is nice there so you can get out for a bit.

Sounds perfectly lovely for a Happy New Year. Now we are three!

Not too bad yet but a big snow is coming tonight. I took my outdoor decorations down (don’t have many) yesterday ahead of the snow.

I’m putting on a pot of coffee and will bbl.

Morning All…Very Happy New Year…..We’re off, I guess.

A good beginning to your year, too. But I now do need to get off, as it’s time to get a few things done. Thanks for the good company, everyone.

Hiya RevBev. Services this morning, I assume? How is Angela?

We have a few strings of white light going across the front of the house and around the kitchen windows. We usually leave them up all through January. But, my two across the street neighbors go pretty hog wild and the view from my kitchen windows is pretty nice. I sat at the kitchen table last night with a cup of tea in the darkened room and just enjoyed the twinkling view.

Enjoy yourself today, Ruth. Hope to see you later.
PS, did your little get together turn out well last night? You can tell me later.

Happy New Year, Bev.
I love the photo Ellie has up top. You can’t go wrong with kittens.

Oh, fine. I guess I’ll have to turn on the Rose Parade coverage. Ha!

I put a big fresh wreath over the garage door with a candy cane and big red bow, and then put a spotlight on it. I also have a holiday flag. There’s an artificial wreath by the front door, and lights in a fake evergreen garland going up my lamp post, with a bow. I wanted to get the spotlight and garland down before I had to tromp around in the snow to do it, and since it was mild I just went ahead and took the whole shebang down. I took my little tabletop tree down so I could put it out for the trash pickup…it was really dry.

I still have inside stuff to take down and put away. Maybe today…

Our traditional New years Soup is Korean Duk Gook. Simmer sliced beef or chicken for a while and add it to the soup.

http://koreanfood.about.com/od/soupsandstews/r/Dukgook.htm

Angela seems pretty well…still eating the new food that the vet gave us. I almost have to feed her….But she seems peaceful/no pain that I can tell…Pretty clingy, so not sure what that means…We just keep watching this very lovely kid. Thanks.

Terrible sleep last night…Yuk. A nap later, I guess.

That sounds pretty, nice and simple.
Dang, watching some local news, it’s going to be 83 today. Says 81 in Long Beach. I suppose a road trip to the beach would be nice today. Something different for a New Years Day.

Oooh that sounds good. I may have to add that to my soup repertoire.

Now there’s a NY I could go for!

Sleep when you can. Go ahead, take two naps.
I usually am a restless and light sleeper, but for some reason I’ve been getting 7 hours straight all week. Dunno why, but I’ll take it.
As long as Angela is not in pain, that’s a good thing. I’d like you to be pain free too.

Some day, YOU, Molly, will lead a Soup Thread. You will, I just know it.
Things to springle on top of soup: shredded cheese, chinese noodles, croutons. What else?

Oddly, I didn’t sleep well last night either, and for no particular reason. Maybe the wine I drank woke me up when the alcohol wore off and the sugar kicked in.

Noisy neighbors who work nights…;(( We had a beautiful day here yesterday, but going to get cooler…

That Woody Allen movie was picked for Top 10. I was surprised to realize/recall that I had seen it. And liked it….And loved The
Descendants….

I just adored the Hemingway character.
Who wants to fight? Hilarious.
It was a fun movie and was an easy tone for the evening.

Yeah, maybe in a couple of weeks when the holidays are over and winter has truly set in.

I’ve thought of it, but none of my soup recipes are original, they’re all from books or online. I’d give proper credit, of course, but somehow “I made this soup” seems odd when it’s not MY soup.

I do have a few yummy ones. I have a soup book from Cook’s Illustrated which goes into exhausting detail about how they tested and tried and arrived at “perfection.” And the soups are really good!

I just looked up The Descendants. I like George Clooney. Will look for that one. I rent my movies from a little mom and pop shop in the neighborhood. $1.99 and it’s 5 minutes away.
I like easy too.

Did we do something similar on the Christy thread? I think I got an Onion and a Lentil….Good topic.

Honey, you stand there and chop all that stuff up, You made it. Truly.
Three of your favorite and most successful recipes and you know everyone else will add their recipes and ideas.
Easy Peasy. I’ll be watching for it.

Easy is soo good. I love Clooney and he is really good here…also the kids are really good.

I wonder if Netflix has it yet? I’ve seen several folks here who said it is great.

And yes, we may have done a soup thread when Christy was here. She frequently posted about food (she still does on her current blog, where she puts up a post about once a day).

I still miss her threads. What a smart and gentle soul she is. She really started the whole Putting A Face on humanity idea so that we can empathize and sympathize. I’m pretty sure. And, the first PUAC was all about us getting to know each other.
(((Christy Hardin Smith)))

Hey, that’s why I only drink my hot lemon tree in the hours before I go to bed. We had a little champagne around 7:00 and never finished the bottle. Gawd, I’ve gotten soooooo boring. I remember the New Years Eve parties I used to have and I remember getting up in the morning and picking up all the half filled glasses all over the house and I remember making myself a big mimosa out of all of them. Thinking back, I’m not sure that was such a good idea, but, there you have it.

Go over to her blog and wish her a Happy New Year!

I usually have a couple of glasses of wine late in the evening, after everything is done and I relax in my favorite easy chair. No more last night than usual, but I was awake off and on in the night.

Now I truly have to get off this machine and get busy. I gave my grandson his 18th birthday gift (money toward a new guitar) at Christmas, but neglected to get a card in the mail on Saturday and now he won’t get it by his birthday tomorrow. And now it’s raining and blowing — precursor to the storm coming later.

Have a good day demi and everyone.

who watches these shows any more? It is always the same tired old crew

OUch….Hope you can stay warm and dry….

If you haven’t been to Christy’s site, go check it out.
I had to reset my password there, but I did and left a comment.
When you lay down to take a nap, just imagine you’re at the beach with me, sundresses, sunglasses, at an outside table with our ginger beer.
:)

Im there…;) Thanks.

Happy New Year everybody!

And, the same to you, EE.
Thanks for all of your hard work over the last year and looking forward to an even more successful FDL in the coming one.
Want a sip of my mimosa? I ran out of oj, but found two small tangarines in the fruit bowl. And, guess what, it works.

Wondering: does Mitt hide his tax returns because his tax rate’s less than zero?

This is where the rubber would seem to now meet the road for those who call themselves “progressive.” Highly rec’d as an analytical tool as we all engage in the intellectual wrestle for our own souls. You can’t go wrong lettting Glenn Greenwald help keep your reasoning process honest and rational. http://www.salon.com/2011/12/31/progressives_and_the_ron_paul_fallacies/singleton

The above link is to Glenn Greenwald. Edit function seems to have a mind of its own this year lol.

{{{{{ELLIOTT}}}}}

Happy New Year !