New Year Greetings!

Happy New Year, One and All!

Are you well?  Was your December a good one?  Was a bit of magic mixed into your holidays?

I have to admit to being filled with an embarrassing amount of goofy energy for 2016.  Can I make all sorts of  crazy claims?  That this year will be lovely!?  That Mersydotes will get its groove back in the blogosphere!?  Let's roll with it, embrace the energy and see how it all goes- what do 'ya say?!

At the end of December, we spent two deeply special weeks with Mama and Papi Mersy here in NYC.  All four of us absolutely took the city by storm (all 8 of us, if you count the puppies!).  

There was cooking and baking and tree trimming.  Although there is a very slight chance that we actually stole our Christmas tree, we truly believe that it had been abandoned on the side of the street on Christmas Eve as one of the last trees that the itinerate tree sellers dumped behind the fruit sellers' stalls.  It is a gorgeous tree with strong branches and a luscious smell!  

For Christmas Eve, we made roasted chicken with ratatouille and cappers salad, on Christmas morning we made cranberry almond bread, and for Christmas dinner, I tried to make boeuf bourguignon, roasted potatoes, Brussels sprouts with blue cheese, and a creme caramel.  Everything was tasty, but the creme caramel didn't set in the oven, so we ventured out for dessert instead and had black and white cookies in a cafe down the street, watching the warm rain outside and the quietly lit neighborhood.  It was lovely and warm and oh so peaceful.

We explored all sorts of spots around the city.  We chased Eloise around Palm Bar at the Plaza and had coffee and black and white cookies downstairs.  It's the perfect cookie for the Mersy parents- half lemon and half chocolate, one side for each!  We wanted Mr. Mersy to be able to try them, so I found a gluten-free recipe for them, and they turned out nicely.  They're a bit lighter and fluffier than the wheat-based ones, but that's a good thing!  We enjoyed our GF black and whites with tea in the evenings, in the glow of the Christmas tree.

We ventured out to Sleepy Hollow and Tarrytown on a grey, overcast day to pay our respects to Washington Irving and to marvel at the breadth of the Hudson and the quaintness of the hamlets.  We also just so happened to find our very own relatives buried peacefully in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, connections to the 16 & 1700s that called Westchester County home.  It was rather startling to realize that although I feel like a fish out of water out here on the East Coast, a good quarter of my family called this home until just recent times.  Gives me lots to think about, and lots to research.

New York City has never felt so homey and welcoming and beautiful as it did when Mama and Papi Mersy were here.  It hurt terribly to have to let them drive back to Illinois, but their visit left behind an energized and calming breath of air.

It was, without a doubt, the best December!

Love to all,

~Mersydotes