Another year means another birthday cake! For this year's cake, I made Molly Yeh's sprinkle cake, which is meant to be a homemade version of the classic "funfetti" boxed cake. For the decoration, I continued with the sprinkle theme for a simple design. Overall, the cake came out well, but cake baking continues to be stressful for me in a way regular cooking has never been. I have resolved to make more cakes throughout the year to get some more practice in. Happy birthday Ariel, and may that be an ongoing gift to you.
For dinner, I made pan-roasted lamb chops with a quick pan sauce. We had roasted butternut squash and rice on the side. Although it was a delicious meal, we look forward being able to celebrate with others next year. In last year's birthday post, I mentioned my hope that it would be the first of many big dinners around our table. Of course, 2020 had other plans and that hasn't happened yet.
I'll take the rest of this post to look back at 2020 and take stock of what was surely one of the strangest years of my lifetime.
As I've written about before, the pandemic completely changed the way we shop and plan our meals. In the past, I usually went grocery shopping frequently and bought ingredients I like without necessarily knowing what exactly I would make with them. Shopping only every other week, we still meticulously plan out our meals and get what we need, with meals requiring only hardier ingredients waiting until the end of the two-week period. Of course, those plans don't always hold up perfectly, but as President Eisenhower once said, "plans are worthless, but planning is everything."
Although 2020 was a tough year for everyone, it certainly had its bright spots. Prior to this year, I had barely made any cocktails. Now, they are carving out a growing presence on the blog and my liquor cabinet is home to an increasingly diverse rum collection from all over the Caribbean. In general, I rediscovered my joy for food writing and this blog as a creative outlet. I put out a total of 77 posts in 2020, the most for any year going all the way back to the start of the blog. Summer was particularly productive, and while I have no illusions about getting back to that level any time soon, my goal is to continue writing a few posts each month.
With so many posts last year, it's hard to pick favorites, but I'll try to mention a few standouts. First of all, I've had a great time revisiting some of my older recipes and updating them through the "upgrades" series. Of those, the ragù alla bolognese was perhaps the most successful. I'm pleased to report it froze exceptionally well. Just a few days ago, we defrosted the last bag and even after 6 months it was equally delicious. Our garden was quite fruitful this year, lending itself to caprese salads, squash frittatas, and more.
On the Chinese front, I finally worked out a recipe for Chairman Mao's pork, a centerpiece of last year's birthday dinner one of our favorite dishes. I also took a few stabs a homestyle Cantonese dishes, like steamed egg and steamed pork cake. A new family favorite also emerged in "velveted" beef, the super tender marinated beef used in my beef with broccoli and beef chow fun recipes. I'm also pleased to have paid tribute to my Minnesotan heritage through the long-overdue klub recipe, as well as an updated, extra-gooey hotdish. Finally, I can't leave this retrospective without calling out the last recipe of the year, kolaches. They were a huge undertaking, but well worth the effort. We have since defrosted a few that we saved in the freezer. They were okay, but definitely best fresh.
What can we expect from 2021? No one really knows, but I think we can have hope that things will finally get better. Vaccines are on the way. Maybe we will finally be able to see No Time to Die. In terms of the blog, I'm still having fun, so let's keep cooking.
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