---

Our Cuisine Capers gathering on New Years Eve served a number of purposes…

1. We had a newly remodeled kitchen to break in - mission accomplished
2. We had to watch the Packers maul the Bears on national TV - mission accomplished
3. We had to see Brett Favre play his last game - we hope that mission wasn’t accomplished, but it sure looked like it might have been judging from the sobbing breakdown he had in his post game interview
4. And last but not least, we had to see in the New Year - mission NOT accomplished. We’re all getting too old to stay up that late.

Prep for this event started the day before, with Vic and Irene gathering at Victor’s house to start making food in Vic’s newly remodeled kitchen. A new Wolf cooktop, dual convection/microwave oven and convection ovens, a shiny new refrigerator, a huge, granite island and lots of other things were newly installed and completed right before Christmas…

Shrimp as prepped, cucumbers were peeled and sliced for serving with hummus, tenderloin was roasted for sandwiches, and cheesecake was made. Beer, of course, was also drank.

(The ironic thing which must be noted here is that we never made the shrimp because there was already too much food, and we completely forgot about the cucumbers. We did, however, drink the beer)

The next day we gathered to celebrate New Years Eve. We had WAY too much food. Thankfully that is mostly Vic’s problem, as the event took place at Vic’s house.

We had antipasto, olives, spiced mozzerella balls, parmesan twists, hummus, black bean hummus, olive tapenade, chicken satay, sliced tenderloin, lots of chips, a really good carmalized onion dip, and much more.

We also made some homemade pizza - a margherita, a pesto, and a pepperoni.

We had found a really interesting looking wine - a Sparkling Syrah. We picked it up on a whim and brought it to the festivities. It was really good and we will buy it again.

The Packers mauled the Bears, as was hoped. It was a good game, and we refrained from singing “The Bears Still Suck Polka” (too loudly, anyway), due to the delicate (pregnant) condition of the sole Bear fan in the crowd.

And today - leftovers and the Wisconsin Badger Bowl game.

Happy New Year to all.

Popularity: 14% [?]

…but I doubt it!

Our new Viking Stovetop is incredible! It’s a 48″, 6 burner gas range with a grill. We went back and forth before we settled on this when we were designing our new house. Was 48″ too big? Did we really need 6 burners? Was adding the grill (and the upgraded ventilation system needed to handle the grill) really worth it?

Yes, it was. When I can grill a flank steak with squash, fennel and onions in the middle of winter, from the comfort of my warm kitchen, I know we made the right decision!

Popularity: 5% [?]

As I’ve mentioned a time or two, the reason I’ve been so lax about updating Cuisine Capers is because we are right at the end of building our new house. We got to start moving in on Saturday, after going through a building process that started with the ground breaking way back last April.

One of the reasons we are so excited about the new house is the kitchen. When we started working with our architect, we knew we were going to go nuts the kitchen - and we did. Now, after seeing how it all came together, we are ecstatic. The kitchen turned out better than we ever imagined it could. Take a look at the pictures below!

(And the picture to the left is of our new Shiba Inu puppy - 12 week old Toshiro Shiba!)

---

Popularity: 6% [?]