New Year's Eve

No skiing since Christmas! I feel like everyone in this town is on the mountain, except for me. My New Year's resolution last night was to eliminate guilt from my vocabulary. I've been working too much this week to go, and the stores have been crowded so shopping is taking longer than usual. I don't feel guilty for once, and my knee really needed the rest. Maybe the resolution is working.

(The real reason for not skiing is that it's been too cold, and I hate to wait in lift lines. I have no idea if there have been lift lines or not but that's my story.)

New Year's Eve day involved cooking for a new client in their condo in town. It was a last minute job, the clients were lovely, and the food was yummy. The menu was:

• Smoked salmon/boursin pinwheels


• Braised pork tenderloin wrapped in bacon with thyme and apple-mint chutney


• Roast salmon w/ a sweet herb vinaigrette


• Roast root vegetables(parnsips, butternut squash, potatoes, yams, fennel and garlic)


• Steamed broccoli w/ garlic and mushrooms


• Green salad w/ pear white balsamic/maple vinaigrette

After I finished cooking, I stocked up on champagne and wine in case I exercised one of my options for New Year's, which were either hiking up Buttermilk for a bonfire, or going to Social for dinner, or going to Jen's.

I would love to say that I had an Aspen-style fabulous New Year's Eve replete with house parties, fur, limos and hot tubs; but the truth is that I was still recuperating from my adventures on Saturday night(Takah, Club Chelsea, Norway) and had neither the energy nor the desire to do another pub crawl so soon after the last one. (FYI, for visitors under the age of 30 coming to Aspen for the first time, Chelsea is definitely the place to go for the best music to dance to.)

Instead, I went to Jen's with some cheese and crackers and a bottle of Moet. We had mimosas and watched Ratatouille, then the fireworks.