A New Year

First and foremost, a Happy and Healthy New Year to everyone!

It has been about a month since I updated anything here. The first two weeks of that were out-of-control workloads and insanity in my day job, leading up to my vacation. After that was a (mostly) blissful two weeks at home over the holidays, doing little other than spending time with my family, and EATING.

Under normal circumstances I am a guy who leads a healthy lifestyle. I get up early every morning and hit the gym, eat more or less healthy stuff, cook a lot so I know I am eating non-processed foods, etc. However, the last few weeks of every year I let myself go nuts and eat a whole lot of crap. In addition, I cook a bunch of meals for Christmas, New Years, etc. that have become a bit of a tradition in my family, which are, shall we say, a bit on the heavy side. At this point, I am feeling awfully bloated, so I was happy to brave the ice today to hit the gym.

For those who want a bit more information on what I have been cooking, here you go:

Christmas Day(I am Jewish, but what the hey ;-) )
Roasted duck with port wine & rosemary reduction
Lyonnaise potatoes, cooked in the duck fat
Sticky Toffee Pudding
Wine: a bottle of 1994 Raymond Reserve Cabernet

New Years Eve
Roasted Rack of lamb with red wine sauce
Smashed red skin potatoes with butter, cheese, and chives
Honey glazed carrots
Chocolate Mousse
Wine: a bottle of 1999 Chateau de Beaucastel. Oh, man was this fantastic....

And so on; last night I made a 9 pound ham for two adults and three young kids. Why? No idea, really.

As for coffee, I have had some good, some bad. Honestly, I haven't had the energy to really intellectualize over it lately. I roast, I enjoy, and that is that for the most part. I do get the sense, however, that I am missing something. I am not sure whether it is equipment, roasting profiles, or something else, but I feel like I am on the verge of learning something important, but I don't know what it is. Hopefully 2009 will provide some insight.

Lastly, this blog. What now? Does anyone really give a hoot about coffee roasting profiles? Likely not. These pages do serve as my roasting log, however, and I use them as such. I also have been drinking a huge amount of teas, which I could in principle talk about. There are so many good tea blogs out there already that I am not sure my voice adds anything to the mix. We shall see.