Reflections On the Year Gone By

The year has been a good one, especially in the area of travel, friends and family celebrations, and food.  Here we are pictured at Restaurante

Victor Gutiérrez in Salamanca, Spain.  The self-description of the food here is that there are three pillars that are absolutely essential, in equal parts, to the food they prepare.  The first is having quality products, so focusing on what can be obtained locally and  what has flavor, going back to the old French idea of terroir, the flavor of the earth.  The second is their technique.  Here is where we as home cooks falter a bit, and the professionals can take the food to a level that we cannot easily attain as amateurs.  The third pillar though is something that we can all bring to our cooking and that is feeling, a passion for the food that we are making and eating.  That is something that my spouse and I did very well with this past year, if not in our own kitchen always, then at the hands of others.  Sharing that with people who are speacial to us just makes it all the more memorable.