This has been a good holiday for eating. Every New Year's Day, Michelle makes beignets (made famous at Cafe Du Monde in New Orleans). These are deep fried doughnuts covered with powdered sugar. Dr. Atkins would definitely not approve. Michelle's are even better than the ones at Cafe Du Monde and more plentiful (quantity has a quality all its own.)

Since we had a pot of hot oil, I decided I needed to fry stuff. I was too lazy to make a batter, so I made strip chips from Alton Brown's cookbook I'm Just Here for the Food. These are home made potato chips made with a vegetable peeler so there's even less to clean up. I made one big batch with kosher salt and freshly ground pepper and one big batch seasoned with Tony Chachere's Original Creole Seasoning mix -- a tastes-good-on-everything blend with a kick. Both were damn fine. I have to agree with Alton Brown's note that no matter how many you make, the pile of chips is really just one serving.

Alton Brown is the host of Good Eats on the Food Network, my favorite cooking show. Great food science and hacky gear make for an enjoyable show.

I also made "sun" dried tomatoes from a huge box of tomatoes we got for Christmas -- sliced tomatoes with a little sugar, olive oil, salt, pepper, and fresh rosemary then baked all night on a very low oven. Wow. I made an incredible omelette (twice actually) with these tomatoes diced with some salami (really!) Insanely great.

Time to cook some more. Mmmmmm...