I spent my New Year’s getting the hell out of NY for a change and mellowing out with a bunch of friends at a ski house up in NH. No $150 cover charges, no crowds, no traipsing around in the freezing cold and no taking the train home after some lame party. Instead, I just kicked back, played a bit of poker, had a few drinks and a bunch of laughs and basically just relaxed for several days. Good stuff.

The last night of the trip, I went to the local supermarket looking for something to cook for dinner for everyone. What I ended up making was a hodgepodge improvisational cross between something from Daisy Martinez and Jamie Oliver. I originally wanted to do a couple of stuffed chickens, but the rinky dink little market didn’t even have whole chickens. “We’ll have em on Wednesday” said the butcher proudly. Then I went looking for my other old standby, pork shoulder. I would have worked with pork butt if they had it, but I was really hoping for a picnic shoulder so that I could try making Pernil, which is the Puerto Rican dish I saw on an episode of Daisy Martinez’ show. Unfortunately, they had neither. Desperate to buy any kind of protein that could feed ten people I grabbed two pork roasts which appeared to be center cut loin with tenderloin kind of tied together. Too lean for my taste but beggars can’t be choosers in a small town market I guess. I decided to go ahead and try making these roasts with the same wet adobo I would have used for the Pernil. Recalling Daisy’s recipe, I think it was just garlic, peppercorns, oregano, white wine vinegar and olive oil. Easy enough, but this market didn’t even have white wine vinegar so I substituted balsamic which I figured was ok since a lean pork roast like this could use the extra sweetness. Then came the Jamie Oliver bit. In his series “Jamie at Home” which will begin airing in the U.S. soon (I downloaded a bunch of episodes via BitTorrent), he had one episode where he roasted some potatoes and onions with thyme, olive oil, and a startling amount of balsamic. Since I had the ingredients but not the oven space to roast them separately, I just laid them down as a bed for the pork to cook on with the added advantage that they’d mingle with the pork juices and help create my gravy. The end result? Not bad, although the pork was too lean and so the pieces we didn’t eat within 15 minutes of carving tended to dry out a bit. I had considered brining the roasts but I figured that was a bit much for NH ski house cooking. I also did some simple carrots glazed with thyme, honey and butter but they turned out a little under glazed because I had never made such a huge batch of them before, but they still tasted reasonably ok. But the best part was later that night when I took all the leftovers and turned them into soup with chicken broth, orzo and cayenne. It was delicious. And I love it when I can make something that uses up all the leftovers. Very gratifying.

What wasn’t so gratifying was the trip home on New Year’s Day in the middle of a friggin blizzard. It took me 5 hours just to get to get through the first 90 miles. Yeesh. Stopped for dinner at my friend’s restaurant, Grand China in Salem, and then did the rest of the trip non-stop. One very positive thing though- I am now very much a supporter of Sirius satellite radio. If not for listening to the Blue Collar Comedy channel the whole way, I think I would have gone insane. It kept me awake and entertained for the entire trek. I now consider Sirius to be both therapeutic and a safety feature!

Anyway, Happy New Year everybody!