It’s been a good year but I’m ready for 2016!

I still tend to think in terms of school years rather than calendar years, so I don’t usually set new year’s resolutions (though in 2015 I did lose a few pounds and make a major career move, woo-hoo!).  However, for the past 5 years I have made it my mission to read at least 25 books a year.  I’m pretty proud of the 35 I read this year so I included the list at the bottom of this post.

I’m heading to a NYE party tonight and then I’m up early for work on the 1st, so without further adieu, here’s the final wrap-up of the year…

breakfast

A final eggnog iced coffee while I set up my planner for 2016!!

Otherwise this was the coffee combo for the week –

With wonderful fruit options, a cocktail grapefruit.

And a piñata apple.

Plus tea at work.

Caramel was yummy, and it smelled delicious.

lunch

I had Monday off – the end of a fabulous four-day weekend – so I got to have a yogurt bowl at home.

Plain Fage with maple syrup, blackberries, chia seeds, and praline pecan granola.

Oatmeal from home, at work.

With vanilla almond butter.

Cafeteria salad bar.

I made myself a Greek salad with romaine with balsamic, marinated cucumber salad, tzatziki , tabbouleh , and falafel.

dinner

Monday was our 8-year wedding anniversary (we got married on our 5th dating anniversary so it was also our 13th year as a couple)!!  I consider myself the luckiest person alive that I get to spend my life with Adam.  We celebrated with food, of course.  We headed into the city early and got our favorite coffee {Brooklyn Roasting Company},

and our favorite ice cream {Morganstern’s}.

We split a scoop of American egg with sweetened condensed milk and chocolate sprinkles.

Then we enjoyed our favorite dinner of the year (maybe my favorite dinner of our marriage!) at Bowery Meat Company.  It was a truly epic meal of several courses whose highlights included roasted cauliflower, foie gras, Spanish wine, and an entire casserole of duck lasagna.  We held hands, and giggled, and were generally disgusting, and I didn’t take a single picture*.  *Other than instagramming the duck lasagna, because how could I not?

The nights at home, appetizers included delicious leftover buffalo chicken pizza and carrots with hummus.

I’ve determined that pretty much no matter what I eat for lunch I am frantic with hunger by the time I get home from work so I usually eat something before I try to make dinner.

Tuesday’s dinner didn’t require much time or effort though, because we brought home leftover duck lasagna.  swoon.

I consider myself a fairly good cook and it is safe to say that I’ve never made a dish that tasted as good as these microwaved leftovers!

With salads on the side.

Spinach / lavender salt, lavender honey, evoo / sweet and spicy pecans / golden raisins.

And Wednesday I designed a quick dinner around this (former freebie) Bertolli Asiago Cheese and Artichoke sauce.

We tossed the sauce with sautéed mushrooms, artichokes, shredded chicken, and orecchiette pasta.  It obviously couldn’t compete with the duck but was still good.

2015’s reading list

They’re listed in chronological order.  F = fiction, NH = nonfiction, and M = memoir.  I bolded the year’s top ten favorites.

1. Bones Never Lie – Kathy Reichs (f)
2. I Forget to Remember, A Memoir of Amnesia – Su Meck (m)
3. The Day I Ate Whatever I Wanted, And Other Small Acts of Liberation – Elizabeth Berg (f)
4. The Next Queen of Heaven – Gregory Maguire (f)
5. Fairyland, a Memoir of my Father – Alysia Abbott (m)
6. Yes, Please – Amy Poehler  (m)
7. Stiff, The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers – Mary Roach (nf)
8. Born Round, A Story of Family, Food and a Ferocious Appetite – Fran Bruni (m)
9. Flesh and Blood – Patricia Cornwell (f)
10. With or Without You – Domenica Ruta (m)
11. The Story Sisters – Alice Hoffman (f)
12. Tender at the Bone – Ruth Reichl (m)
13. Comfort Me with Apples – Ruth Reichl (m)
14. Garlic and Saphires – Ruth Reichl (m)
15. Crash and Burn – Lisa Gardner (f)
16. Delancey – Molly Wizenberg (m)
17. Someone is Watching – Joy Fielding (f)
18. If Only You People Could Follow Directions – Jessica Henry Nelson (m)
19. Working Stiff – Two Years, 262 Bodies, and the Making of a Medical Examiner – Judy Melinek M.D. (m)
20. The Removers – Andrew Meredith (m)
21. Let the Tornado Come – Rita Zoey Chin (m)
22. Bossypants – Tina Fey (m)
23. Unorthodox, The Scandalous Rejection of my Hasidic Roots – Deborah Feldman (m)
24. The Elegance of the Hedgehog – Muriel Barbery (f)
25. Delicious – Ruth Feichl (f)
26. Head Cases, Stories of Brain Injury and Its Aftermath – Michael Paul Mason (nf/m)
27. Cut Me Loose: Sin and Salvation After My Ultra-Orthodox Girlhood – Leah Vincent (m)
28. Speaking in Bones – Kathy Reichs (f)
29. My Planet: Finding Humor in the Oddest Places – Mary Roach (m)
30. Cooked, A Natural History of Transformation – Michael Pollan (nf)
31. Burn Down the Ground – Kambri Crews (m)
32. Thinking in Pictures, My Life with Autism – Temple Grandin (m/nf)
33. To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee (f) {reread}
34. Go Set a Watchman – Harper Lee (f)
35. Gulp, Adventures on the Alimentary Canal – Mary Roach (nf)

Do you set new year’s resolutions?