Wherever you are in the world, I hope you had a fantastic New Year�s celebration!
Here in Warsaw, we rung in the new year at home with my longtime friend, Becca, and her husband, who are visiting us from the U.S. We�ve known each other for more than 12 years and have stayed in touch through all of our many moves in the U.S. and abroad. I feel blessed to have good friends like this! We also celebrated the festivities with our new Hungarian friends � one of the best parts of our expat life � meeting new friends.
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| Good friends - Becca and me at home in Warsaw. |
Our home was filled with good food, which included a full-sit down dinner with a creamy celery root soup with truffled croutons, herb-crusted beef tenderloin, au gratin potatoes, roasted Brussels sprouts and a berry topped New York Cheesecake (In Poland, you can substitute serek smietankowyfor the labne.) Luckily, I had three prep cooks in the kitchen with me to help with this amazing meal!
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| New York cheesecake topped with a mixed berry compote. I made the compote with some of my frozen cherries, strawberries and blueberries (leftover from the summer bounty), a bit of sugar and orange juice. |
Of course, hubby was our drink mixologist and whipped up a batch of these pomegranate margaritas, which we like to refer to as Nar-garitas. This drink is the perfect reminder of our love for Istanbul. In fact, these pomegranates had labels on them saying they were from Turkey! I seem to find a bit of Turkey now wherever we go.
A variety of drinks followed after our Nar-garitas, which may explain why some of us are feeling a bit rough this morning, as well as an evening filled with dancing to some of my favorite 80s tunes and dance music. What a fun evening!
Finally, Warsaw did not disappoint us and displayed a multitude of fireworks in the sky throughout the evening, concluding with a fabulous explosion at midnight. We had the perfect view from our balcony and could run inside when we got too cold.
I�m a little relieved to put 2013 behind us as it was a tough year. I moved from a city I loved and had to start all over again. Such is the life as an expat! I�m eagerly looking forward to a fun-filled 2014 and settling down in our new city.
Happy New Year my friends! May 2014 be filled with new adventures, good food and terrific travels!
As always, thanks for reading!
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| We had a fantastic view of the fireworks over Warsaw! |