Ringing in the New Year Right

Every year a dear friend of the Stoned Soup Club throws a super-fun New Year's party at his apartment. Last year I got my act together to make lots of homemade macaroni and cheese...it was a prequel of what was coming in 2009 in a way. I actually have a sort of weird superstition that what you do with yourself in the first few hours of a new year sets the tone of how things are going to go. So feeding all our friends in their hour of drunken need seemed like a good way to start things off, and 2009 saw plenty more of that happen, as it were.

This year the Stoned Soup Club had grand ambitions for New Year's Eve, rumors circulated about combining 2 of our tried-and-true recipes for mac'n'cheese with veggie chili. But then life intervened and our forces were divided, some of us spent the holiday partying it up in New York City, and some of us spent most of Dec. 31st 2009 in bed (told you that statistic about apron wearing wasn't bullshit) and therefore as the party drew nearer Plan B was enacted.

Plan B:

Several ready-to-bake packages of biscuits.

Yes, at the Stoned Soup Club we are big believers in all things Homemade, Local, Delicious, and Taking The Time To Do Things Right. But at the end of the day (or year) the heart of the mission is feeding people we love and having a great time doing it, so there's really nothing better at 2 a.m. in the early glimmer of the new year than hot biscuits just out of the oven, and if they came from a cardboard tube that makes a satisfying popping sound when it explodes open, so be it.

It's an easy thing to bring to a party, and everyone will be glad you did. It's as simple as that.

Incidentally, reflecting back on 2009 and the abject failure that was my attempt at a garden (the only thing I grew successfully was kale) I decided that my energies would be better spent gathering and harvesting than cultivating, and my resolution is to take advantage of all the great farmers' markets and pick-your-own places around here as much as is possible. Looking ahead, 2010 seems like a pretty promising year.

--mac