Happy Holidays! Don't worry, we haven't moved out into the wildes (the wildes of Queens are plenty for us), nor did we acquire pets. We're only spiritually animal-like — with vegetable horns, to suit.
It seemed simplest to caption bunches of photos from the year. So you get pictures and words this year! By the way, we're both on Facebook, should you want to view our food and other photos, too.
The year started with our 25th wedding anniversary ... whaaaat??? Bif has been counting all these years, and assures me that we passed the Silver Anniversary mark. We celebrated at the opera, and the "opera degenerates" joined us for potables and snacks afterward. We're still fans of the opera, and it's one of the things we'd developed an affection toward as a couple, so it's a totally appropriate way to mark the occasion. Maki also accidentally got Bif an anniversary gift — a pupu platter! It was an accident because she got it for him even though she didn't know an anniversary was impending. Coincidences and fate sometimes align.
The front of the year treated us to snowstorms, which we feared because of the tornadoes and hurricanes in the past couple of years. But they didn't result in anything except snowball fights and some delayed trains (though we once spent the night in the very attractive Philadelphia train station, en route back from DC).
Mom had a fall in the spring while in Japan and didn't let it stop her from hosting people at the house in Fukui. She lives there with her sister's family in their parents farmhouse, and are doing regular renovations to it so it's more of a 4-season home. Maybe this was less important back in the days when 13 children and their families were visiting or in residence! But when she came back to NYC, she had treatments to the shoulder and she reports she's nearly back to "normal," whatever that means to her.
The year had too many visits to the hospital: Mom and her shoulder, Brian and his leg, and myriad friends with their own emergencies and surgeries, too. Maki's BIL, Lukass, seems to have had a successful operation on his spine — early days yet, but the outlook is great, just as it is for Mom and for Brian. Modern medicine is a wondrous thing, and equally important is the support and help of others. We have great family members and friends, thank goodness!
Spring and summer brought a lot of food with it, of course. We are still subscribing to our CSA and learning more about how to handle the feasts which come to us weekly. But we're also imbibers of street meat (carts on the streets of the city selling everything from chicken and rice to Belgian waffles), the Big Apple BBQ, our own efforts on the balcony at home, birthdays at restaurants, and ice cream with family at Eddie's ... yet, remarkably, we've both lost weight. Cooking at home and being as vegan as we can are the big differences for us. Of course, at events like the BBQ or parties in restaurants, one can run the risk of gaining about 10 lbs overnight!
We have friends with gardens — which is inspiring and we feel terribly lucky. We also having been thinking more about the ingredients we buy, and from whom. And doing fun hokey things like going to an apple cider pressing this past fall. To think, our ancestors looked forward to abandoning the drudgery of gardening and putting-up, and now we do it as a hobby! Lucky us, indeed!
Though it has been a rough year in some ways, it was a luxurious one, too. We managed to travel to San Francisco — because people we adore live there, and we do adore the city, too. Especially the cioppino and sourdough. We've even created a vegan version of cioppino, so we need never go without it, no matter the state of our diets!
Long ago, we'd made the decision to not vacation anywhere not known for its food. But we've realized that doesn't mean we don't see friends who live in non-food-obsessed places. We enjoy visiting and creating our own food events with them. For instance, the Chesapeake is known for its ingredients, if not its cuisine — and we've discovered a great donut place near the Richmond airport, too. Thankfully, we enjoy re-visiting many places and have no limitations other than the food thing. Perfect for the likes of us!
Of course, living in NYC makes us happy and grateful; most of our time is spent here, and our interests and work are focused here. It's a place where limitations ensure creativity and opportunity. And thus, we suffer a Happy New Year, and we hope you do, too!
 In case you were wondering, inspiration for this year's card came from the new production of Falstaff at the Metropolitan Opera, our "local." We have lots of reasons ... for one, the lead character does bear a certain physical and love-of-life resemblance to Bif, and the forest sprites poking and prodding him are collectively probably Maki ... | M & B Hoashi 104-40 Queens Blvd. Forest Hills, NY 11375 maki @ hoashi.com brian @ hoashi.com |