No Holds Barred For New Year's

About author / Amy Powell

World traveler; gourmet 30 minute meals; lover of exotic ingredients; winner on FoodTV's Chefs vs City; graduate French Culinary Institute. Her recipes will tantalize your taste buds.

Face it, whatever your plans are for New Years Eve, the food plan should come down to one thing: eat whatever you want because tomorrow the diet starts. For some people this plan might involve sharing a pizza and taking swigs from a flask while crammed shoulder to shoulder in Times Square waiting for the ball to drop. Other people might have shelled out for a multi-course meal with midnight champagne toast at a favorite restaurant. Others still might be crammed into a friends’ apartment for passed chips and dip, vodka punch, and an all night dance party in the living room.

Whatever you do, New Year’s Eve should in theory be the ringing out of a good year past and an ushering in of a great year to come, no holds barred. How you choose to express those sentiments is a matter of taste but options vary enough that there should be a celebratory style for everyone, even those who will eat an early dinner and catch the ball dropping on the New Year’s Day morning news. If you’ve made it through the holidays with family, survived the highs and lows of expectations when opening presents, battled the mobs in the airport on the highways, you owe it to yourself to indulge on this last party day of the season.

Even when I was a kid and New Year’s Eve involved the coming together of a couple of families for food, Hide N Go Seek in the dark, and a Martinelli’s sparkling cider toast, we knew how to make it a special night. Our family friends had a history of experimenting with exotic foods that stretched the boundaries of our normal party fare bringing over potluck plates that could range from mango chutneys to green coconut curries. It was in that spirit that I began using New Year’s as an excuse to try labor intensive recipes from new cookbooks received at Christmas or whipping up some rich dessert that I would never dare touch any other time of year.

As a grownup my taste in New Year parties has varied from hosting my own shindig to braving the chaos of Disneyland. Hosting New Year’s is perhaps the best way to avoid wandering around in uncomfortable shoes in the cold looking for a cab. It is also a great way to avoid leaving your food choices in the hands of people whose cooking you might not necessarily trust for your last indulgent meal of the year.

When hosting my own New Year’s Eve party I assume most people have come after dinner and will be arriving at my house primed for drinks and nibbles to nosh on until the countdown. It’s New Year’s so the nibbles are usually luxe versions of your standard appetizer fare. Think popcorn doused in truffle oil or tossed with truffle salt and butter. Instead of plain crudite, blanched asparagus will get wrapped in prosciutto and in lieu of a lowfat dip, perhaps a luxurious queso or decadent cheese fondue.

Even Disneyland has its food lessons to impart. Judging by what I saw as popular items, at a New Year’s party with kids I might just fill up sourdough bread bowls with rich clam chowder or a meaty chili from the pot. If I am feeling brave, I might do homemade donuts churro style--rolled in sugar and cinnamon--and serve them with cups of hot chocolate. But the thing I am sure to take from Disneyland is the corndog; nothing is more satisfying and indulgent than a piping hot beef hot dog wrapped in golden cornmeal breading and deep fried. It is the sort of food that that you can remember fondly during the months of dieting to come.

The holidays have already been pretty good to me but I think I’m up for one more big hurrah to send out 2010. Friends, drinks, fire, and some sinfully delicious treats are all things to think of fondly as we enter the New Year. Tomorrow, the diet. But today, churros, chocolate, and maybe even a corndog to send off the decade in style.

Serves/Makes: 16

• 1 cup cornmeal, coarse ground
• 1 cup flour
• 1 1/2 tablespoon baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 cup milk
• 1 tablespoon butter, melted
• 4 Kosher all natural hot dogs