Happy Holidays

Wow - a few holidays have come and gone since my last posting.

Recap:

Thanksgiving turned out FANTASTIC!!!! My sister came up and we made everything on my menu (except for the salad...Brooke forgot that). It was my first time frying a turkey by myself and I was a little nervous, but it turned out DELICIOUS. I will make another post with pictures of that.

Over exams, we had the unfortunate incident that a local church burnt down on the day of my last exam. It was awful, but thankfully no one was physically hurt. Our exam was moved because of the smoke and safety precautions. This picture was taken at about 430-5am on my way to Huddle House for a fuel up breakfast and last chance review. f

 So I decided that because I had eaten out for about 2 straight weeks and I was on the brink of freaking out FOR REAL, that I would make my own personal Wing Fest 2011 - Exam Style. From top left to bottom right I made: 1) Spicy Fried Chicken Wings (voted best by all those in attendance) 2) Thai Wings (breaded and baked) 3) Italian Wings (breaded and baked) 4) Jack Daniels Spicy BBQ Sauce wings (baked) and 5) Sriacha Ranch Wings (baked). My favorites were the spicy fried wings (first time I have EVER fried chicken for real...on the stove because I feel like it is proper) and the Sriacha Ranch wings.

This is a picture of my dog Carmen before we drove home for the holidays. Aww. 

This is a picture of the beach where my family lives and of course, Carmen on the beach! It is her favorite place. 

My mom decided it was important to have two Christmas trees this year. She bought some new lights that were actually snowflakes, but they are super bright and sort of look like menorahs. I love it how ever y'all take it. 

As part of my Christmas present, my mom took me to a local cooking class at an Italian restaurant called Michael Anthony's. It was some of the most fun I have had in a while and the food we made (pork 3 different ways) was amazing. An extra highlight was that Michael Cirafesi signed his cookbook to me personally and recognized me as "The Unlawful Cook" - :) I plan to re-make the dishes we made in the class when I go back to school. 

This is my friend Patrick. He lives in NYC and found these bacon candy canes and we decided to try them after lunch the other day. As you can tell by his face, they were horrendous and we threw them out immediately. F minus. 

Today is Christmas and I am extremely lucky to spend it with my family. Unfortunately, only one of my gifts for my family arrived on time. I did start my shopping a little late and that's my fault, but it is still a bummer all the same. Christmas will be lasting a little longer around here, which is not so unfortunate.

I hope you all have a wonderful holiday season and a very happy and safe 2012!!! Hopefully I will graduate from law school in May and then pass the TEXAS bar at the end of July. I will keep cooking as long as I can pay my student loans :) (hahah jokes, but not really, that's a real life concern).