We went out to the B Too Belgian restaurant for dinner. It was the same place where we’d spent New Year’s Eve last year, but this time there were no top hats provided by the waitstaff and the people in the restaurant were quieter and talked about real estate. I ordered a salmon in a puff pastry, and a gingerbread dessert with sweet potato pie.

I spent the afternoon preparing food for a New Year’s dinner the next day, peeling and deveining shrimp to put in a Vietnamese soup with pineapple and lemongrass. I rolled out a pie crust without knowing how to do it, and finally gave up and patched together puzzle fragments of dough on the bottom of a pie pan. A seasoned baker will notice the difference, but I won’t. All I want is the soft apple filling mixed with lemon and seasoned with cloves.

(Photo: Silver Spring, Maryland.)

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