Pre-New Years, Pre-Birthday Before / After

Shamefullylessly ripping off my friend Lola's wonderful before after feature, you've seen the after:



Here's the before:


If you're adept at maths, you will have noticed that there are only 6 bottles of champagne in the before and 10 corks in the after. As it turns out guests were most generous. A friend of mine, Kris, noted that it's a feature of aging: when you're young(er) and have a party, you buy decent alcohol, and at the end of the night your good stuff is gone and you're left with stuff that wouldn't drink even if you were desperate. Fast forward, ahem, 10 years, and after a party you're in surplus, and it's stuff you would gladly drink.

This also gives me a chance, at long last, to respond to PH's tag what's in your refrigerator. What's in my refrigerator: 4 bottles of Lassalle champagne (a fine, single-estate champagne -- highly recommended as a house champagne), two bottles of Ruinart blanc de blancs (one of my two favorite champagnes -- a bit of a splurge here in the US, but if you're in London and can pretend to be French, Nicolas will give you a big discount), 5 bottles of Poland Spring water, 2 bottles of cranberry juice, 5 pots of Fage Greek 0% yogurt (love this word, "pot" -- very British, not used here in the US, where instead you would call it a container, tub, or more technically "thing"), some sort of Austrian cake I bought at Bouchon Bakery (great place in a terrible location if you're in NYC -- it's the bakery attached to Per Se, the impossible-to-get-into 4-star restaurant -- but the bakery is open to all, but sadly located in The Mall, The Time Warner Center), 250g of Lescure AOC butter, lime juice, Arm and Hammer Baking Soda, and some cubes of The Laughing Cow (Light) cheese.

Hope you're all having a wonderful 2009!

xoxo

BB