Happy New Year!

There is no limit to improvement. --Moshe Feldenkrais

At Maison Conti we celebrated réveillon (New Year's eve) with a full house of clients from Paris. We served a large meal, killed an amazing number of bottles and rang in the jour de l'an with champagne flutes held high and American-style noise-makers and poppers.

Menu: amuse bouche raita & cheddar bread sticks entrée choice of foie gras with spice bread & fig jam or coquilles saint jacques & prawns soup: vichyssoise dinner rolls de la maison main course: herb-encrusted roast leg of lamb melange of roasted winter vegetables baked apples choice of 4 cheeses with a salad of baby greens dessert: chocolate torte layered with rum-flavored cream

This is the point in the evening when both the camera and the camera-operator stopped functioning in picture-taking mode, so there is no more documentation of the meal! I found it lovely to have a house full of guests, especially such pleasant ones. The new year begins energetically! On Monday we have an etching course beginning in the atelier. I will be working with two fabulous artists from Singapore who will spend the week experimenting with aquatint. I expect I will learn as much from them as they will from me. I am familiar with their work and greatly admire them both. I'll report back after the course is complete next weekend. In the meantime, I wish for a wave of unreasoned hope and joy to wash over you and send you sailing into this new decade with promise and fearless delight.

Hope is the dream of a soul awake. --French proverb