New Years Resolution

I have made a New Years resolution not to make any more New Years resolutions. If something needs improvement in my life, I want to get on it right away, not wait until New Years to burden myself (and, frankly, others who love me) with the crabby person I become when I'm trying to self-improve. Besides, who knows if I'll be here to improve myself next year? I'm not being morbid, just practical.

The truth is that likely I won't make any major changes this late in life anyway. And, if I admit it, I'm actually pretty happy with my life and my current state of health. I could eat less and lose a few but I'm up to three times per week of swimming for an hour (most weeks) and I walk with Cora a mile or two twice a day up and down the hills of our little town. I figure that's enough character-building for now. And I love to eat.

We eat well. We eat too much, but we eat fresh, well-prepared food for the most part, and we eat a wide variety of foods. We are both pretty healthy (knock wood) and I think that's testament to something, if only to our genes.

Our social life is pretty busy, too - we seem run a welcome B&B and our friends like to eat out so we let the pros cook for us from time to time. In this area, with its plethora of good restaurants, that translates to even better food than I make at home.

A case in point, New Year's Day lunch in Point Reyes Station with our pal Bonnie, one of the inmates - uh, students - 50 years ago when I was boarding at a school in Cannes, France called Cours Maintenon. She and I are both Navy juniors and we reconnected here in California after many years apart and have been good friends ever since. She lives out in West Marin in a quirky and wonderful house in Inverness, so we sometimes meet in PRS to catch up. This time, we met at Stellina, always a good start.

I was about to dig in to my seafood stew when My Beloved, who has lived with a food blogger for about five years now, noted that it was a beautiful plate that I might like to photograph. He was right - the blue-black of the mussels with the bright pink-orange of the shrimp made a pretty contrast with the gray of the clam shells and the sprinkle of fresh parsley. I snapped a quick picture before diving in to the rich flavors wafting up to fog the lens of my camera.

Stellina never disappoints. The stew was full of ocean flavors and piqued with little bits of a mildly spicy sausage. The broth was a little salty, as befits a seafood dish, and redolent of garlic and fennel. Lovely stuff. Make it your New Year's resolution to go there and get some. It beats the heck out of a gym membership.