Here’s a Toast to 2002, Saluting Family and Country

Jan. 1 is a mere handful of days away. I haven’t really thought about it yet. My celebrations of the New Year tend to be low-key affairs, at home, with close friends. When the millennium came around, I couldn’t get into the frenzy over what to do, where to go. Also, I didn’t have anyone offering to whisk me off to Egypt to ring in the new millennium from the Nile, to name one of the more extravagant plans I heard.

I ended up laying in some very good champagne, breaking out the blini pans I carried back from Paris years ago, and laboriously slicing smoked wild salmon I’d bought from Ireland over the net. (Why, oh why, did I order it unsliced?)

This year I have no idea, yet, exactly how I’m going to ring in what will surely be an extraordinary New Year. Who of us knows what 2002 will bring? After Sept. 11, all bets are off. I do know it’s important to spend the last evening of 2001 with those closest to me, toasting the resilience of New York and America with the traditional champagne. We’ll listen to music. We’ll cook a meal together. Something earthy and basic and soul-satisfying. Somebody will bring oysters, and I’ll rummage around for the oyster knives, wishing my kitchen drawers were better organized. As always, we’ll struggle to open the pesky mollusks until we find a rhythm to the work.

Then we might gorge on blinis dripping with butter. I might make ravioli with pumpkin and roast a goose. One dish will surely be a big pot of lentils--for luck and prosperity. All of us could use a generous pinch of both in the coming months.

Here’s wishing every one of you a very happy New Year filled with wonderful meals shared with friends and family.

To 2002!