You too!

2017 happened here 5 hours ago. I hope 2017 doesn't suck for me like 2016.

for a moment I thought you wanted 2016 to suck.

heh. sorry, typo.

Tommorrow do thy worst, for I have lived today. And the only easy day was yesterday

dodges flying fruit from the literary set

I did what Paulb said and it turned out ok cooking.stackexchange.com/a/76983/19673

happy Austin new year y'all!

New Year's breakfast - starting the morning with a traditional huge pretzel for good luck. And good luck to all of us!

@Stephie Looks yummy :)

@Arrowfar it is. Or rather "was". It's almost gone ;-)

Just a quick question Why is a large pretzel good luck?

Hello @Stephie

@dougal very old tradition of shaped baked goods, going back to pre-Christian times. Still specially shaped items are part of Eiropean culture. The pretzel (named for Latin "brachium", "arms") both was interpreted as the crossed arms of monks and with the three openings, the Holy Trinity. Today, they are just a traditional part of Christmas and New Year's culture here in Swabia, supposed to bring good luck for the new year.

oh, guess it hasn't reached here yet! Always great to learn new facts... thank you

@dougal I donno. Wouldn't you consider yourself lucky to have a huge pretzel?

@JourneymanGeek lol! That's how it felt when I was a kid!

;)

My Grandfather doled them out each Christmas, one for each grandchild. (And we were quite a bunch!). After "losing" mine in the general hustle and bustle one year, I developed the habit of biting into mine the moment I got it. Always right into the thick top part. It drove my mom mad, but solved the problem. I still do it...

OK, missing some part of my childhood here obviously, not my thing, but glad you are all so happy with yours!

I have children of my own and I actively encourage at least some old traditions. In a very globalized world, knowing about one's roots is important. At least, that's what my husband & I believe.

Later today, we'll walk over to my parents, where they'll say a traditional joking New Year's wish and recieve a sweet bun as traditional "reward".

most of our festival food are... deep fried

in coconut oil ;p

Who else know Indian cuisine?

For certain values of indian

@JourneymanGeek you know hederabadi biryani?

Nope

Where's hederabad?

In telangana

I'm ethnic tamil, and vegetarian, so what I'm familiar with reflects that. Vaguely

though, local singaporean cooking of the same sort is vaguely divergent

@JourneymanGeek so you are also Indian cool!

yup

I'm inordinately fond of coconut rice. And of course, that old sterotype... curd rice. ;p

@dougal, just saw your answer on main: you are British? But your profile says you are in Spain?

Gosh, yes, even us Brits move around!

There are a lot of us here, mainly for the sun...

And just to make sure the rest understand, I am British, not English... that would be an insult...

lol

@dougal geez, I wasn't implying anything ;-)

Our resident Brit (who happens to be English) taught us well!

I am not English, I am Scots... and we too have a lot to teach, if people care to listen... not mark down and gang up on certain people on main... which, sadly I see all too often...

@dougal We're all very happy to hear what you have to offer, just remember that this is a structured Q&A site, so people really expect clear, direct answers to questions. That means that things often get downvoted if they're not a good answer to the question at hand, even if they're useful information in another context. (And things get deleted if they don't answer it at all.) That's not ganging up, it's just maintaining the structure of the site.

Of course most answers don't get downvoted (let alone deleted), so even that isn't really that often, it's just what happens in the less common cases where people aren't quite on the right track.

If anything isn't making sense to you, I think pretty much any regular user would be happy to help explain here, and you can always ask on meta too.

(if that's not what you're talking about, and you've seen actual hostility, just flag things and we'll handle it, but people are usually good about flagging so I think we're okay right now)

@Stephie Stephie are you free? I need your advice about something.

@dougal I was simply refering to the stupid continental habit of calling everyone on the other side of the Channel "English", which he gently (or not so gently) corrects if necessary. Nothing else implied!

@Arrowfar funny, just jumped in. I'm listening!

@Stephie It is nothing food related heh, just a general topic that I thought I'd discuss with you if you have time. Well I pinged you because you have excellent people skills, like 10/10 and seem very level headed :)

Uh-oh - compliments in advance....

Ok, just ask!

Well I can't talk about it here, not in public. It is nothing serious, just a problem I was facing in the past, so I thought I'd ask for your opinions.

ok cool. Thanks.

One more celebrity death for 2016. On Saturday, William Christopher (Father Mulcahy on MASH) died. That may seem a bit obscure to some, but not to me. I still watch that show.