This story begins with biscuits and blackberry jam, and then eggs and bacon and sausage and hash brown casserole,

all at the Loveless Cafe, which I cannot recommend unless you are with a friend so wonderful it almost doesn’t matter where you go on a food road trip.

In the drizzling rain, I drove from seeing old friends Michaela, Stewart, and Michael who live in Nashville to Jackson, Mississippi, where I picked my friend Laura up from the train station, and we drove off the mapped roads onto a gravel one,

that led us to dogs, and an annual family reunion that we secured an invite to, showing up just in time for fiery conch salad from the Bahamas (the most wonderful people from the Bahamas bring it to the event every year), and a little later, a pig that had been roasting for 48 hours.

For this occasion, many of the extended family sleep in little tent rows dotting the back yard of the five-acre propery,

lined with magnolias and near a grove of two hundred acres of uncut forest.

The next morning began my first Crawfish Boil, and a stunning sequence of food throughout the day started with biscuits and savory country ham that is colloquially spread with jam.

Out back, everyone was looking into three kiddie pools,

where 335 pounds of crawfish were doing the wave as they danced and were watered into the afternoon.

Our friend Yann’s dad Alan wielded the Cajun Crawfish Paddle with skill, letting the initial boil brew simmer and reduce,

as the guys shucked ears of corn ready for the enormous pots.

There was time for playful crawfish racing,

to admire Laura’s new battle scar from an old bike injury surgery,

and in a flush of excitement, everyone followed the first batch of crawfish onto the table earlier than usual,

where they were covered with newspaper and allowed to steam and rest briefly.

Yann’s brother Ky taught me the correct technique for eating them: loosen the tail, pull it off, push the meat up, dip it in Tony’s (saltier) or Old Bay (less salty) and then – “Don’t cheat,” he admonished – crush and suck the head juices.

It is incredible experience, as everyone is drawn to the table, eating their fill and laughing and wandering away, only to return for a later batch.

Pictures were taken on all kinds of cameras,

and bubbles filled the long driveway,

stories were told around the fire,

and our friend Yann was one of the last at the table, as the Captain of Team Peel (completely peeling the remainder of the crawfish to bag and use later as opposed to my team of tail poppers, also known as Team Progress).

Thanks, Yann, for letting me be an honorary member of your amazing extended family. And thanks to Laura for getting me into yet another adventure.

The music started as the crawfish were sealed into containers and continued into the night, with spoons and drums,

and an accomplished singer-songwriter serenading everyone crowded into the kitchen in a moment too perfect to record.

I realize it was my first, but damn, are Yann’s parents Sandi and Alan ever the lovely hosts, and my, but is a boil a perfect way to bring family together to stand beside each other at a table…

I know what you’re thinking.

["She misspelled the title of this post. Should I tell her?"]

I meant to put ‘gournet’ in the title–and not because this post concerns the fish of the family Triglidae (though there are fish. Shiny ones.)

A few weeks ago, my friend Dan and I galloped off to Chinatown to see his noodle dealer. I can’t show you the noodle dealer, of course, but perhaps you can ferret out the location with the background clues.

We bought five packets of beautiful, fresh noodles.

Then, a new vegetable enthusiast friend (who sets up shop on the street) gleefully packed mounds of long Chinese greens and baby bok choy for us in lucky red bags, throwing in extra handfuls for good measure–so many that the bags weighed us down as we made our way toward the fish.

I like shiny things. So unsurprisingly, the fish that caught my eye were pink and shimmery.

Scaled and gutted, the pink fish still sparkled in my kitchen a few hours later;

while Dan stirred his wonderful black bean sauce into the noodles, and we sautéed the greens, I whipped egg whites and salt to create a crust that baked around the fish.

By then, our guests had started to arrive: Dan’s sister, who lives in the neighborhood, and then my friends LJ, Sarah, Tricia, David (who lives in Mexico City), Mario, Revaz, and Dean.

Dan, who is a gluten-free chef, made sizzling parsnip cakes with Chinese sausage as everyone shed coats and boots, and we began to celebrate The Year of the Rabbit together.

Looking at our birth years on the Chinese calendar, we read the Engrish predictions for our year ahead as I portioned out pieces of the whole fish.

In years past, my favorite part of Chinese New Year parties has been making fortune cookies with my friend Mica, but this year I decided to finally make tea eggs.

Boiled hard, the eggshells are cracked and the eggs simmered with 5-spice powder and tea bags, then cure for up to a few days, chilled.

Just after the eggs were Dan’s lovely individual chocolate cakes (recipe), Tricia’s pistachio macarons from Michael Allen, and raucous revelry, but before that, the kitchen went silent for a few minutes, as we unpeeled the marbled eggs and considered the possibilities in the months ahead…

The way to Christmas this year routed through marzipan, with this beautiful apple cake and filling of lovely Charlottesville heirloom apples from local Albemarle Baking Company on the drive from Brooklyn to Atlanta.

And then there was dancing.

With my sisters Kat and Kass, I surprised one of my mom’s dance classes as we threw Kooshes in the air with them, skipped and circled.

After that, we turned to the serious prep for Kassandra and Sean’s engagement party at my parents’ house. Kat diced the eggs for egg salad focaccia sandwiches,

while I folded peppers into the pimento cheese, also for dainty Southern sandwiches that went quickly later that night.

Reid we roused from his reflective newspaper perusal,

pressing him into service dicing cauliflower for airy fritters with egg whites.

I boiled gorgeous local Georgia shrimp,

and we continued cooking our way down the evening’s menu,

as Kassandra and Sean returned to the house with sample cakes to evaluate,

and the rented glassware sparkled in waiting.

That night, close friends and family arrived, with Grampa approving Reid’s tie (these images by Kat, who is a splendid photographer),

Photo by Katrina Taylor.

and the engaged couple entertained questions,

Photo by Katrina Taylor.

and accepted congratulations from Aunt Pam and Uncle Stewart,

Photo by Katrina Taylor.

who then caught up with Mom and Dad while I tended bar, making our signature blood orange-cava cocktail.

Photo by Katrina Taylor.

The next day was full of shopping and sipping and scheming for the annual family video that happened later that night, in our usual dance-around-the-garage-at-midnight-Christmas-Eve-and-scare-the-neighbors way.

I have to say that Kat and Reid comported themselves with dignity in their costume choices (Kass was our esteemed choreographer, of course); watch for the parental feature and a signing cameo:

And Christmas was full of laughing, as Kevin and Grampa deciphered opening a tool set together (they’ll tell that story differently),

and we watched as the snow began to fall, making it the first white Christmas at their house that I can remember…

What? Your family doesn’t dance around the garage in costumes at midnight Christmas Eve?

Previously: The Rolyat Five (2008) and last year’s experimental piece with a great cameo from our grandfather.

Image courtesy Fred Truman.

This fall, I was fortunate to be able to have a class of smart graduate students at NYU’s ITP think through community interactions during our fourteen weeks together. (You can see our syllabus for “communitp” and go through our blog archive and Twitter account for more details.)

At the conclusion of class, I invited them over for dinner (to be precise, they asked, and I was delighted to cook for all of us).

Thinking about appropriate holiday food, I asked for dietary restrictions and allergies, so as to honor those, and was reminded that one of the students is vegan.

What often surprises me is how cooks feel they need to craft entirely separate menus for those with specific food preferences.

I found myself thinking about foods that are green and warming—and I formed a menu around inclusion, starting with the simple roasted tomatillo salsa (roast skinned, chopped tomatillos for 20 minutes at 425 degrees F) that I served with chips and traditional guacamole when they arrived.

I had roasted sliced fractal cauliflower (we discussed the science behind communities in class),

in between stirring crushed red pepper and minced garlic into chopped parsley for a chimichurri sauce.

Nothing builds happy communities at the table like garlic, I’ve found in intensive research.

And I roasted coins of purple carrots and halved brussels sprouts while the roasted green spelt (freekeh) bubbled and softened on top of the stove.

Everything was vegan (good oil is all you need to roast veg and stir into drained grains), except the seared pork shoulder that I had let burnish slowly for six hours during the day before pulling it apart and setting it aside.

When we could all be persuaded to pause just long enough to claim seats around the table, those of us who eat meat stirred little bits into the freekeh with roasted veg and chimichurri. In 2011, consider making meat optional and a condiment—you’ll find it liberating. For those of you worried about protein, whole grains like freekeh and quinoa are excellent choices.

We were too busy toasting and talking about the upcoming ITP Winter Show (which was great) for me to take pictures,

but we agreed it was a lovely way to finish the semester over dessert: my homemade brandied prune plums spooned over bourbon gelato, vanilla ice cream, and ginger sorbet.

Thank you again to the seven who made it to dinner, and to all fourteen of you who inspired me to think and work on community in new ways. I miss our class meetings already…