As my friend Fil put it yesterday, 2011 had such great heights. And all of the valleys that accompany the peaks. These were my favorite moments of the year, in chronological order:

The year started beautifully in Miami, on hammocks.

February brought a circle of friends to begin the New Year of the Rabbit with Chinese tea eggs, boiled soft, then steeped in tea to reveal, upon cracking, marbleized interiors.

Just after my March birthday, K and I flew from chilly New York to Barcelona,

the city of Gaudi architecture, and this strange and wonderful cathedral, eternally being built.

My year was to look like this roof on the Santa Caterina Market,

but I didn’t know that yet.

We were then to Cannes, with its crêpes and cider, and my first time with Margalet cheese from the Ceneri cheese shop,

and to the famed La Colombe D’Or.

In the late spring, I joined the designer coworking space Studiomates and dressed all in purple for our Rainbow Parade.Image by Erin Sparling.

May was also my first crawfish boil, part of a road trip that included an amazing family in Madison, Mississippi, who boiled 335 pounds of crawfish.

I was overwhelmed with the abundance of food and the hospitality. To eat a crawfish correctly, you pinch the head and then, well, they chalked instructions for those of us shyer in handling crustaceans.

The weekend helped me remember my steel magnolia roots as I headed back to Atlanta to visit my mother.

June was my sister Kassandra’s wedding,

and this image taken by my sister Kat sums up my role as co-Maid of Honor, chasing down rogue antebellum sunshades in front of a historic plantation. I wrote a Fast Company piece about our use of tech during the wedding week.

But then, all the bridesmaids took our role seriously.

Image by Courtney Rosen.

Late June, K and I traveled to Amsterdam and spent time with wonderful friends Matt and Maia, piloting their boat through afternoon thunderstorms to discover bitterballen,

seeking out herring in season (Hollandse Nieuwe) at special stands, and spending time in our friend Gary’s magnificent kitchen.

We took a day trip to Cologne, with its cathedral and love locks.

From there: London in early July, with so many friends we forgot to take pictures. I remembered to bring the camera for a weekend in a 13th Century country house my dear friend Will engaged for a long weekend.

Shockingly, we spent the time eating the region’s renowned clotted cream,

preparing elaborate meals we took to eating outside,

and touring walled gardens.

I told an Ignite NYC audience why quitting a Ph.D. is the best possible option for some:

In early August, friends from graduate school Andrew and Annie announced they would be married in a week, and I filled the gas tank to drive to Chapel Hill, North Carolina and record the celebration. You see how they do things their own way, with great success. The bride wore blue.

And continuing my drive back up the coast, my friend Keryn let me pretend I lived in Maine for a week or so, opening her house and barn, as she always does. There were ferries and sunflowers and islands to see before returning to New York to teach my graduate class at ITP.

The fall brought considerable moments of quiet, struggles for professional growth as my consulting expanded, and the launch of my food magazine, Saucy.

In November, my sister Kat and I arrived in a former convent in Oaxaca, timing our trip to catch the end of the Day of the Dead celebrations, marvel at the Placido Domingo, puzzle over hand-drawn maps while bartenders poured local mezcal. We relaxed into chilaquiles and chocolate oaxacaquena con leche, then Baja fish tacos in Puerto Escondito. I will not forget the street vendor who drew a Sunday night crowd, pressing squash blossoms into tortillas she rolled out and grilled with Oaxacan string cheese. We traveled to visit my friend David in Mexico City and the Templo Mayor, the center of the Aztec universe. And Kat shared a Portland recipe, filling morels from the mushroom vendor at a local market.

Returning refreshed to NY, I shared my story about delivering bread in the early mornings of last winter, opening the TEDxEast November salon.

K and I began December in the tropical rainforest of Saba, a small Caribbean island with the shortest airport runway in the world. It was a perfect, and perfectly beautiful vacation.

Here’s to a spectacular 2012!

A real vacation, we said, and this time last week, we were hiking through rainforest on a small Caribbean island.

The forest floor was mossy, that greenest of green,

strewn with leaves as big as both our hands, as if the trees were operating on another scale as they grew from the volcanic rock,

and small white flowers, fallen from mountain cabbage plants (that lean on the sides of trees) dotted the path.

We were quiet, using sticks to guard against mudslide areas, and a little talked out – as happens when you have whole days to dream aloud together.

Suddenly, up ahead a goat appeared, as if to guide us through,

leading us into the sun,

to a good vantage point on the island’s runway, the shortest in the world.

Back in the rainforest, we felt as though we might never emerge, the way true vacations transport you from the life you know.

Soon after, we would glimpse translucent fish, pearlescent coral, and a sea turtle in a protected marine park dive in blue, blue water, and eat local Wahoo and Red Snapper our guide had caught.

Just then, though, was all green,

and we found spider webs. You know how I feel about spider webs…

If you do visit tiny Saba, the Queen’s Gardens Resort is the place to stay. We were well looked after; the property managers’ competence is unparalleled. The entire island is an excellent example of ecotourism. Thanks to K for a beautiful week.

The road to Maine started in Atlanta, with my sister Kassandra and her husband Sean’s garden spilling over the fence, as the spinach grew thickly near the peppers and watermelons behind their new house.

I drove down to Atlanta after Annie and Andrew’s wedding, and then back up to New York the following day, pulling off the road for this eatery’s encouraging sign:

And then it was off to Maine, and to an island, passing the Coast Guard,

as well as bobbing boats in the harbor as I chatted with Keryn about ferries in the afternoon sun.

Keryn’s friends keep chickens, they couldn’t say exactly how many,

near beautiful male goats that perk up their ears in unison and wander toward you, bells swinging.

On Saturday afternoon, we gathered with their friends on an island beach,

and I learned how to pour coals into the rocks and set the grill cover over, and patiently wait.

As usual, it’s the guys hanging around the grill.

More friends joined us as the sun began to drop…

and there were crazy discoveries to be made in tidal pools (“Look, Mom!”)

and friendships renewed.

My friend Keryn sat serenely as the children ran about, with her usual calm that belies spontaneous dance moves that occur with some regularity while in her orbit.

I had a hard time leaving the beach, watching as we heaped the grill with seaweed, and looking back over my shoulder again at the sunset on the quiet beach.

At the farm Keryn’s friends caretake for, the sunflowers are at their height,

the garlic is drying,

and they sent us back with piles of springy rainbow chard, cucumbers, and tomatoes,

that made beautiful cucumber sandwiches and colorful couscous across the water, back on the Maine mainland, this dreamy area of the country I love to visit…

My friend Annie does not wear shocking pink nail polish often. Only, it seems, when she lets her mom pick the color for her wedding day.

A day picked a week or so before, when the groom casually called to say they would be in Chapel Hill, North Carolina the following weekend and had decided to be married. Like the bride’s elegant upswept hair, the couple’s circle swirled into town to celebrate these two we hold dear.

I’ve known the couple since they first started dating in college seven years ago, when they used their shared prowess in typography, content curation, and editorial direction to shepherd the most interesting campus publications to glory and legibility.

It was a perfect occasion for all of those skills, from the bold ‘A’ for both their first names on the wedding programs to the thoughtful compression of the service itself, officiated by the groom’s poised sister Caroline.

And while Andrew waited in the sitting room,

Annie’s mother attached the pearl clasp upstairs,

the best friend since grade school zipped up the dress,

and we followed the path of candles outside.

Andrew strode in with his parents under the soft, hanging lights;

Annie navigated the steps with her parents.

And throughout the service where the two read the vows they had written (Andrew’s full of energetic, scientific metaphor, Annie’s an honest and straightforward promise) and the family read literary pieces that did inspire (Andrew’s father also read a sonnet he had written long ago), all of us couldn’t stop smiling.

Caroline gracefully took us through the service, pronouncing Annie and Andrew married.

The couple kissed, and Andrew’s brother Xander played us into the living room (in the foreground, his parents look on).

I assembled family for pictures, as you do,

pulling all the guests in for the big, crazy shot.

We toasted to the couple,

and ate delicious things (the bride’s mother makes quite a sausage roll bread!) Pictured at left.

then we ate more delicious things at favorite local restaurant Crook’s Corner,

all of which led to toasts around the whole table, each of us standing to say how we knew the two would support each other, as they always have.

They bring out the silly in each other (more evidence from Andrew’s 2009 talent show birthday party),

and they love each other something fierce.

Congratulations, you two. Thanks for letting me photograph your day. It felt, like everything you do, magic to be part of.

If you’d like to support the couple, both work in education and care deeply about issues of literacy. Andrew is currently running the Read, Write, Rock project that you can learn more about on the RWR site.

Two of my favorite people live in Amsterdam, and a few weekends ago, Maia and Matt were draining the rainwater from their boat together.

The sun broke through the clouds like a champion on that Saturday morning, and we were off into the waterways as they traded driving duties.

I discovered how cars cease to exist from the purview of the canals,

and then the two introduced me to bitterballen, the traditional crunchy bar snack of Béchamel and diced meat crumbed and fried that arrive with mustard.

For dinner, we shelled purple hulls for the green peas to stir into scallion sauce on soba noodles under roasted chicken thighs marinated in soy sauce and watched the night lights luminate the canal bridge tunnels.

Kevin arrived a few days later, and we took the train to Cologne, stepping off the platform, through the station, and out into the sun, blinking at the beautiful cathedral.

The controversial stained glass inside by Gerhard Richter is startling in real life, as you stand and look up beside octogenarians who have pushed their glasses on top of their heads. You realize you are seeing the same thing they are.

After a proper night of pork plates and Kölsch served in the correct glassware, I went wandering through the rain the following morning, pausing at the women practicing aerial swordfighting on a wall (likely this is an exercise craze that will import to Brooklyn nicely),

and strolled the nearby bridge to read the sets of initials on love locks, fastened onto the gate by couples who then throw away the key together in the Rhine below.

Back in Amsterdam, we sought out herring (also broodje haring, which is the name for a herring sandwich and always on good brown bread), for the annual celebration of Hollandse Nieuwe. The Dutch favor picking it up by the tail and serve it with raw onions and pickles.

My favorite Dutch food is Boterkoek, a type of shortbread, and Kuyt Patisserie makes a perfect version. If you’ve ever made a cake-cookie, this is a shortbread cake-cookie with a chewy center and crispy edges. (I’m working on a recipe for the next Saucy mag issue.)

While front rooms from the 1700s look out over the canals, as Matt and Maia’s stunning apartment does (they were kind enough to let us stay as they traveled for work), rooms on the other side of buildings look out on private gardens,

and Kevin and I talked about the difference of views as we walked to local “brown cafes” that were appropriately “cozy” – the highest accolade in this city culture.

We were also upsold potatoes at restaurants with our friend Matt, and we marvelled at our friend Gary’s colorful rooms when we were invited over for a beautiful long dinner (and I’m cooking in his enormous kitchen next time we visit).

…

After a week or so in Amsterdam, we hopped a train to Brussels and took the chunnel to London, and I spent so much time riding around on the top of double-decker buses while exploring and then posing as an East Londoner (modeling my behavior after my good friend James, who lives in Stoke Newington and was a perfect host), that I rarely took pictures other than with my phone.

I will admit to a new and abiding fondness for eggs, sausage, chips, and beans at breakfast and that I continued to order black pudding everywhere we went. (More on my favorite food in London in the next Saucy.)

A few days into our London stay, I took a local train to the country to visit my friend Will, who had secured a manor house from the thirteenth century in Somerset for the weekend.

Will has a habit of gathering friends to country houses all over the world, so I wasn’t too surprised to be soon drinking Rosé and walking the grounds as Rachel helped him collect wood for the inspiring fireplaces.

After exploring the manor (I chose one of the secret rooms), we tucked into a lovely dinner planned and prepared by Sherrilynn and Matt in the substantial restored kitchen.

Two roosters battled for dominance outside my window in the morning while everyone slept in, and I crept out to the garden gate,

finding a machine in the garden,

before returning to the manor lawn to find Sherrilynn under a tree, as joyful as I always am to see the leaves filter morning light.

We all pitched in to make a “slap-up” breakfast (another new adjective!) of eggs with crème fraiche, beans, streakey bacon, leek sausage, and crumpet with clotted cream and strawberry jam to ease into the day.

After baths (more of those than showers in the manor), we split into expedition parties and set our sights on the Walled Gardens of nearby Cannington, where the nuns and monks are rumored to have met in underground tunnels in centuries past,

and the gardens now are curated by those who delight in strange succulent varieties.

Driving further into town, we were underwhelmed by Scrumpy at a nearby cidery, but we nonetheless took full advantage of their local dairy specialty, as you can tell from Will staring longingly at not the scone,

but the generous ramekin of clotted cream that the area is known for.

Back at the manor, we greeted the sheep,

and I followed Sherrilynn down the little path toward town (you can see Darrell on the returning end of his run),

to go past the pubs to the medieval church and its gargoyles,

finding the way back past the blackberry brambles and honeysuckle vines.

Rachel was smiling as Matt and Sherrilynn started dinner,

to the accompaniment of a delightful musical group that had produced an entire album of songs about cider.

Will worked his pie crust into the pan to bake it blind,

and I left the kitchen to join Will and Darrell in the garden,

setting up the table in the setting sun.

Sauteed mushrooms over chevre on bread with a port sauce paired very well with the company and the conversation (with Darrell sneaking raspberries into your wine at opportune intervals),

punctuated by corks flying into the air and laughter.

Later, the talented Sherrilynn and Matt would pull their banjos out and fill the old house with music and song, and I would relax deeper into a couch beside a fire that roared, feeling lucky indeed to have such good friends with such good friends that remain dear no matter where we live as the summers come and go…