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Perfectly poached eggs topped with parsley aioli and salmon caviar along with smoked trout on a garlic crostini with grilled plantains and mushrooms and a small salad are a New Years Day brunch anyone would love. 

Don't start the love till after you have had your "good luck" bowl of black eyed peas and collard greens - it just wouldn't be proper. Two quick tips: 1) black eyed peas cook fast 2) collard greens are best when simmered for a good long while to soften up and mellow out.

Recipes. I am often asked about recipes and on that same note I am often told how I should write a cookbook. This whole cookbook idea is nothing new to me here on the blog as I have mentioned it often. As much as I want to write a cookbook I simply don't feel strongly enough that there is a market for one more cookbook. This year I will give it the most thought I have ever given it and we shall see.

Innovations. Innovative cooking is all the rage. The curious thing about the word innovative is how loosely it can be construed. If you have never poached an egg before then you are being innovative. I am going to make it my mission to try to bring innovation to each and every one of you and do it in a way that is functional and feasible. Anything can be innovative and teaching is also a way of learning.

Lets grow together in the coming year. I have written this blog for a very long time now, 10 years to be exact. I have had waves of readers from the many to the few to the very many down to the very few. I have learned a thing or two along the way and I want to pick up a few more things to round it out. I am looking forward to your feedback and your help in 2015.

Lets have a Toast to Toast - Bruschetta is summer

What do you do when you want to kick up your summer platters? Make some fancy toast. Brushcetta is exactly the answer.

With summer bounty in full swing we have access to some beautiful produce and what better way to use it then on a piece of simple toast. Here I have some fresh mozzarella, still warm and soft, with some heirloom cherry tomatoes, roma tomatoes and grape tomatoes right off the vine tossed with a little herbed salt that I mix up and a splash of olive oil layered on a crispy and toasted on only one side slice of a bastone loaf that was rubbed with fresh garlic then drizzled with a little extra virgin olive oil then its flecked with a little chiffonade of green and purple basil and finished with some slivers of radish and some nasturtium petals and if you want drizzle a little extra virgin olive oil on it before serving.