2020 is finally over. The year was a shit show to say the least. It is hard thinking back over what happened and trying to find positive life events.

I could spend this post talking about a bunch of crappy things that happened over 2020 but that doesn't seem like a good way though to start 2021. Might as well try to remember some positive things that happened in 2020 and think about what I should be looking forward to in 2021.

So here is a list of a few random nice things that happened during the hell hole that was 2020

Moving to New York

Kana and I technically moved to New York end of 2019, but just barely. This city was new and exciting. The city (and country) didn't handle COVID-19 particularly well but I still enjoy this city more than Berlin. As a person who is terrible at cooking, being able to eat good food is important and New York has tons of incredible restaurants.

Doing more fine dining

During 2020 Kana and I went to five different Michelin starred restaurants. Inua in Japan, Aska, Atera, Mifune, and Tempura Matsui. The last four are all in NYC. And this is only the Michelin starred restaurants. We also went to many other great restaurants throughout the year.

Baking more

Kana seemed to get a lot more into baking this year and baked a lot. I recently made financier's which were delicious. Kana and I made this caramel cake which was also divine. Making caramel was definitely interesting. We made chocolate mousse. Lots of foccacia. And lots of olive oil cake also which is great.

Looking onwards to 2021

2021 should be much better than 2020. The vaccine would have to start killing people for this year to be worse than 2020.

The only main thing we have planned for 2021 is to eventually move back to Japan. Need to figure out the dates still but that is on the roadmap. Aside from that, not much else planned. I would like to visit LA since I have a friend moving there and Kana has a friend who has been living there for quite some time. I need to visit Seattle and see Yvette and Patrick's soon to be born baby. Need to eat at more fancy restaurants.

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Unrelated, but I recently asked Kana to translate the recipe for these brown butter financier's into Japanese so I can send them to my sister-in-law. Below is the translation of the steps in case anyone Japanese stumbles on this blog post.

材料

• 140g アモンド　パウダ
• 180g 砂糖
• 45g 小麦粉
• 4 卵白
• 0.5tsp バニラエッセンス
• 200g 無縁バター
• 塩少々

1. オーブン　を　１８０度　に　予熱します
2. ブラウンバターを作ります。https://thelabmagazineonline.com/page-8923/page-8966/。冷蔵庫に入れて冷まします
3. アモンドパウダー、砂糖、小麦粉、塩を混ぜます。
4. 卵白とバニラエッセンスを２に入れて、混ぜます
5. 冷めたブラウンバターを３に入れて、混ぜます。
6. 型にバターを薄く塗って、生地を入れます
7. 焼きます！
8. 食べます！！！