Planning......

Think I'm gonna do the butter-poached lobster from the French Laundry Cookbook for New Year's Eve.

Probably going to wuss out and just go for lobster tails... since I'm cheap and busy, I know I can get frozen lobster tails at the plain old grocery store and don't need to make the extra trip over to the fishmonger a couple towns over. Yeah, I suck that way. And I have not planned ahead enough to order two live lobsters. Go me!!

I do plan to do the leeks and the beet reduction, provided I can find beet juice at the grocery store. I live in a heavily eastern- European populated area (and hell... my married last name ends with "ski"), and I have it on good authority I might be able to find it right at the ethnic market. I'm still fairly new to beets (and need to find out how to do the good, broth-y polish borscht that I can no longer find near my new job) but I think they are something that I like very, very much.

Might also try the "Caesar salad". I was originally looking over the recipe and went "1 to 2 ounce molds? Who the hell has those?" until I saw it mentioned foil molds. I can do foil molds. Heck, I've got at least three mini muffin tins floating around in my cabinets.