This post is sponsored by La Crema.

My brother and I always cook together whenever we're lucky enough to spend time together (one of my favorite recipes is his tropical crème brûlée), so when he was staying with us for Christmas and New Years, we decided to whip up some homemade pho broth and delicious Vietnamese meat balls. It was the coziest way to start the new year, and we ended up eating it for breakfast, a snack, and dinner later that night--with enough leftover for me to have lunch the next day when he and his girlfriend flew home.

Pho has always been one of my favorite comfort foods--my friend Corri and I used to meet for lunch or get takeout so much that now when I visit Charlotte, we always have to get pho together. I couldn't think of a more relaxing way to celebrate New Years Day than a slow morning with Sean, Jane, Rob, Sophie, and Ender all cuddled up together on the couch as rich, spice-infused broth bubbled away on the stove.

I was surprised by how easy it was to put it all together (although to be fair, Sean did do most of the work setting up the broth), and our meatballs turned out absolutely delicious. Usually you'll find beef meatballs when you order pho, but we decided to use pork instead to switch it up.

Ingredients:

• 1 pound ground beef or pork
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 1/2 teaspoons sugar
• 2 tablespoons fish sauce
• 1 teaspoon fresh grated ginger
• Salt and pepper, to taste

Instructions:

1. In a large bowl, combine all ingredients and mix well until everything is incorporated. Use your hands to work the meat mixture together until it becomes slightly sticky (this can take 10-15 minutes). If you have time, place the bowl in the freezer for 20 minutes or so to really let the meat firm up. (You could also use a food processor or electric mixer.)
2. Roll heaping tablespoons of the mixture into balls with your hands. You want them to be on the larger side of bite-sized so you can pick them up and eat them in one bite or use a spoon to cut them in half easily.
3. Bring a pot of water to a boil and fill another bowl with ice water. Carefully lower the meatballs into the boiling water and allow them to cook until they float to the surface, then continue to simmer for another 3-4 minutes. (7-8 minutes total.) Remove from pot and transfer to ice water for 3-4 minutes.
4. When you're ready, reheat the meatballs in pho broth and serve. 

The company was great and the wine, of course, was delicious--we paired our soup with La Crema's Monterey Chardonnay, which is one of my favorites. We set out all the toppings and let everyone doctor up their own bowls the same way you do when you're at a restaurant, only we enjoyed everything from the comfort of my couch, complete with sweatpants and a whole lot of Netflix.

Don't forget to stop by the La Crema blog today to get my pho broth recipe! I hope you love it.

It’s a rainy Monday morning—7:48 AM—and Sophie is hanging out with her head on my chest.  We’ve been posted up on the couch in the living room since 3:30 this morning, doing some combination of nursing and dozing off and watching old episodes of Girls; wondering if anyone can actually stand Hannah.

Rob goes back to work in a couple of weeks and I know it’d be helpful to have some kind of schedule, but Sophie is so small and hungry still that I basically just feed her on demand and try to make up for my lost sleep with an early bedtime. Around 4AM Ender came in from the bedroom and curled up next to us on the couch and has been sleeping there ever since. Usually he comes out once or twice to check on us and heads back into the bedroom, but this morning the three of us have been snuggled up together listening to the rain splashing down outside.

2018 arrived quickly but quietly, and the first week of the year blew by in a haze of pancakes and 9AM naps and a marathon of Brooklyn 99. I took the pup with me on my first run in probably over a year the other afternoon, and the warm winter sun beat down on us as I slowly made my way down the sidewalk, trying to catch my breath but so happy to be moving my body again.

Last night I did my hair and makeup and put on a dress and went to my Pure Barre studio’s holiday party at L’Occitane in Palo Alto. It was my first time leaving everyone at home for more than an hour. We drank sparkling wine punch and got hand massages and on my way home I stopped at In N Out and as I waited for our to-go burgers I couldn’t believe how much life has changed, not only in a few months but especially these past few years. 

Almost 10 years ago there was a randomly big snowstorm in our college town of Farmville, Virginia and Rob and I may not have even really been dating yet, but we got in his silver Chrysler Sebring and ventured out to the Kroger for frozen pizza and M&Ms. When we got back to my apartment we learned that apparently the roads were so dangerous everyone had been told to stay in, and we laughed nervously as we heated up the pizza and popped chocolate candies into our mouths. There was absolutely no part of me that ever imagined that 4 or 5 years later we’d be living in Minneapolis, navigating everyday winter storms to get to work or the grocery store or even the coffee shop; where I once had to pull out my window scraper after 20 minutes because in the time it took to drink a latte, the windshield was completely covered in a heavy dumping of fresh snow.

And while we were putting hand warmers in our pockets and nervously stepping onto the surface of a frozen Lake Harriet, I don’t think the thought of a life of 60-degree January days in California ever crossed our minds. We moved to Charlotte when Rob’s project ended and we put down roots and I was stunned and disoriented to halfheartedly pull them out two years later and sign the lease for a townhouse in Silicon Valley.

But now we’re here, and this year we’ll have lived in California as long as we lived in North Carolina.  We don’t have as many friends and we can’t walk to our favorite coffee shop, but we are creating a life here—we literally created a life here. And wherever we are in 5 more years, I’m sure I’ll look back on those rainy winter mornings in the house with the fruit trees, when Sophie was a month and a half old and Rob was on paternity leave and Ender was extra cuddly. 

I don’t yet know what 2018 (or life with a baby) will look like, but so far it’s pure magic.

This was the best year of my life. 

California has felt so unlike home for so long--we've been here for almost a year and a half and I still find myself missing the East Coast and all the people we love who live on that side of the country. But in 2017 I finally let go and said yes more, even though my goal was to simplify my life. Instead I wrote two books, became a Pure Barre instructor, moved into a new place, and had a baby.

And yet somehow by taking on what sometimes seemed like an unending number of new things, I learned what really matters to me: family, health, happiness, friendship--that's it.

We live in a cozy house with a sweet pup and our amazing daughter who has already changed our lives forever. We paid off our student loans. I worked harder--both professionally and physically--than I ever have in my life. I wrote to-do lists that were long and aggressive and somehow I managed to check most of the items off. 

And now that that's all done, maybe in 2018 I will finally slow down a bit--Sophie will see to that. More evenings on the couch nursing, more quiet mornings with coffee in hand, more afternoon walks with Ender, more visits from friends as the baby grows. Six weeks ago she was a newborn who could barely stay awake throughout the day and yesterday she looked at me and gave me an honest-to-God smile. The days are long but the years are short--I know this already; and I intend to savor every moment of this next one.

Happy New Year, friends.