Greetings, dear friends —

I apologize for a delay in recipe posting. I’ve been in a coma for a few days after eating my weight in bourbon bacon pancakes. You understand.

I also took a mini break from my daily obligations to visit my dear friend Ashley (see above) in her homeland. Which used to be my homeland. Which is really still only four hours away, barely far enough to consider it a “homeland,” but still far enough away that I have enough time to completely lose my voice upon arrival after all the loud, obnoxious singing I’ve just done in my car. True story.

Oh yes.

Yes, I did.

I really needed an excuse to buy bourbon, you see. Scratch that — I really needed an excuse to make pancakes. Fancy pancakes. Pancakes with pizazz. And what better way to give your pancakes pizazz than to mix them with bourbon (yum) and bacon (double yum)? There is no better way.

I really wasn’t sure what to call this post.

Flatbread sticks?

Flat breadsticks?

Seedy breadsticks? No, that’s weird.

So, everything breadsticks it is. That way, it covers both the seeded, “everything” topping and the fact that these breadsticks turned out to be, well, all sorts of shapes. Mostly flat. Just how we used to think the Earth was.

In case you hadn’t noticed, I changed my blog layout. I hope you like it. It feels way more like home to me.

Because I love pizza so dang much, I thought I’d make pizza dough (a new, equally tasty version of my standby) for my inaugural post for my new layout. There are still a few tweaks and twinges to work on around here, so pardon me while we transition. In the meantime, however, make this pizza dough for dinner tonight. That’s not a request.

OK, that was rude. Pretty please make this dough for dinner tonight.

Ah, the new year. A time for celebration with friends, a time of remembrance of things past and a time to look forward to what the future holds. A time to make resolutions and promises and (hopefully!) not break them.

Normally, I’m not one to follow the trend of making New Year’s resolutions. This is mostly because I’m not so good at keeping them. There was that one year when I vowed never to procrastinate — then I procrastinated on my resolution to stop procrastinating.

Then there was the year I promised myself I’d keep a daily journal — my last entry was on January 21.

There also have been, of course, many years when I’ve written in permanent ink, on multiple sheets of paper, Word documents and all over my hands, that I WILL exercise more this year. And, more importantly, I WILL eat healthier. You can guess how well that resolution also has gone.

It’s Christmas Eve. Duh. I’m sitting around the table with my family — Grandpa’s making his famous rouladen, Mom’s making deviled eggs, Grandma’s making her delicious dumpling soup… it’s a typical Christmas.

A lot of the traditions in our family (as you can probably gather) revolve around food. It’s not Christmas without Grandpa’s rouladen. It’s not a birthday without a cheesecake sampler (a story for another day). And it’s not breakfast without my dad’s crepes.