New Year's B.Y.O.B.

This past New Year's Eve, Ingrid and I once again hosted a get together at our house. And what was initially planned as a very small gathering grew into a bit more than that. The theme for the night was B.Y.O.B., but B.Y.O.B. doesn't stand for Bring Your Own Beer... it stands for Build Your Own Burger!



Ingrid and I love to go to the Bowery and have a Bowery Burger with the Works, so we decided to try and create the delicious burger in our own home for New Years Eve. Well, to put it more accurately, since it was B.Y.O.B., everyone would each have their own shot to make a Bowery Burger. I don't think Shawn's ever had a Bowery Burger, but was on board nevertheless.



Ingrid's finally starting to show and looked so cute as she seasoned the meat and chopped the veggies. It's hard to imagine that next New Year's Eve, Baby will be here. I wonder if we'll still be able to have a New Year's Eve party.



I was concerned that Frosty was going to do a repeat of last year's New Year's Eve party and pass terrible gas all night long, and it looks like Darren was too. Hopefully, it's just the deviled eggs my mom made for us that he's smelling.



Ending a great year, and starting what will undoubtedly be a wonderful year by celebrating with friends and family really makes us appreciate all we have, and have coming...



Before dinner, we all sat around and enjoyed drinks and watched Frosty enjoy the appetizers all by himself.



After a few drinks, we decided it was time to get down to business. Ingrid had seasoned the meat and was preparing homemade french fries for the gang. I learned that the key to keeping french fries from sticking together while cooking is to soak them in an ice bath before dropping them in the oil.



Unlike the trick with the french fries which I had never known, I was reminded of something I've known for a very, very long time when I saw Dirty D forming his meat into the shape of a penis. You're so dirty, man.



As people built their own burgers and warmed up their appetites, Frosty warmed up the grill since his appetite needs no warming up.



Before preparing my own burger, I helped Ingrid with the fries and other burger trimmings.



Speaking of which, in case you were wondering, here's what goes into a Bowery Burger with the Works. The burger is made with toasted English muffins instead of buns, and has Gruyere cheese, grilled onions and mushrooms, two strips of bacon, tomatoes, lettuce and a special sauce.



Looks delicious and pretty damn close to the real thing. By the way, this is one of the plates from the set we brought back from Thailand.



Ingrid gave the prototype burger the official taste test and was delighted with the result.



With the first burger out of the way, we all followed suit. Darren put his penis-shaped patty aside and went with the more traditional approach, resulting in this fine looking burger.



Pandy's version looked at little flat, but still delicious.



Shawn took a novel approach to preparing his patty by mixing cubes of Gruyere cheese into the meat before cooking it. Looks pretty tasty.



Lil' Kevin arrived a bit later and showed off his fully assembled burger. He must be on some sort of protein diet to build more muscle, if that's even possible.



After cooking all of our burgers, Frosty prepared his own burger by sandwiching some cheese and the grilled mushrooms and onions in between two patties. Leave it to Frosty to come up with a way to make his portion bigger than everyone elses...



After a fantastic dinner, we poured the champagne and squeezed in on the only couch available in the house. I'm pretty sure this was the case last year too, so it's nice to see we got more furniture over the course of the year. With the New Year's countdown approaching, we pulled up chairs for the others and waited for it to begin.



Five ... four... three... two... one! Happy New Year!!!



Tracer and Matt made it out before the countdown and joined us in our first toast in 2008! To a wonderful new year! Cheers!



I was impressed with Ingrid who stayed up much later than usual. But not long after midnight, she passed out on the couch, and after sending her to bed, the rest of us continued the festivities. Something tells me this is the start of a great year!