If it's the first week of January and you work for a Silicon Valley technology company, it is very likely that you are in Las Vegas--after all, there are 120,000 of us here at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES). Lots of amazing new products. All interesting, but let's face it, we all still need to eat.

You can get great and gross food in Las Vegas. I shall not go into the gross. For my part, a crepe I had for room service at Paris was lovely--ham, gruyere cheese in a fluffy/chewy crepe with a nice becamel sauce, and fairly reasonable too. Easily enough for two to share.

Another great thing was the creme brulee at Trevi, and Italian restaurant in the Forum Shops at Caesar's Palace. Calamari was also great--lightly battered and not greasy. And my friend's chicken Fettucine Alfredo was also quite good.

Tomorrow, I'm planning for vanilla French toast.

Working in Silicon Valley, I've been fortunate to eat at a few company cafeterias. Like the companies themselves, some are better than others. I've not yet made it to the famed Google cafe, bit I did enjoy quite a few meals in the Sun Microsystems and Cisco Systems cafes--good food, reasonably priced.

More recently, I've been consulting for another technology company, and it's cafeteria had a great gnocchi daily special. A nice deep flavor with a good mix of fall/winter veggies. I've re-created it using a combination of from-scratch and easily found pre-purchased (pesto sauce and fresh, pre-made gnocchi). Perfect winter weekday dinner.

Click here for Techie-Gnocchi.

Happy New Year of the Rabbit to all! This week has been all about the Japanese tradition (superstition?) of cleaning up for New Year's. We thoroughly clean the house--we're talking dusting baseboards, trips to Goodwill, rotating mattresses, cleaning up longstanding scuff marks on the floor (with a toothbrush!) and vacuuming places that no one ever sees except for when cleaning for New Year's. My cousin reminded me that you also need to take out all the trash and brush your teeth. This is supposed to get rid of the all the old/bad/unclean spirits in the house and literally start clean. Culturally, it's very interesting that the Japanese the word for "clean" is also the same as "pretty" (きれいな).

New Year's also means Japanese/Hawaii hybrid traditions. Last night, we had soba and champagne at midnight, while watching Dick Clark. My cousins did the same and rolled some sushi. In Hawaii, we'd also be shooting off firecrackers and watching Japanese TV. Growing up, I never knew anyone who went to fancy dress-up New Year's Parties. It was either at home or at a close family friend's house. 

We display special plastic encased mochi decorations that are never actually eaten--on our cars and the kitchen counter. These will stay up until Chinese (Lunar) New Year's. This is for good luck. Later, I'll get some paper 'omamori' (good luck symbols) to place in our bedrooms and over entry doors. All part of good luck for the New Year and out with the bad or worse, unclean stuff from last year.

For breakfast, we had soba, tangerines, and mochi. I went for my new-traditional mid-morning jog and later, we'll all head over to a dear friend's house for more traditional Japanese New Year foods. 

New Year's Soba
1 package soba--this is not a meal, it's tradition
Hon Tsuyu (1/2 cup to about 6-8 cups of water). Do not use the proportions on the bottle, it will be much, much to salty
Kamaboko slices
Green onions or mizuna (optional)

Heat up soup base to boiling. Drop the soba in the soup base until tender, a few minutes. Ladle into individual bowls. Add two slices of kamaboko and green onions or mizuna if desired. Slurp loudly and sip champagne.