In the last few years, we’ve been celebrating New Year’s Day with a big mid-day seafood fest.  This is usually slightly different from year to year, depending on what is fresh and available, but generally we have a menu like this:

To start:
Raw oyster and clams with cocktails sauce, lemon and extra horseradish

First– Oven Baked Fish Chowder. Recipe here.

Second- Seared crab cakes or fish cakes with a spicy remoulade (they make these at the fish market)

Third– Lobster, or Steamers/Mussels, or both

French baguette, or crusty bread

Fourth– Mixed greens salad with lots of citrus

Fifth– Lemon dessert or leftover Christmas cookies

You can look up how to cook lobster and steamers at home, and everything else is just basic preparation. The skill comes in the timing. Spreading it our over several courses makes the meal last a nice long time and is very relaxing for the last ‘official’ day of the holiday break. Invest in some good lobster tools like crackers and small forks and picks, plus a couple of oyster shucking knives. It all comes in handy and should last a lifetime.