best of '06, part deux

i'm back and better than ever with the rest of the '06 list. hope y'all had a nice new year's and aren't as miserable as i am with returning to reality.

6) i like you - amy sedaris : we literally gave away about twenty copies of this book as xmas presents this year and the li'l smoky cheese ball recipe was served to happy mouths at our christmas eve potluck (featuring dishes from everyone's childhoods -- nostalgic and festive!). she gets my vote for funniest lady in show biz and the dust jacket alone is worth the price (and very frameable!).

7) the lee bros. southern cookbook : my momz picked this up for me for xmas and it was completely out of the blue. i'd never heard of these guys, nor their cookbook, but let me just say that we have tried two of the recipes from this bad boy and they rocked the house (not to mention the toilet, ba dum dum). this cookbook wins for most deceptive marketing practice in that the cover photo of said lee bros. shows two ridiculously groomed and tight-assed dweebs of the khakis-and-brass belt buckle-wearing southern variety, only to reveal in multiple photos within the book that they look like they are straight outta williamsburg (and i don't mean virginia). gone are the khakis and pinstripes, replaced with black ts, greasy hair, and ironic ray-bans. hats off to whoever realized they needed to make these two look like harmless bachelor uncles if they were gonna sell any books to southern baptist housewives. anyhoo, they are out to make southern cuisine respectable, and they are well on their way with this how-to/celebration of all things artery-clogging and delicious. they even have a radio show on martha stewart's satellite radio station, but i am too cheap to find out if it's any good. note to vegetarians: they claimed to find a way to make collards without using bacon or a hog jowl for flavoring, and that claim was false, though i'm not holding that against them.

and now, i regret to inform you that i am stopping at 7 best things of 06. i've got a shitload of work to do (vacation is hard, y'all!), but to make up for a lack of a nice, round top 10, here are some of my top picks for worst things about 2006:

1) Bush, Rummy, Condi, Dick, and the whole sorry lot
2) My father's sudden devotion to Fox News
3) Global freaking warming ('we're just warming up, folks!')
4) Sudden lack of time for reading, video-watching and just laying back, suckin' on gin and juice
5) Paris Hilton, Nicole Richie, Lindsay Lohan, et al
6) My bad back
7) The War on Christmas (j/k)