My Own Best-of 2011

And now, a personal list:

Favorite New Book: Bossypants
Favorite New-to-Me Book: the Canal House Cooking series
Biggest Disappointment: Cooking 1-2-3 by Rozanne Gold

Favorite Current Show: Community
Favorite New-to-me Show: Party Down
Biggest Disappointment: It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia.  It was never highbrow, but it's gotten so disgusting I can't even watch it anymore. Runner-up: The Norm McDonald Show.

Favorite New Movie:  I Am Love, though admittedly it's mostly for the sets and the clothes.
Biggest Disappointment: TIE! Bridesmaids--I probably shouldn't have built it up so much in my mind beforehand. The scene in the wedding dress shop was unwatchable, and the rest was pretty uneven. Midnight in Paris--Straight out of the disappointing Woody Allen cannon of misogyny and white people problems. You have to keep reminding yourself of the good times...

Favorite New Documentary: Bill Cunningham New York. [Was this the only new documentary I saw? I mean, it was fine, but not really thrilling.]

Favorite New-to-Me Documentary: Exit Through the Gift Shop
Biggest Disappointment: Art 21. Big snoozer.

Favorite New-to-Me Record: Jeff Weiss' Passion of the Weiss: Candy Cane Children mix of White Stripes B-sides, live performances and other "rarities."

Favorite New-to-Me Drink: Torrontes wine (from Argentina)
Favorite New-to-Me Food: The Fine Cheese Co.'s Charcoal Crackers


Favorite New-to-Me Beauty Thing: Maybelline Define-a-Brow pencil in Dark Blonde.
Biggest Disappointment: Avene Retrinal .05 joined a long line of products that have failed to change my life.

Favorite New-to-Me Shoes: I tried Birkenstocks this year and haven't looked back.

Favorite Like-New Magazine: Martha Stewart Living with Pilar Guzman as editor.

Favorite New Website: Pinterest
Favorite New-to-Me Website: The Last Psychiatrist. I don't always agree with him, but his posts on mental hygiene, in particular, are absolutely fascinating.
Biggest Disappointment: Google+. A huge waste of time that broke up my sharefam on Google Reader. G+ will be dead within a year, but things will never go back to the way they were; an object lesson in leaving well enough alone.

Favorite New-to-Me Parenting Thing, Part I: Listening to Disney Radio. I am alarmed and ashamed at how much I enjoy this. The music is garbage, but I love watching the kids get excited about it, and watching them dance.
Favorite New-to-Me Parenting Thing, Part II: Ms. Twixt: Positive Experiences for Tween Girls has me actually looking forward to the next few years instead of dreading them
Biggest Disappointment: Family Therapy. Not moving the ball forward.


Favorite New Kid Movie: The Muppets, obvs. If I asked my kids they might vote for Chipwrecked (which I, mercifully, did not see); then I would have to disown them.
Favorite New-to-Us Kid Thing: The Muppet Christmas Carol-- I guess I watched it 100 years ago, but I was surprised at how good it was when we watched it last month (six or eight times).
Biggest Disappointment: I'm putting The Secret of the Kells here because while I loved it, it scared the shit out of Emmet; he barely watched any of it and he still had nightmares about it.