We’re in the middle of the holiday season and it’s also List Week when everyone’s a critic—professional or not—giving their take on their favorite movies, books, albums, plays, things they ate, etc. 

I’ve never enjoyed making these year end lists, at least not in the conventional sense. And honestly, I don’t enjoy reading them either. I almost never agree with the assessments. For instance, this season almost every year-end movie list I read recommends One Battle After Another. I made it halfway and decided the people who say they love it probably made it to the end after sitting through 90 minutes of “Do Supertramp, but change the key and repeat the same top note incessantly.” Maybe that grating music is a kind of hypnosis that convinces people an unwatchable movie is really a groundbreaking masterpiece.

But I digress. Much as “listing” irritates me, this is a week I do like to take stock and figure out a game plan for the next twelve months. I thought about what went right and what broke through the clouds in the past terrible no good very bad year. Things happened/are happening beyond my immediate control, however my power isn’t fully drained. 

The good moments in this year benefit from the perspective that I will never take them for granted. 

In February, I had a magical night with someone special. We ate pizza at Arturos, then trudged in the snow to the Village Vanguard, where we drank Manhattans and took in a performance of the transcendent Vijay Iyer Trio. 

In April I confronted my fear of public speaking head on and did a solo presentation about cocktails at the Lotos Club. Since then I have been enjoying the benefits of a guest membership and am in the process of securing a permanent one. In the noise of the city and life in general, having a clubhouse to go to is a lovely thing. 

In June I went inside the Power Station studios for the launch of Three Chord Bourbon Strange Collaboration—a project between master blender Ari Sussman and rock guitarist Neil Giraldo. Which is a sentence 15-year-old Amanda would never have believed I’d write! (For those who don’t know, this is why.) I also got to see Ari again in the fall to taste new expressions of the excellent JYPSI whiskeys. 

Coincidentally, a week later I was in Electric Lady studios for the launch of Nora Jones’ rosé called This Life. 

That month I took a time out with my friend Other Amanda to drink and learn about tea with Sebastian Beckwith at In Pursuit of Tea. Since then I have been a loose tea convert.

In August I saw Lloyd Cole at City Winery. I had planned on going alone, have some wine, soak in the familiar music. However, I ran into one of my friends from my teen summer camp days (!) and we arranged to sit together at the table with her husband and pals. What was intended as a measured solo venture became an epic night out after an incredible show. Wine is a theme in some of Lloyd’s best songs and it was fun sipping it while watching him perform. And he’s still got it! 

In September I had a blast co-judging the Meletti Cocktail Competition with Sother Teague and Mateo Melletti at the Crown Rooftop bar overlooking the city on a striking clear, bright day. 

Later that month my friend Chloe Crane invited me to Little Spain for the friends and family kickoff of Txula Steak in the Chef José Andrés restaurant group. As part of the wine and spirits camp, I rarely get to mingle with the culinary crowd in this capacity. Not only was the meal exceptional, it was a great hang. 

On September 16, we celebrated my mom’s 89th birthday and my dad’s 90th at the Lotos Club. The celebration was an oasis between months of madness. I feel incredibly lucky and grateful we could do this!

In October, I successfully pitched an article that had been kicking around in my head for years, about the science of taste nostalgia and how that plays into snack food trends. It was finally published in December here on Food Dive. 

For my friend Jason’s birthday, we attended an exclusive parlor magic show at The Hanley Closeup Magic Parlour in my neighborhood! The tricks were unusual and extremely well done.

Throughout the year I made a policy of saying “no” to things that don’t serve me and stress me out. It was a good policy. 

Even when my schedule was hectic, I said “yes” to things that pushed me outside my comfort zone but had networking potential. This was also a good policy. 

I managed to keep up a tradition of a quarterly meetup over Martinis and big plates of fried vegetables and parmigiana with two close friends. We refer to ourselves collectively as The Meshugenas. 

Some of the soups I made this year were really good. 

Bold lipstick is a key part of my identity. Two of my favorite shades—a vivid red called Negroni by BITE Beauty and a warm fuchsia made by Ricky’s beauty chain—have long been discontinued. As a treat for myself this month I reconnected with my friend GIELLA, who specializes in custom cosmetics, to recreate them. Her studio is on 5th Ave in midtown, and when I left, I just happened to catch the Saks Fifth Avenue light show and had a good gaze at the Rock Center Christmas Tree in the week before the tourist crush. The experience reminded me why I still live in this city. 

Just last night my friend John Hedigan treated me to a performance of Tartuffe at the New York Theatre Workshop, with Matthew Broderick in the title role, David Cross as Orgon, and our mutual friend Emily Davis as Orgon’s daughter, Mariane. Written by Molière in the 1660s, the play is about a corrupt narcissist who casts himself as a religious puritan. Everyone in his orbit either blindly worships him—brushing off his outrageous antics as part of his charms–or sees him for the loathsome man he is but no one believes them. Sound familiar? Everyone in the cast was exceptional and it was a ton of fun. Tickets are sold out but Emily tells us a few rush seats are available every night through the end of January. 

So yeah. In a year I felt somewhat isolated and constantly worn down by the need to shift gears in a career I so painstakingly built over two decades because the robots are taking over, during which my 90-year-old dad had two major falls, illuminating my mom’s increasingly frailty and how woefully unprepared my family is for the inevitable, all while fascism keeps eroding every aspect of life, and I couldn’t even look forward to zen moments staring at the birds in my favorite tree anymore, and then to top it all off my cat had a butt thing (he’s fine now, $1000 later), and a bot that found me on LinkedIn keeps trying to snare me into online fraud schemes because those are the only job listings right now… in that kind of year, there was some good shit too. 

And so I look forward to whatever good shit can present itself in the new one. I’m starting it with brand new kitchen chairs after I finally replaced the ones that multiple Gorilla Glue surgeries and sheer will could no longer sustain. Next I might even tackle the book cases that are currently, but not successfully, held together with duct tape. If you know me, you know that even considering how I might go about this renovation is major progress! 

Happy new year and thanks for reading and your continued support! 

What were some of your highlights in this turbulent 2025? Feel free to tell me in the comments.