Complete: 3. Watch 50+ episodes of Good Eats and cook 25+ corresponding recipes + 6. Send calligraphy birthday cards to family and friends for one year + 47. Send a Christmas newsletter each year + 101. Watch all of the Yakitate!! Japan anime with Garrett and re-create a bread from the show

4 down this week! That puts me past the total for the 1st 101 list, and I'm creeping up on the 2nd. I am definitely going to do better than the 2nd one, and that's all the progress I could have hoped for.

Okay. Good Eats is such a great show that I wanted to watch more of. This is one I've been working on for a while, but I'm glad I left some to the end, as Alton launched Good Eats Reloaded this fall so I could see some new content, as well. Some of his recipes were amazing, and some were not so much. Alton also seems notorious for making things very complicated sometimes.

Favorites were edamame dip, ginger almonds, avocado ice cream, lemon curd, bruleed grapefruit, praline bacon, refresco de avena, garlic parmesan mashed potatoes, chipotle smashed sweet potatoes, and carrot slaw. Yum!

Calligraphy cards replaced sending photo thank yous, which was a great idea, but hard to make myself stick to. I tried to take pictures of the cards, but before I knew it I was licking the envelope and sealing it, so I don't have much photographic proof, hahaha. I sent 21 cards this year. :) I'm not sure if family appreciated them or not, as I only heard from like, 4 of them that they'd been received and enjoyed. Oh well!

I just wrapped up sending out our Christmas newsletter for this year (though if you still want one let me know), and I sent them out for both 2016 and 2017. I love this tradition - it's fun to tell everyone what we've been up to, and what we've enjoyed throughout the year. I will definitely keep this up. Someone was asking us about our Christmas traditions the other day, and I guess this is one of them!

Last, Yakitate!! Japan - I'm glad Garrett has seen it all now, but I realize in re-watching that it isn't as good as I remember. It drags on a bit, and poor Kawachi - though that's the same feeling as reading the manga, hahaha. Garrett did appreciate all the puns.

I decided to make Azuma's melon sushi bread, because it always looked so delicious, and I love melon. Melon pan is a sweet roll encased in cookie dough, kind of similar to conchas, if you know them. The problem that Azuma seeks to fix is that the bread and cookie dough cook at different rates, so you'll never have a perfectly cooked one - one part will be undercooked or overcooked to have the corresponding portion cooked correctly. His solution is to cook the bread and cookie separately, then combine them with a melon cream like wasabi is used in nigiri sushi.

So I found a decently reviewed melon pan recipe and cooked the portions separately. I was thinking if I pulled the cookies out and immediately let them cool on the rolls they would form to their shape, but that was a grave miscalculation. I looked as Azuma's bread again and decided to crumble the cookies to get the more crunchy looking top that he has. I made whipped cream and added honeydew syrup and bit of green food coloring to get the right look.

I think it turned out pretty okay! The cream could maybe be a bit more green. It was super delicious, too. Heck, Azuma. You make me want to try to make more of your breads!