My family and I usually spend New Year's Eve quietly together. No loud parties and no dodging the inebriated on the roads. We are not on everybody's party list. In fact, I don't think we're on anybody's party list --it's been years since we were invited to a New Year's Eve celebration.

So last night we decided to buck tradition, but buck it in our own special way. We still opted for a quiet night at home. But this year we invited our friends Liz and Doug, along with their daughter to join us for that sip of Zin to ring in the new year (fruit punch for the kids of course).

Early yesterday I made a beeline for Trader Joe's, our favorite self-serve party caterer. Our Trader Joe parties are legendary. We sit around the coffee table with hors d'oeuvres of Trader Joe's brie, Trader Joe's artichoke dip, plastered on Trader Joe's assorted crackers with a bit of guacamole (you guessed it, also from TJs). It's the modern family's recipe for a successful party: easy to put together, inexpensive, and it tastes great. With a little vino, we were all set.

At first we thought we'd make tacos for dinner. Fun for the kids and everyone could fill their tortillas with whatever they wanted (a good dish for our mix of light meat eaters and vegetarians). But then Susie had an even better idea. After filling up with pre-dinner snacks, was a big meal really necessary? Instead let's make use of our new cookbook: Salad People And More Real Recipes: A New Cookbook for Preschoolers & Up. Let's make salad people for dinner!

So we lined up all the ingredients (a little lettuce, pears, raisins, melon, cheese, olives, cashews, tomatoes, carrots, and some curly pasta) and let loose. Here are the results of our New Year's Eve repast:

Christo and Jeanne-Claude's The Gates is a spectacle consistent with [the Renaissance art tradition], a piece of elaborate social theater that's an unintentional portrait of our time. That portrait can be poignant and charming; most of all, it's funny. I'm surprised more isn't being made of the ongoing social comedy surrounding The Gates, which is a satirist's dream. Well, actually, I'm not surprised: People are afraid to smile too much around art.

Mark Stevens
New York Magazine

The Gates. "The Gates" has a nice ring to it, don't you think?

Much is being written about Christo's and Jeanne-Claude's latest public art piece in Central Park. There are even homages and parodies (and parodies) of the work. Whatever you think and whatever you've read, it's certainly a cause for celebration: art displacing war on the front pages of major media.

But I'm not here to talk about the work. Instead, let's talk about the title of the work. The Gates. It's nice to see your name in headlines, plastered all over the Web, and on the nightly news. But it certainly isn't the first time.

I'm what you might call a Celebrity, once removed. I see my name on airport and train station signage all the time: "To Gates 71-75." At the Oakland Airport there is even a more personal acknowledgment: "Gates 7-17" (my birthday). And now I'm associated with fine public art.

Yes, my name is famous. But I am merely a country cousin. Not in the real sense. I'm not related to Bill (or to Christo and Jeanne-Claude for that matter). I actually come from a very short line of Gateses. It's just my two daughters and me now. At Ellis Island some low-level official set me up for this by christening my grandfather Herman Guyetsky as Herman Gates. I've given thought to changing it back, but, then, I've built up quite a reputation --once removed of course.