I had an unnatural, unwarranted fear of Hungarian food. A fear that was reinforced by the fact that certain words in Hungarian didn’t sound appetizing to me. As a child I kept associating goulash with galoshes. And paprikash, was just lumped into things that sounded, and therefore tasted, yucky (succotash!). And so, for the better part of my life, I had the misfortune of not trying chicken paprikash, and beef goulash (more on that later). Which was a great tragedy, because, boy is chicken paprikash good.

January 2nd. The day after New Year’s day. My, oh my, I’m so exhausted. New Year’s day fell on a Friday, so I’ve been partying since Thursday, and I think I may just die of exhaustion. I had a makeshift party of 6 (or was it 8?) people. New friends, to ring in a new year. And a new roommate. We had a blast, and dinner took me only 2 ½ hours to prepare (recipes to come), but I had a few leftover items, and I was yearning for a sandwich, or something sandwich-like. I was far too tired to venture out, so I somehow moved myself off of the couch and walked a few feet to my kitchen. I pulled out leftover Carr rosemary crackers, grabbed a bowl, 1 leftover rotisserie chicken breast, dried tarragon, and leftover homemade cranberry sauce (don’t be afraid to use it in this recipe. It doesn’t take a jelled form). This is what I was able to make.