Three Night Celebration of New Year's Arrival

Celebrations for the New Year kicked off on December 30 with a Western Night with lots of great music and dancing.

New Year's Eve at Buckhorn Inn

Buckhorn Inn guests welcomed 2010 with a Blue Moon, dancing, a great dinner and the fabulous sounds of Will's Ohio Quartet.

Buckhorn Inn Dining Room table looking toward Mt. LeConte.

Pen and Teller, the Buckhorn Inn Mute Swans, have reached maturity. We expect they will be raising a new family in Spring 2010.

Christmas Rocky Road Crunch Bars

Nigella Lawson’s Christmas Rocky Road Crunch Bars
This version of Rocky Road by English Chef and Food Writer Nigella Lawson is the best yet. Easy to make—and easy to eat. She has a cookbook we recommend for making Christmas cooking delicious and stress-free—Nigella’s Christmas. Ms. Lawson is a regular on NPR.

Ingredients:
1 1/4 cups (8 oz) bittersweet chocolate, chopped or chips
3/4 cups (6 oz) milk chocolate, chopped or chips
1 1/2 sticks (12 tablespoons) soft butter
1/4 light corn syrup
4 cups (7 oz) macaroons or amaretti (if you can find them)
1 cup shelled Brazil nuts
2/3 cup candied or glazed cherries
2 1/2 cups mini marshmallows
1 tablespoon confectioner's sugar
Edible glitter (optional)

Instructions:
Put both chocolates into a heavy-based pan to melt with the butter and syrup over a gentle heat.
Put the cookies into a freezer bag and bash them with a rolling pin to get big- and little-sized crumbs; you want some pieces to crunch and some sandy rubble.
Put the Brazil nuts into another freezer bag and also bash them so you get different-sized nut rubble.
Take the pan off the heat, and add the crushed cookies and nuts, whole candied cherries and mini marshmallows. Turn carefully to coat everything with syrupy chocolate.
Tip into an aluminum foil pan (I use one 9 1/4 x 12 inches), smoothing the top as best you can, although it will look bumpy.
Refrigerate until firm enough to cut, which will take about 1 1/2-2 hours. Then take the set block of Rocky Road out of the pan ready to cut.
Push the confectioners' sugar through a small strainer to dust the top of the Rocky Road. Then, if you like, add sprinkling of edible glitter for some festive sparkle.
With the long side in front of you, cut it into 6 slices down and 4 across, so that you have 24 almost-squares.
Makes 24 big-bite-sized bars

Guest Loved Family Dinner at Inn

Note about Dinner: A note to tell you what a lovely evening we had with our family at the Buckhorn Inn recently. Of course, the surroundings were especially pleasant, but the dinner was excellent, and I noted that the chef went out of his way to satisfy some last minute requests from our guests. That was much appreciated. I don't want to leave out the staff who
served the dinner. They kept us all straight even when we didn't know
what we were doing! Very efficient. Thank you very much.

Buckhorn Inn--Doesn't Change but Gets Better

Buckhorn Inn Guest Barry writes in late October, 2009: Thank you so much for Buckhorn. My wife and I have been coming for years and with each passing year, Buckhorn just gets better. We commented as we turned on to Buckhorn Road that it seemed like we were coming home. That's the great thing about Buckhorn. It never changes but it's always better. We look forward to our yearly getaway to Buckhorn.