Do we really only have four days left to wring out the rest of 2011 and ring in the start of 2012?

We'd better get started. We went through the year in food and picked our favorite recipes. We put together some sources of information and cooking help, too.

But first, we looked at the predictions for the 2012 food trends. More meatballs and fewer food trucks? Cooking dads and kimchee?

Is any of it likely? We assembled a list of six trends that sounded interesting. Then we took them to two trendwatchers: National restaurant consultant Clark Wolf and Peter Rose, senior vice president of The Futures Co., headquartered in Chapel Hill, which releases the yearly Yankelovich Monitor of consumer attitudes.

So, gentlemen: Hot or not?

1. Round appetizers,

from arancini to meatballs.

Rose loves arancini - fried risotto balls - while Wolf dismisses them as a "fadlet." Both say meatballs are definitely coming on, as part of two trends: An interest in affordable, easy-to-use ground meats, and a desire for small servings. Rose calls it "life in bite-size quantities."

2. Hot food countries: Korea or Scandinavia?

"Scandinavian food is only hot in Scandinavia," says Wolf. But they agree on Korean food such as kimchee, above. It's exotic but easy to eat. "There's a trend around experimenting with a culture, but in a safe way," says Rose. "We're risk-averse." Who doesn't understand Korean-style fried chicken?

3. Economic effects:

Smaller plates, bigger couponing.

Small plates, definitely. As a generation, the millennials - born in the late 1980s and early 1990s - were raised with the idea of teams, so they like to share food and share costs, trying lots of new things while keeping their dining-out bill down.

Both experts think the coupon craze will eventually wear out its welcome, though, because it focuses too much on cost and not enough on quality, cheapening the cooking experience.

6. Housemade pickles and fermented food.

"Absolutely," says Wolf. "Pickles, pickles, pickles." It's part of several trends: Kimchee is a part of the interest in Korean food, says Rose, while Wolf thinks fermented and pickled foods are easy to eat and digest. Both say pickles are easy for small restaurants to make and serve to distinguish themselves. And with the local-food movement continuing, home cooks are starting to pickle and can again.

4. Gluten-free gets even bigger.

"When Thomas Keller makes a gluten-free bread, it's either the future or the end of the world," says Wolf.

5. More men doing the cooking and food shopping.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that 41 percent of men are now doing the shopping and cooking for their families, twice the number in 2003. Wolf and Rose say two things are happening. More men than women lost jobs in the recession, and today's generations have finally become accustomed to the idea of sharing the work at home.

Wolf even expects it to lead to a more shared form of family cooking: "Whoever is good at the mashed potatoes does the mashed potatoes."

Any others?

Wolf: "Something's going to happen to American coffee. The baseline is changing." When Dunkin Donuts and McDonald's both make a point of improving their coffee, it's worth noticing.

Rose: Expect "willful disobedience," like restaurants that break the rules by making their own cured meats. "People are craving fun," he says. "You're going to have consumers and chefs looking for ways to do things that are a little under the table, a little dangerous, a little sneaky."

Andrea Weigl of The (Raleigh) News & Observer contributed.