The good-luck foods of the New Year

 

Photo by Jordan Alter Burton

Before I get to the good-luck foods of the New Year, I want to say a word about eggnog. I drank a lot of eggnog over the holiday and relished every drop of it. Only prudence and caution confined me to one small glass at a time, but I had eggnog for breakfast every morning in Santa Fe. What a marvelous way to begin the day! My friend, Susan Tweit, brought a big jar of eggnog with rum for the nog when she visited us on Christmas Eve, and Christian, coveting both the eggnog and the container, brought the remaining little bit home with us. So I’ve had it twice for breakfast in the cottage. I did have the good sense to turn it down Sunday morning before we went to church. But this morning, Christian and I split the last little bit and discussed getting more. If anything is going to bring a good year, surely that will do it.

This afternoon, neighbors brought Jordan a cup of Tom and Jerry, a hot drink I always associate with New Year’s. A Tom and Jerry is much like eggnog—egg whites, rum, brandy, spices, and butter. But it’s served warm and is, to my mind, more lethal than cool eggnog. Once again, reason prevailed. I took a sip and said no, thank you. Jordan drank the whole cup and took a nap. Needless to say, I took a nap even without the Tom and Jerry.

The primary traditional food on my mind tonight is black-eyed peas, because I fixed a big pot yesterday and let them sit in the fridge overnight to gather flavors. Then today I cooked them more, cooking down the excess liquid and getting the peas to just the right stage of mushy. After fifty-five years, I consider myself pretty much a Texan (barring some of the things that implies today), but there are parts of me that had a hard time leaving a northern, Chicago background behind. I was in Texas a lot of years before I consented to try black-eyed peas. Then I tried to disguise them, burying them in the rice and tomatoes of Hoppin’ John. But in recent years I’ve come to appreciate the humble pea.

In  Hoppin’ Uncle John, the peas are cooked with a ham hock, onion, celery, garlic, diced tomatoes and served over rice. Tonight I made Hoppin’ John but without the tomatoes (in deference to Christian). I can’t see there’s much difference between plain peas they way we cook them and Hoppin’ John. Even a plain pot of peas gets ham or salt pork or bacon or ham hock along with onions, celery, and garlic. Tonight, everybody else ate theirs with rice, but I had mine plain. So good. Can you believe I actually relish them now?

Probably my study of Helen Corbitt’s life and work had something to do with this. Texas caviar, her iconic dish, is simply marinated black-eyed peas The story is that after three weeks in Texas, at the university in Austin, she was challenged to prepare a banquet menu using nothing but Texas products She invented what she called marinated black-eyed peas. I first remember eating that at the Cowgirl Hall of Fame restaurant in Santa Fe years ago (no relation to the museum in Fort Worth). Today, folks elaborate on Corbitt’s idea and add corn, tomatoes, black beans, avocado. I remain a purist and follow Corbitt’s original recipe.

Of course, if you’re going to have black-eyed peas for luck, you must have greens and cornbread. I draw the Texas line at turnip greens—can’t, won’t do them. But I had leftover creamed spinach tonight. Surely that counts. As for cornbread, I did have that in the Chicago home of my childhood, but my mom was an avid follower of 1950s nutritionist Adelle Davis, which led her to the cookbooks from the Rodale Foundation, a Pennsylvania organic farming non-profit. I remember putting Brewer’s yeast and honey in cornbread. What I fixed today was far different, and like eggnog, most decadent. It’s a recipe that starts with two boxes of Jiffy cornbread mix and adds ingredients, such as two sticks of butter, a cup of sugar, a cup of sour cream—need I say more? It was delicious.

So there we are, starting off the New Year with foods that bring us luck—or so we hope. Let’s hope that 2024 will behave much better than 2023, but we’ve had the lucky foods just in case. You?

 

2022 will bring flowers—if we plant them

 

It is still Christmas in the cottage and will be
until Twelfth Night, January 6.
I like Santa Mac with his poinsettias.

It wouldn’t be bad at all, in my mind, if today set the tone for 2022—for me. I speak for no one else. Sophie went out way too early but came back in quickly, and I went back to bed for a nice, long doze. Sometimes I think dozing in the morning is the best part of sleeping, But then I was up, getting ready for the day, finishing cooking my black-eyed peas, making cornbread, and fixing myself a stupendous New Year’s brunch—a baked egg. I put a slice of thin white bread in a greased ramekin, added the spinach left from last night’s supper and then grated sharp cheddar. Then I made a nest, cracked the egg into it, and added salt and pepper. Usually directions for baking eggs suggest covering it with a thin topping of milk or cream to prevent the egg from drying out. I didn’t have that, so I plopped a dollop of sour cream on it. So good.

I got an early nap—note that I always work that into my plans—and then was up and ready for the party that wasn’t. Jean came by for her required dose of peas about four, and just as she left two couples arrived, both of whom had said they’d come if they could sit on the patio. Since by then the temperature had dropped to the mid-forties and the wind was strong, the patio was out. Much discussion—mask or not? We finally didn’t. They are all vaccinated and boosted and pretty careful about where they go. We had happy hour with black-eyed peas and cornbread.

Cooking peas doesn’t come naturally to me. I’d never had them until I moved to Texas, and for years after that I resisted, quite convinced I wouldn’t like them. I may have said this already, but as an introduction, I made Hoppin’ John. Now I like them just plain, with seasonings. Some people claim they taste like dirt but I don’t see that--have they not washed them thoroughly? Tonight my peas received praise, including from one man whose partner had served him canned but individually seasoned peas, and he had rejected them as inferior. He pronounced mine they way they should be—and I did cook fresh peas. The cornbread didn’t fare so well—I made that Jiffy recipe where you add butter, sour cream, and sugar. Subie dismissed it as northern, though I always thought the sugar made it southern. I do remember “up north” making cornbread that had yeast and honey in it—from a Rodale cookbook. (The Rodale Institute in Pennsylvania pioneered research into organic agriculture, and my mom, a fan of Adelle Davis, was all about Rodale stuff.)

It struck me today that all the voices I heard in the two online writing groups I belong to—one small, one huge with 800 members—were about how awful 2021 was and how they couldn’t wait to boot it out the door. I didn’t find it nearly as difficult or scary as 2020, but maybe that’s just me. Despite Delta and Omicron, we got a better handle on the virus and many more of us are vaccinated—is it wrong to say, “a pox on those who won’t vaccinate for the good of the community”? The economy is up, unemployment down, our international prestige recovering. Personally I published two books, had two wonderful get-togethers with my sprawling family, and enjoyed many happy moments. So, yes, I’m glad to welcome 2022, but I won’t besmirch 2021, although I know several who had personal tragedies and lost loved ones and I grieve with them.

Still, for reasons I can’t explain, I feel optimistic about 2022. I have my own ambitions and goals, I think Joe Biden has as steady a hand as possible on the lever of government, I think the crazies are diminishing in number and voice (though the extremism is scary).

The best explanation I’ve seen for optimism comes from a cartoon. One unidentifiable creature says to the next, “Aren’t you terrified of 2022, with all the confusion and evil in the world? What do you think the new year will bring?” (This is a rough re-creation.) The second creature, busily doing something, says, “I think it will bring flowers.” The first demands, “How can you think that?” and the second replies, “I am planting flowers.”

Some things are beyond us—like the pandemic—but we too can plant flowers. We are not just hapless, helpless beings caught on a ship out of control. We can steer much of our future—and one way is to make our voice heard in the upcoming political campaigns and elections. Even beyond that, we can personally work to make sure 2022 is good for ourselves, our families, our neighbors.

Remember Molly Ivins’ words: “Keep fighting for freedom and justice, beloveds, but don't forget to have fun doin' it. Lord, let your laughter ring forth.”

Have a great 2022!