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?

 

Chili for supper, photo op, and good times

Frito  pie

Good thing it turned chilly over the weekend--no pun intended, but I fixed chili for some friends tonight. Actually the whole dinner was a photo op for my forthcoming (2015) chili book. The appetizer, which almost became the first course, was Frito pie. Everyone raved and ate so much that they didn't have much room left for the entrée. Son-in-law Christian came in after supper and demanded, "Who brought chili pie? I love it!" When I said I made it, he said, "I wish I wasn't already so full." Good on him for recognizing and honoring that feeling.
Jay Mitiguy (you know, my handsome neighbor), who is becoming sort of the unofficial photographer for this book, was here and took pictures, some with my newly rediscovered camera and some with his iPhone. Jordan couldn't find the pictures on my camera, but Jay sent what he took and they are wonderful and clear. I also served a black-eyed pea relish that someone had given me--it was really good but much out-shadowed by the Frito pie.

The main course was white chili. When the editorial board of the press met, one member wanted to know why there was no white chili in the book. I pointed out to the director there were four recipes--chicken and turkey. For tonight I fixed a version with chicken and cannellini beans--not much broth, but the chicken was tender and the flavor was great. Not too many leftovers, so they went home with Christian. I saved the Frito pie leftovers in case Jacob would eat them--he's here for the night because there's no school tomorrow (Columbus Day).
Jay, who judges at Terlingua, is a chili purist. He called my personal chili recipe a flavorful stew of beef and beans but not chili. I dreaded to think what he would call this and he said no, he'd had white chili and liked it. At the table, though, he couldn't resist saying, "It's really good stew." Purists of course brook no beans in their chili. This was an easy, low cal recipe.
You just can't have chili without cornbread, but I really ran amuck here. I used a really easy recipe for sweet cornbread--1 cup cornmeal, 1 cup flour, 2/3 cup sugar, 3-1/2 tsp. baking powder, 1 cup milk, and 1 egg. Spray a nine-inch cake pan, scrape in the batter, and bake at 400 for 20 minutes or more. Easy, right? Now I consider myself a seasoned cook but for some unknown reason, the first time I made this I had the oven on broil--cornbread had a lovely brown top but the inside was mushy. Had to make a second batch, but it was really good. I'm well aware that the chili pie and cornbread have "bad" ingredients--although corn chips aren't bad except maybe for sodium but cheese, sugar, etc.--and the chili was healthy--nothing but chicken, beans, onion, chicken broth, and seasonings. What bothered me? There was nothing green with the meal. Didn't seem to bother anyone else.
Dessert? Why ice cream, of course, with a great dark chocolate, salt and caramel sauce one of the guests brought. A feast--and a delight of company. Two of my guests were temporarily without wives, their wives being elsewhere engaged. I invited Jay because I knew he was alone, but I wondered how he'd like my hard-core liberal friends, conservative that he is. He was charming throughout the evening and we steered away from politics. Conversation ranged from religions--one of my guests is a retired Episcopalian priest, his wife and Jay are both fallen away Catholics--to chili and Terlingua and on to all sorts of other topics. What a joy to cook for these people and be surrounded by good friends. Happy Sunday night, y'all. Now I have a sweet eight-year-old (mostly sweet) to spend the night with me.