Thursday, January 2, 2014

Happy (Lucky, Healthy?, and Wealthy) New Year

Is it just me, or does 2014 still sound like something that should be far away, not something we’re already in the second day of?  I guess it just takes some getting used to saying and writing a new year.
I hope the new year is treating all of you well, and that your celebrations were fun and safe. We’re pretty low key here in Sweet Tea Land (at least our little corner of it), so we stayed home, made breakfast for dinner (this fabulous pumpkin spice oatmeal), and watched lots of movies. 
On New Year’s Day we made what has become our traditional dinner: collard greens, black-eyed peas, cornbread, and meatloaf.  I know, being a southern girl, you’d expect me to have fatback, but we’re weird about pork in our house.  And hubby was raised by Yankees.  So we’ve just crafted our own New Year’s Day feast.  You can read about the traditional one here, it’s kind of neat how some of these things got started.
The short version is that the collard greens are for wealth, the black-eyed peas for luck, and the fatback for health.  That last part just really amuses me.  People give you the stink eye for eating bacon because it’s “bad”, apparently fatback is “worse” than bacon, but on New Year’s Day it leads to health in the new year.  Maybe I’m just easily amused, but it kind of cracks me up. 
We substitute the meatloaf largely because it goes so well with collard greens and black eyed peas, which we love.  And you really can’t go wrong with cornbread.  Hopefully the meatloaf works, and we’re all set for a lucky, healthy, and wealthy new year.  What is your traditional New Year’s Day meal?

8 comments:

  1. Your meal sounded delicious and I'm glad you told me what the foods represented. When I was growing up, our traditional New Year's meal was pork chops and sauerkraut and my mom would put in lima beans with the sauerkraut to make it not so tart. Nowadays we don't really have much of a tradition what to eat on New Year's Day. I know what you mean, its unbelievable it is 2014! I remember 2000 so clearly and it seems just like yesterday.

    betty

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    1. I think the old meanings for the foods are kind of interesting. It is odd to think about all of the hype around 2000, and now we're well over a decade past that. Time flies!

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  2. lol oh that is kinda funny! Sometimes we do New Years up big. This year not so much. Pizza was on the table. lol And ice cream. Even though it was in the 30s. ::snort::

    Hope yall have a great 2014. And yes. That is so weird to type!

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    1. I'm glad it amuses someone else. :-) You can't go wrong with pizza and ice cream.

      Happy New Year to you.

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  3. That meal of yours sure sounds delicious! I love collard greens -- how come I'm not wealthy??? LOL, just kidding. :)

    Happy New Year!

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    1. I'm pretty sure animal rescue and wealth are not compatible. :-)

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