New Year

For my Australian friends, it is already New Year's Day, so I wish you all a wonderful New Year with everything you wish for yourselves with health, wealth and prosperity. Of course I wish everyone else the same thing and I promise I won't phone my UK family and friends at 5 a.m. their time. I think its fun, but most of them don't. If anyone phoned me at that time on New Year's Morning, I would just laugh at it. We aren't doing anything special, just having a nice supper treating ourselves to a Chateaubriand, some asparagus and Portabella mushrooms and probably some Borgonzola cheese as a dessert. I might manage a mince pie later in the evening, I will have to see. Around midnight I will drink a glass of champagne (or two) and then I just might eat some black eyed peas. Black-eyed peas you say? That is a tradition I picked up in NC. Early on New Year's day they served black eyed peas cooked up with some onion, peppers and celery. Very tasty actually. During NY Day they eat pigs feet and collards. This is supposed to ensure you a happy New Year. In the UK the old tradition was to eat 12 mince pies between Christmas and New Year. I forgot to buy collards; sorry, pigs feet I only eat when roasted crispy and you don't see them like that here very often. Yes, I could do them myself but I suspect Matt wouldn't eat them. Also at midnight we will watch the crystal ball descend in Times Square, New York City. That has become something of a tradition with us. Although when we first started watching it wasn't a crystal ball. Now it is made of Waterford Crystal and in fact there is a new one this year. If you click here you can see more pictures and read about the changes they have made including the ability to make all kinds of colour patterns. It is also more eco friendly as it has LED lights. The article says it is watched all over the world, but I would have thought a lot of the world would be fast asleep by the time it is dropped. I am not going to post a recipe today, I don't think anyone will be interested in recipes and anyway, will have cooked anything they want to eat today. I haven't yet made my bean dish with the cilantro I promised to write about. Sorry, will probably do so later this week. To every one of my readers, I wish you the very best for 2009 and hope everything will turn out the way you would like and that you will "suffer" good health throughout the year.

HAPPY NEW YEAR