Big Bowl of Luck - Mary's New Year's Day Stew

This is my version of a recipe I stumbled across in a "comfort food" article in Cooking Light - so props to those guys. Of course it has changed to the point that they might not recognize it (or claim it!)

Give yourself an hour and a half before you want to eat, just to make sure everything is well-cooked and delish.

Ingredients:

• 2 cups dried black-eyed peas (if you soak the peas overnight, you can cut down on the cooking time)
• 1 tbsp oil (safflower,peanut whattever ya got)
• 1 medium yellow onion, diced
• 8 oz or more of turkey or chicken andouille sausage, sliced (Applegate farms makes a spectacular one, and it really takes the dish from good to amazing. You can probably find it frozen at the health food store. If you don't have luck finding it, just use whatever you can find - Italian sausage, kielbasa...)
• 5-6 cups of chicken or vegetable broth (I like chicken broth)
• 1 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp ground black pepper
• 1/2 tsp crushed red pepper
• 2 bay leaves
• 1 14-oz can diced tomatoes (I like the fire-roasted ones)
• 1 bunch of mustard greens, collard greens, or kale - washed and diced (Or a bag of pre-washed, pre-diced. But wash them again anyway!)

Cooking it up:

• Sort and wash peas, set aside
• Heat oil in a large saucepan over medium heat. Add onion, cook 3-5 minutes until tender, add sausage and cook 4-5 minutes until lightly browned (it's already cooked)
• Stir in 5 cups broth, bring to a boil. Stir in peas, salt, peppers, and bay leaves. Lower heat and simmer for 45 minutes.
• Stir in tomatoes. If using kale or collard greens, add them now. If mustard greens, wait.
• Simmer uncovered for 15 minutes until the peas and greens are soft, and the liquid has thickened. If the liquid reduces before the peas are soft, add a bit more stock.
• If using mustard greens, add in now. Cook another 5-10 minutes, just until greens are cooked and peas are soft.
• Discard bay leaves, taste and adjust seasonings. If you used andouille sausage, it's spicy! If not, you may want more heat.
• Eat. It's even better the next day! Delicious with corn bread.

Wishing all a happy, healthy, and prosperous new year!

Reading: The Given Day, by Dennis Lehane

Listening to: "Toast of the Nation" NPR's New Year's Eve Jazz program, and sporadic neighborhood "celebratory" gunfire.

Blooming: Amaryllis, finally!

Body Snatched by Martha: One Woman's Story

I've been having a tough holiday season, just can't get in the SPIRIT. Things that usually make me very happy - making, buying, and wrapping gifts - have actually been chores. It puzzles me. But...it gets worse. I've been dragging my feet on things I really enjoy - like my doorway.

Not only that, I've been putting together an extemely odd hearth decoration. I usually go for the green, semi-rustic, holiday-of-the-earth kinda thing. Picture lots of fresh greenery and kraft wrap.

I started thinking about red...not to weird. And I pulled out some whitewashed tin angels of my mom's, also not toooooo weird. But then it started to come together in this odd 80's red and white tableau that I can only explain by being possessed by spirits. When I found myself actually contemplaing the faux snow-tipped faux greens at the dollar store, I knew something was seriously wrong. Instead of checking myself into a psych ward (probably full for the holidays anyway) I gave myself up to it. I mean, remember Richard Dreyfus sculpting mud and mashed potatoes into the place he just HAD to go? That kinda turned out OK. And I didn't really have any other plans.

Some fake red berries and red candles later (no faux greens, *whew* - but I woulda gone there if led), here's my hearth. It's so weirdly ugly, I kinda like it.

Stark. Slightly unwelcoming. Breakable. The only explanation - I was body snatched. And Martha may have been doing me a favor because if I hadn't been possessed, I probably wouldn't have done a seasonal hearth at all. And the strange apple smell coming from the candles is kinda nice. Almost holiday-like.

Reading: The Other Queen

Listening to: Nickel Creek

Blooming: Amaryllis (almost)

Ping Pong Weather

Serves me right. I've been whining about summer weather in winter, and now that I've gotten used to it, it's leaving. 75 degrees yesterday, hard freeze tonight. This has been going on all season. Weirdly warm, a cold front blows through with rain, then deep freeze. Then warm, then cold, then warm, then cold...back and forth, back and forth...ping pong weather.

In moderation, this cycle makes absolute sense. But the temperature swings are enormous. Plants sprout, then freeze. The heat is on, then the AC. Coats, then t-shirts. And colds. Everyone has colds. A friend mentioned that she noticed that everyone - everyone - was getting sick this year, and my casual poll agrees.

So, time to pull out the plant blankies, bring in firewood before the rain, and snuggle in with iced tea. No! Hot chocolate.

I'm so confused.

Reading: Anne Tyler's Digging to America

Listening to: John Fahey Acoustic Christmas Carols

Blooming: Indigo Salvia

Fly By Night

This surprised me: I just discovered that night-time flying can make me profoundly sad. It hasn't been true in the past; I've never avoided night-time flights per se, just red-eyes. But last night I flew from Phoenix to Atlanta, changed planes around sunset, then on to Savannah. It was that last leg, when there was no movie and no beverage service, when they dimmed the cabin lights and the only sound apart from the hum of the engines was the low murmur of flight attendant conversations from the galley kitchen - that's when it started.

I got up - the lavatory sign said vacant (is that word used anywhere else any more?) and I managed to hop over my sleeping seat mate without waking him. Before I tried to repeat the move to get back to my seat, I looked at the cluster of travelers near me. Most slept. Where else do you see strangers so nakedly? The tough-guy businessman clutched a pillow to his chest - and I mean clutched. The everything-in-place woman snored She might have been drooling. The aging rocker/manager/engineer, faded black t-shirt stretched tight, slept with his head to the side, revealing that the longish salt-and-pepper hair was actually a wig.

The few who wanted to sleep but couldn't leaned forward to catch their book-magazine-laptop in the cone of light from above. I'm usually in that group, but my cone was empty - I was still looking at the other passengers from the aisle. There we all were, at thirty thousand feet. It just made me sad. Or maybe lonely.

I suppose if you're in college or on a traveling team of some kind, if you're in the military or part of a large family, you see quite enough of other people's frayed hems. But if you live alone like I do, it's searingly intimate. I see you sleep the way only your significant other does. I know what you carry in your purse. I see how you edit your work. I know what kind of socks you wear. I know things about you that you would never tell me, even if we flew next to each other all day long.

When I got home, it stuck with me. It stuck to the clothes I shed, to the suitcase I'd lugged in from the car. Maybe it was that the house was cold and I hadn't picked up the dog yet. Maybe it was a lot of nights without sleep, maybe - sheesh - I just need to get out more. At any rate, I'm booking daylight flights from here on out. Just to be safe.

Reading: Ethan Canin's America America

Listening to: The fire in the fireplace

Blooming: Dragon-leaf begonia