And may it be lucky for you too!
I’m a little superstitious. I like to do (read ‘eat’ here) lucky things for the New Year. New Year’s Eve for us was particularly calm. We went to Henrietta’s Table for a divine late lunch and then we had a quiet evening at home for reflection. We finally broke open the one jar of holiday spiced cherries that we made at the beginning of our preserving this summer and served it over cake. Nom.
Holiday spiced cherries and their delicious syrup over cake.
Then, on New Year’s Day, we made sure we had a very lucky day with lucky food. For breakfast, we had coin sized pancakes with butter and maple syrup. Anything that looks like coins or money is generally considered lucky.
Coin pancakes for prosperity for the new year.
For dinner, we chose a more Southern approach with beans and greens.
Yellow eyed beans from Maine. They also resemble coins for prosperity.
Greens of any type symbolize money. Usually collards are the traditional pairing, but we only had green cabbage for greens, which I cooked up with some bacon and our home-made apple cider vinegar.
Cabbage=money. Who'd have thought.....
We also used a ham hock to cook the beans and vegetables with. Two uses of pork in the meal is very lucky. Pigs only root forward, which symbolizes a forward view to the year- not looking back on the past.
Cornbread out of the cast iron skillet. Nom.
Lastly, I made cornbread. Is cornbread lucky? Dunno. It felt appropriate for the meal, though. Maybe the corn kernels that I ground into meal also symbolize coins? Either way, I think it went well with the rest of the meal.
New Year's Day Meal: Yellow eyed beans with vegetables and ham hock, wilted cabbage with bacon, and cornbread.
And thus our new year was started on the right gastronomic foot: lucky local food. 
What else have we been up to? Not too much, the same old winter local cooking right now.
A lovely medley of carrots, potato, celeriac, and parsnips getting ready for roasting for a winter vegetable salad.
We got quite a few awesome winter eating cookbooks as presents for the holidays that we’ll be trying out in the next months. We will certainly keep you posted on those developments. I’m certainly excited!
Wishing you all a very lucky 2012.
Can you share your skillet cornbread recipe? I dont have any corn to grind down but I’ve been looking for a good recipe and yours looks yummmy.
Hi Lindsey,
I’d be super happy to share our cornbread recipe. This one is our favorite, from Nikki and David Goldbeck’s American Wholefoods Cuisine. We posted the recipe a while back on a post, but I will repeat it for you, because it stands to be repeated.
House Corn Bread: ( makes 8 pieces)
1 tbsp butter
3/4 cup cornmeal
1 egg, beaten
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup yogurt
1/2 cup milk
1 tbsp honey
Preheat oven to 425 F.
Put butter in pan (and put in oven for a minute or so) or preheated cast iron skillet to melt butter in your baking vessel.
Mix the remaining ingredients together.
Pour the mix into the hot baking dish.
Bake for 30 minutes until done.
Adoringly love your moist, complex, slightly sweet cornbread.
We’ve also found cooking it for 45-50 min at 400 works even better.
I hope that helps!