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Posts Tagged ‘recipes’

A Recipe for a Lucky Year

Posted in Food, Journeys, tagged Black-eyed peas, Hoppin' John, new year, recipes on January 3, 2019| 4 Comments »

Hoppin’ John: A southern recipe — Wikimedia photo

“Superstition is foolish, childish, primitive and irrational – but how much does it cost you to knock on wood?” — Judith Viorst

Black-Eyed Peas and Hoppin’ John

I had my black-eyed peas on New Year’s Day. My brother, who lives in a first-floor apartment beneath my third-floor apartment gave me some. They were good, and I am grateful. He cooked them with ham and onion. No telling how much bad luck I would have had if I hadn’t eaten them.

I’m not sure everyone knows what I’m talking about, but my southern readers almost certainly do. You eat black-eyed pea on New Year’s Day so you will have luck during the coming year. Why, you ask? Until I did a little bit of research yesterday, I would have probably answered: “Just because.”

Pepper. on right, and her best friend Dusty, enjoying a lazy day. It’s cold outside today in Tucson. — Photo by Pat Bean

But, thanks to the good ole Internet, here’s what I discovered.

“The practice of eating black-eyed peas for luck is generally believed to date back to the Civil War. At first, planted as food for livestock, and later a food staple for slaves in the South, the fields of black-eyed peas were ignored as Sherman’s troops destroyed or stole other crops, thereby giving the humble, but nourishing, black-eyed pea an important role as a major food source for surviving Confederates.” — TripSavy

Wikipedia, which repeats but doubts the Sherman story, also suggests that black-eyed peas were a symbol of emancipation for African-Americans who had previously been enslaved, and who after the Civil War were officially freed on New Year’s Day.

My favorite black-eyed pea dish, which I also cook during the year and not just on New Year’s Day is Hoppin’ John. My version includes dried black-eyed peas cooked with ham hock, onion, and salt to taste, with rice added at the end as well as a goodly dousing of Worchester Sauce.

Bean Pat: The Value of One Chicken https://windbreakhouse.wordpress.com/2019/01/03/a-chicken-in-every-house/

Now available on Amazon

Common sense from one of my favorite writers.

Pat Bean is a retired journalist who lives in Tucson with her canine companion Pepper. She is a wondering-wanderer, avid reader, enthusiastic birder and is always searching for life’s silver lining. Check out her book Travels with Maggie, available on Amazon, to learn more.

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The Meaning of Vertiginous

Posted in Journeys, tagged butterflies, Dr. Seuss, recipes, soup, Vertiginous on January 27, 2014| 2 Comments »

“I like nonsense; it wakes up the brain cells. Fantasy is a necessary ingredient in living; it’s a way of looking at life through the wrong end of a telescope. Which is what I do, and that enables you to laugh at life’s realities.” – Dr. Seuss

I’m always chasing butterflies. — Photo by Pat Bean

And Leftovers Soup

“Look up vertiginous” was a note I wrote to myself when I came across the word a while back while reading. I just came across the note again this morning — while looking through my daybook in hopes that a blogging topic would pop into my mind.

They cheer up any day. — Photos by Pat Bean

I’m normally never at a loss for words, but an ear problem this past week has blurred my thoughts. When I looked the word up, I decided it was as good an excuse as any for my lazy blogging week. Vertiginous means something that makes you dizzy or gives you vertigo, which my ear pain sort of did to me.

I forgot in what context the word was used in my reading, but laughed at the sentence the dictionary used to explain its meaning: “my small mind contained in earthly human limits, not lost in vertiginous space and elements unknown” — Diana Cooper. Just such a sentence is probably what made me write the note to myself in the first place.

Back almost to normal, re my ear infection, I decided this morning to clean out the refrigerator and make leftover soup.

The soup ingredients included a cup of chicken stock, about a cup of leftover bloody mary mix (sans the alcohol), one small diced turnip, one/fourth head of a small cabbage, one/fourth of an onion diced small, a handful of chopped carrots, one/fourth pound beef sausage sliced thin, a stalk of celery and salt to taste.

I cooked the mixture in my small slow cooker until the cabbage was soft and the other veggies still a bit crispy. I think it’s yummy, not vertiginous at all