On Tradition

Amongst all the ballyhoo of year's end, year beginning, there are a few reflections roiling around that are worthy of sober consideration.

It is, in a way, the planet's birthday; we are, as a species, another year older. Our replacements, more advanced beings, hopefully, are being born every minute while we watch our own legacy forming.

The river of life passes another identifiable milestone and, despite the gravity of our earthly problems, we do find ourselves carrying on. Persistence is our temporal nobility.

We are, all of us, of an age, part of an era, pinpoints of history, following the machinery of the universe around the corner into winter and the new year. If there is wisdom to be had, we need it.

My ideal celebration of this event would be to lie in a warm, seamless, glass dome in the pasture with a notebook and a pot of tea, just gently reclining under the lovely night sky, waiting to sense the orbital nuance that has already begun to send us slowly on toward summer again.

This has never happened. I have children. I don't have a dome, and I become delicate in cold weather, so I will trust that these things do happen somewhere, that they are palpable, and that someone is paying attention for me.

Meanwhile I will probably fix a bunch of frivolous foods--prodigious quantities of it--for my son's friends, and hope for a replay of Carmina Burana across the midnight hour.

I do think it is reasonable to honor birthdays of all sorts with a bit of philosophy and to declare, accordingly, a banner for oneself, something more rooted in the psyche than resolutions that attempt to sort of mend the edges of things.

It is well known to my loved ones that my tempestuous stomping and hooting needs soothing at times. So my task is easily defined.

I love words and respect their power; therefore when I was reading some lectures recently, wherein the phrase "generous fearlessness" was used to describe the capacity for unselfish love, I felt that amazement one feels when handed a fitting tool for a simple but resistant task.

It might also be useful in contemplating the traditional New Year's Day concoction, Black-Eye Peas and Rice.

We have this every year in my household, not because we like it, but because my husband gives it liturgical significance, along with his lengthy and edifying recitations of the legend of John Barleycorn.

Black-eye peas, on their own, taste like paper pulp, but for the academics in the crowd, soak overnight in cold water:

1-2# dry black-eye peas

You can add a slice of fresh ginger to the water if you want to curtail the usual legumous, after dinner, smoldering and slapstick.

Add a ham hock or bacon ends, big chunks of celery, a sliced carrot or two and a medium onion, diced. For flavor, which it needs, toss in:

1/2 to 1 tsp. celery seed

1/2 tsp. thyme

1/2 bunch chopped fresh parsley

Simmer all day and add salt and pepper to taste.

Serve it hot, with good fluffy rice, Tabasco, vinegar, and as your escape recipe, Best Cornbread with honeybutter on the side.

Preheat oven to 375; stick a 9" black iron skillet into it to get hot.

Blend together:

3/4 C. honey

1/2 C. good salad oil.

Mix in and beat:

2 eggs

Sift together:

3/4 C. white flour

3/4 C. whole wheat flour (or 1 1/2 C. either one)

3 tsp. baking powder

1/8 tsp. salt

1 1/2 C. yellow corn meal.

Blend dry ingredients with creamed mixture alternately with

2/3 C. milk.

When batter is ready, remembering a potholder, add a dab of butter to the skillet and swish it around so that the whole surface and the verticals are covered. Pour the batter in--it will sizzle--and quickly return to the oven for 25 minutes.

Now, for the climax, real Honeybutter, soften and mix together:

1 cube butter

1/2 C. honey

Serve with the cornbread.

Dig in now, heartily, and without trepidation--you are assured of good luck in the new year. We need that, too.