Happy 2011 and Why I'm Eating Beans and Greens

Wishing everyone a happy and prosperous New Year!

I did my part by cooking and eating "a mess of greens and beans." Black-eyed peas and collard greens, which you eat on New Year's Day to bring you good luck and prosperity.  The greens represent cash, and the peas are coins. The cornbread--corn pone-- must represent Debit cards...my cornbread was pretty flat and crusty.

But, surrounded by Yankees at one point, I couldn't explain to them why beans & greens bring prosperity.

So I did a little armchair research--via Google.

From Suite 101: One idea is that, "American slaves stayed up on December 31, 1862 waiting for the bill that President Abraham Lincoln signed - the Emancipation Proclamation – to go into effect. They celebrated with what they had – black eyed peas ad greens."

And the not so exciting theory: " Black eyed pea and greens tradition is shared across cultural and ethnic boundaries, so it seems more likely that black eyed peas which keep well when dried and collards which are seasonal in the South in December/January made sense for a New Year meal."

I've also heard that after the civil war and Sherman's march, there wasn't much left but greens and beans.

Never mind. It's a good meal..beans & greens.

I don't throw in a ham hock, though. I'm vegetarian, so I use olive oil and jalapenos.

From Suite101: New Years Black Eyed Peas and Collard Greens: Why Do Southerners Eat Peas and Greens on Jan 1? http://www.suite101.com/content/new-years-black-eyed-peas-and-collard-greens-a183025#ixzz19ua6zVtj

Lovely 2010

Happy New Year!

Happy New Decade...

I celebrated New Year's Day by cooking up a mess of Beans & Greens-- for luck and prosperity. 

Collard greens = cash
Black-eyed peas = coins and change [and stocks...yeah, why not?]


I don't use meat to season-- just olive oil, garlic, onions and hot peppers.

The sweet potatoes--with a pat of butter and a dash of brown sugar--  add a dash of color and sweet. . . the biscuit?  I ran out of corn meal for corn bread.

It was delish.

Taming the Monkey Mind

Happy 2009.

I spent a couple of golden hours on New Year's Day at a meditation class, "A Yogic Approach to Making and Keeping Resolutions for Constructive Change" taught by Dan Salmon and Jan Maslow.

I usually make typical New Year's resolutions and goals based on something I want to change or improve, but in the last couple of years it's occurred to me there's a better way of goal-setting.

First, I've discovered it's always better to work from your strengths, talents, passions, than your weaknesses. (The best managers, teachers, leaders know this.) Focus on the positive and it strengthens and brightens, eclipsing the negative. Spending a lot of time on correcting weaknesses drains energy and wastes time. In Zen-speak, it's not accepting What Is. Besides, what you resist, persists. (Mother Theresa: "I was once asked why I don't participate in anti-war demonstrations. I said that I will never do that, but as soon as you have a pro-peace rally, I'll be there.")

Goal setting from a yogic perspective emerges during meditation, from a quiet mind.
I know, I know. Easier said than done--but practicing does help tame the "monkey mind." And I have a very hyper jittery monkey mind. The kind that jumps and pirouettes and hisses and frisks passersby for peanuts with its little leathery hands.

Here are the steps for goal setting, as our teachers explained yesterday:

1. Finding Stillness. Let go of all concerns about goals; be open to the ever-present stillness, calm and joy within.

2. Goals emerging from stillness. Observe--without judging-- what goals/visions emerge from your deepest consciousness.

3. Dealing with obstacles from a place of inner stillness. Without reaction or judgment, see what negative "stories" you are telling yourself (from that incessant narrator in your head, that chattering little monkey) about who you are and what obstacles you think may present themselves on the way to achieving your goals. Replace the negative stories with positive ones.

4. Creative visualization. When you are calm and centered, experience what it feels like to have achieved the goal. What does the success feel like now? Picture it as if it is already a reality. A number of professional athletes often use such visualization techniques to improve their performances. Modern neuroscience supports the power of visualization.

5. Practice. Develop a regular practice of going within, centering, and then, from that place of calmness, use creative visualization to reinforce the progress toward your goals.

Beans & Greens

Ah, New Year's Day. One of my favorite holidays. Better than Christmas or Thanksgiving. There's none of that frenzied pace, but a day of R&R--at least in my house: Relaxation and Resolutions.

Relaxing-- post-party-- from the night before (with maybe a hair-of-the-dog Mimosa to kick off the day.) And then a languorous afternoon of reflection and writing down (or about) the year's resolutions.

And of course, on the stove, big pots of collard greens (seasoned with olive oil, garlic, crushed red pepper) and black-eyes peas (soaked overnight, then cooked for hours). Corn bread baking, and potatoes mashed and buttered. Also, something chocolate.

Beans and greens on New Year's Day bring good fortune and wealth-- the "greens" are cash, the peas are coins. I've heard this traditional menu started after the Civil War, when collard/turnip/mustard greens and black-eyed peas were about the only crops left in the South.
I wouldn't start a new year without it.