Family Tradition

First, let me note that the only way to say the first word of this title is famlee, if you say fam-i-ly correct yourself and read it again. One of my time honored traditions is New Year's Day. It's not my favorite holiday, it's just the one that I have a ridiculous number of superstitions around. Actually it's the only thing in life that I have superstitions for as I really don't believe in superstitions...unless it's the new year. I make black eyed peas for luck, I make collards for wealth. I've always made corn bread because "you have to", but then I found out that it's to represent gold so that explains where the "you have to" came from. I request (read demand) that the Christmas decorations are safely put away in the attic where the old can't hold back the promise of the new and for the same reason, last year's calendars find their way to the trash for the same reason. If you wash your clothes you wash away your love so you just don't do that mmmkay. Like I said, I have some rules.

The best part is that I usually prep the meal in the morning and we just sort of eat on it all day. The kids eat it as part of tradition...not out of joy of the meal but we are working on that. While I cook, for the past few years, I have a little play list I put together of classic hits of my Southern childhood and I listen to it excessively loud in my headphones. Throughout the year I'll occasionally remember a song and add it in. Think Dolly, Hank (Junior mostly), Willy, Waylon, Skynard, Alabama, Garth, Kenny (Rodgers not Chesney), Cash, Charlie Daniels. The songs my mom would sing at the top of her lungs dancing around the kitchen, snapping her fingers doing this awkward little dance that makes me realize how genetic my lack of grace is. I loved it. I have a very very complicated relationship with my father, but these were songs he introduced to me while driving after picking me up for his custody weekends. These were songs my Memaw played in the kitchen radio while drinking coffee you could stand a spoon in, smoking, and putting together puzzles with me way past my bed time (in later years she stopped smoking and the country changed to gospel, but the early years really stuck). The songs that would blare from my dad's speakers (step-dad... he's my dad, and that's all there is to it) while we worked on the house with our friends who are family from hunt club. I didn't grow up with much as they say where I come from, but I grew up with a hell of a lot more than others. I grew up with more dysfunction and trauma in childhood than any of us usually talk about in polite company. My running joke with hunter is the only family legacy we tend to have is debt and mental dysfunction...but be damned if I'd give any of my childhood away. It was messy but it was beautiful. My best memories are in the kitchen with my Mom, or Granny, or Memaw. I can close my eyes and see Granny shucking corn and cutting it off the cob and scraping the cob to make fresh creamed corn. I sat the the floor and shelled purple hull peas. I watched Memaw make buckeyes, of which she always sent a batch home for momma, because even decades after divorcing my father, she still knew how much momma liked those buckeyes. Mom and I fuss at each other in the kitchen, but that's what we do. You can bet I watch how she makes chicken and dressing like a hawk and I still call her when I make peach cobbler (I get the damn cobbler dish Nic, it's mine ya hear?). I realize now, as an adult why food is so important to me. When you don't come from much, food is love. When you start your prep you mentally think about the people you are serving. The people you are providing sustenance and life. If you've ever eaten in my home or I've made food for you, assume you are loved. My home is my cave, I'm not great about inviting people in, and if I cook for you it is my joy to serve you and my honor to hold you in my heart as I go through my tasks in the kitchen. Cooking and having my food appreciated is honestly the best compliment you could ever give me. I love being told I'm doing a good job in the gym or at work, but if you like my food...well that's just something magical and warm and fuzzy. When people don't like my food it's like they are telling me they don't like me or the love I'm offering (stupid I know, its just how I feel). Over winter break I had the extreme joy of cooking for my brother and his partner some, and for the natives and hunter every day. I think I cooked from sun up to sun down most days and it felt good. We had a visit from the Covid Fairy just like what seems to be half of the world, but even that seemed mostly okay for me mentally and I swear its because I was able to channel my fears and worries in to cooking. I can't fix the world but I can make this food and love you and we will be fine right? I missed the gym during quarantine but I didn't need it like I needed my cranberry wreaths and gingerdead cookies. I didn't need to write and in fact I barely remember the process of cooking most of these meals...but they were made with love and joy. So enjoy these pictures of food, and find some way to show your love to your people. Happy New Year and Cheers to Golden Memories from the past.