Rooting around the Innertubes for some New Year’s recipes I was congratulating myself on picking a couple of winners, both from The New York Times Cooking section, which by itself is worth the price of a subscription.
One was a simple Hoppin’ John recipe from Bill Neal of Crook’s Corner in Chapel Hill, N.C., as adapted by Craig Claiborne in 1985. The other was a jalapeño cheddar cornbread from Melissa Clark, the franchise player on my pro cooking squad.
But when I crowed about this to Herself I found she’d beaten me to the punch. She’d already found her own recipe and acquired the ingredients for it, too.
Good thing I shot off my big bazoo before heading for the grocery. We’d have been eating Hoppin’ John and cornbread from New Year’s right through St. Patrick’s Day.
Meanwhile, I had to quickly re-establish my primacy as tenzo of this zendo. Facing an economy of scarcity — a lack of fresh red grapes, which I dice up for the morning oatmeal — I displayed my resourcefulness in the kitchen, or “skillful means,” as defined by the late poet-gourmand and Zen student Jim Harrison, by locating a wrinkled honeycrisp apple in the crisper and chopping that up instead. In your face! as the sage Dogen has taught us.
Jimbo hated oatmeal. But he’s dead and didn’t have to eat any of it.
Mad Blog Media 
Oatmeal and pasta are nitro methane fuel for cyclists.
I discovered the joys of steel-cut oatmeal seven or eight years ago. Dried cranberries or dehydrated Jonathan apples, with a sprinkle of cinnamon and a tablespoon of maple syrup, make a fine breakfast. Ten ( 10) days in Scotland will make a believer out you , Porridge and Scones make a great start for a long day. Looking at a Tuscan Peasant soup with French bread and Pecorino Romano crust for New Year’s Day repast. Not black-eyed peas as my best friend’s parents had ( They were from Arkansas and Louisiana, so traditional Southern fare.) But cannelloni beans will do, and a bit of pasta to add body is great start.
Sounds like a great New Year’s meal.
Oatmeal is in the regular breakfast rotation here, either Bob’s Red Mill or McCann’s Irish. Occasionally I’ll slip a little Bob’s Old Country Müesli in there for variety’s sake.
And then there’s yogurt with granola, or eggs, in summer the occasional smoothie, and like that there. Fresh fruit in season as available, dried prunes, and always — always! — toast with Irish butter and French jam to fight the strong black coffee.
overnight steel cut oats in the rice cooker are a winner. Mix some walnuts, almond butter, diced apples or dried fruit, and a dollop of northern Colorado Noosa yogurt.
If I’m home, for a late breakfast or lunch, I’ve been messing around with variations of this, the best thing I ate in 2025:
https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1021096-gilgeori-toast-korean-street-toast-with-cabbage-and-egg?unlocked_article_code=1._k8.UqxU.2GQ2KvoTbdZz&smid=ck-recipe-iOS-share
Oatmeal for breakfast today, and pasta for dinner tonight — an old vegetarian deal from the “Moosewood Cookbook,” pasta al cavolfiore. Muah haah haaah! Nothing can stop me now!
I love the NYT cooking app. I’ve wowed and amazed the GF with the chicken and sausage gumbo. I’ve probably made a dozen of the recipes over the last year or so.
On another topic, have you ever read The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay? It’s about young aspiring comic book artists back in the day. Fun read so far.
NYT has recipes dating back to the Dawn of Time, from chefs like Craig Clairborne, Pierre Franey, and Martha Rose Shulman. And the relative newcomers like Melissa Clark are great, too. Definitely worth the price of admission, even when the homepage is serving up the piping-hot bullshit.
I’ve not read “Kavalier & Clay” yet. Maybe I’ll tackle that next. Right now I’m wading through Thomas Pynchon’s “Vineland,” the inspiration for the movie “One Battle After Another.” Some great language in there, a tale that’s riveting in spots, but he’ll go kyoodling off after some random notion and/or character for 50 or 60 pages and after a few digressions like that the editor in me wants to slap the shit out of him.
And this is supposed to be one of his more “approachable” works, mind you. I’m surprised no one has approached him with a baseball bat and a bad case of malice aforethought.
“In your face” may, to the uninitiated, sound less than enlightened, but as we all know, idiot compassion is a form of dishonesty. Helping each other find their path comes in many forms.