Resolutions? "Folly, folly, all folly!"

 Tell us how you really feel about New Year's Resolutions, Phyllis McGinley!

Phyllis McGinley: "I'm not sure anyone over forty should make a resolution."

Being over 40, or even 60 since 60 is evidently the new forty, I have no problem ignoring any desire to make New Year's Resolutions. (Let's not even discuss what over 70 might be.)

Any further arguments against resolutions from the 1961 Pulitzer prize winning poet?

Phyllis McGinley:  We promise to deprive ourselves of the trivial comforts that may be all that stand between us and frenzy. Coffee, for instance, or that martini before dinner...

Folly, folly, all folly! Those promises might stand a chance of being kept in June, say, with the spirits burgeoning along with roses and summer barbecues. In spring, when the year really begins. But in winter, no.

 Applause, applause!!

No, I intend to spoil myself with every small comfort January 2021 will offer, although my comforts tend to run to fresh flowers and perfume and a good book rather than martinis. (Let's not talk about desserts here, either.)

I'm not about to turn down anyone else offering to spoil me, either.

No, siree, bring it on!

What Was Cooking on New Year's Day?

While some of the menu for New Year's Day at our house may change from year to year, there are always collards in the pot and black-eyed peas. 

But before I get to that meal, let me wish everyone a very happy and healthy 2019! It is so very kind of you to visit here at this odd little duck of a blog where I am the only one quacking away. 

While I love blogging at Dewena's Window where friends drop by to carry on two-way conversations, Across the Way is a place where I can write more often of the little moments in my life that I don't want to let slip away.  

So thank you so much for continuing to come here to Across the Way! I hope that your New Year's Eve was pleasant and that 2019 presents you with opportunities for meaningful work and relationships and growth of spirit.

RH and I enjoyed a quiet New Year's Eve at home with BreeBree and James Mason and had one of the most comforting soups in my repertoire for an early supper, Cook's Illustrated Farmhouse Vegetable & Barley Soup.

Recipe here! I tried to link directly to the magazine's recipe that I use but evidently you have to be a member to do that and who needs another password to keep up with, right? But I found the same recipe that you can print out. 

On New Year's Day morning, RH started cooking pork chops in his favorite black iron skillet. 

With it we allowed ourselves a special treat that before we've only made when family was with us, Silver Palates Fabulous Croissant French Toast. I found a recipe link for you that the Chicago Tribune had for it in a column they did back in 1985, here.

I'd been saving these croissants that were on sale at the deli after Christmas. I gathered my ingredients while RH was cooking the pork chops.

Why two bowls? One recipe with lactose free milk for RH and half and half for me in the other one--Publix was out of heavy cream the day after Christmas but this was almost as good. And I was out of Triple Sec but substituted Chambord instead.

I set the table with two plates from a stack of old restaurant china I have, The Clock restaurant.

Breakfast was so good! Then we started cooking for an early supper, RH washing the collards and doing the tedious job of cutting the heavy part of the stem out of each leaf while I started the bacon cooking and the onions after the bacon came out of the pan. 

I don't use the hog jowls that most people do here in the South when cooking collards. It was only when I first tried Gourmet magazine's recipe for collards (here) that I discovered I loved collards.

I'd soaked the black-eyed peas overnight and got them going next and then got the small pork loin ready to roast.

I use a recipe from my old Southern Sideboards cookbook for that, a favorite with the excellent introduction by Wyatt Cooper, Anderson Cooper's father.

This is a Junior League cookbook and those are always good. My copy is falling apart, I've used it so much for decades. During this year's holiday season I've made three or four recipes from it. I do add some Boar's Head sauerkraut to this dish the last half hour of cooking.

This was more cooking than I usually do for just the two of us but New Year's Day is special. And it was one of those cloudy days where it was fun to be in the kitchen for hours. And I had this beautiful amaryllis 'Caprice' from White Flower Farm to keep me company. There are four blooms open now but yesterday the first two opened.

Here's a closeup. Red amaryllis are my favorite, double ones at that, but we forgot to bring them in before frost so I was in the mood for a pink one for my kitchen, in the silver golf trophy bucket with moss from our yard tucked around the base.

I sat down to rest after everything was cooking and the dishwasher loaded and caught up with some blog friends. RH got some much needed relaxing done while watching marathon Firefly episodes on television in between checking on his favorite football games.

At last our first supper of 2019 was ready and we sat down to the table and gave thanks for the meal and the blessing of living in our cozy house on Home Hill.

We know not what the future holds in 2019 but we know that the Heavenly Father will be there with us every day and night. And I am always like a child looking forward to Christmas morning on New Year's Day. I am expectantly watching for the gifts that each day will bring.

As Abbie Graham writes about the gifts of a new year, I will watch for "the gift of hours and far-seeing moments, the gift of mornings and evenings, the gift of spring and summer, the gift of autumn and winter."

Happy New Year dear family and friends!