"New Year" news and stories

Food is like fashion: full of trends that are hot plates one moment and cold leftovers the next.

Sure, there are fundamentals that will never go out of style, like a well-cooked steak or a creamy bisque. But then there are fads -- Chilean sea bass, sous vide, molecular gastronomy. Like fashion's flashes in the pan, some are gaudy extravaganzas meant to attract attention and instant gratification. On the other hand, some become classics passed down through generations to come. No one can truly predict what the public will embrace, either in the short or long term.

What does the future hold for food trends? What exciting, silly, over-the-top surprises await us tomorrow, besides jet-pack pizza delivery? Drool over these epicurean prognostications and tremble at our ability to peer into the unknown. Here are food trends that we 110 percent guarantee will be served at any point between this new year and 500 years from now.

Down South, New Year's Day means greens, black-eyed peas, cornbread, and pork. Eating the greens and peas augurs well for the New Year, according to Southern superstition, as Marisa explained last year. The cornbread and pork? Those just happen to taste divine with the lucky dishes.

This year, my family opted for a pork loin roast. Instead of roasting it, though, we fired up the grill. Using a recipe from Weber's Real Grilling by Jamie Purviance as a model, I first rubbed a simple dry rub all over the roast and let it cure in the fridge for a few hours.

Then came the glaze. I was eager to use a bottle of small-batch cane syrup produced by and named for a man named Robert E. Long who used to work with my grandfather. He makes and sells it in a tiny northern Florida town called--no joke--Two Egg. The liquor of the syrup is the clearest amber, and I had a feeling it would caramelize beautifully on the pork. I was right. The recipe, and a picture of the syrup bottle, follow the jump.

It's out of my hands to call it a resolution, but more than anything, I want a bigger kitchen. Then my close friend won't get that look of pain every time she sees me trying to juggle my towers of pots and pans, and tell me how she wishes she could buy me a bigger kitchen. But since that resolution rests on a lot more than my own motivation, I'm looking to other tasks to accomplish in the New Year.

Top on the list: Improve my knife skills. I'm about to get the most gorgeous set of Shun Kajis, and it'd be utterly ridiculous to pull them out and use them improperly. Better yet, I want to roast something to carve, grab something to debone, and basically tackle all of the things my super cheapo knives never could. (Sorry, $5 beloved Santoku.)

After that, there's so much that it's hard to pick which take precedence. Do I tackle my new Jacques Pepin's Complete Techniques Alinea at Home-style? (Without the skinning and preparing of the rabbit. That will never happen.) I definitely need to perfect my homemade pasta and tackle the world of homemade ravioli. I need to move beyond marzipan figures on the cakes I make. (Flowers?) I really must bake more bread. And I still haven't found the perfect madelline recipe. It'd also be great to learn how to make sushi, and I really need to whip up more Indian foods.

But what's important is to keep moving forward and keep improving, no matter what I choose to do. Help me choose, and share the kitchen hurdles that you yearn to tackle in the New Year below!

Today is the vernal equinox, or the first official day of spring. A lot of people are happy to see the first day of spring, but it's especially important for the people of Iran, or Persians. For them it's the first day of the celebration of Nowruz, the Persian New Year.

Nowruz has many traditions, including lighting fires and banging pots to beat out the unlucky last day of the year, but most importantly they set the table. There is a symbolic setting on the table, with a special cloth called the sofreh-ye haft-sinn (the setting of seven dishes) consisting of seven lucky and symbolic foods each beginning with the Persian letter sinn. The lucky foods include spouts, apples, the fruit of the wild olive, garlic, sumac berries, and vinegar.

There are several traditional dishes served at a Nowruz party. They all have their symbolic meanings about life and rebirth, health and luck among others. One dish is samanu, a wheat sprout pudding representing rebirth. There is also baklava, chickpea cookies and candied almonds to symbolize prosperity.

All of the food mentioned here sounded great. This is the first year I had heard about Nowruz, but I always like finding out about other cultures. I love finding out about food from other cultures, and finding out about Nowruz has really gotten me excited about Persian food. How about you?