Happy New Year, all! Hope everyone had a warm, festive Eve and is relatively headache-free and rested post-revelry. Now, there are as many ways to prepare the cowpea and rice concoction of Hoppin' John as there are squares on a calendar, but in many parts of the American South, the definitive date to simmer up a big ol' pot of it is New Year's Day. While the name's origin is still the subject of some debate -- some scholars asserting that it's a corruption of "pois a pigeon," a Carribean dish enjoyed by Southern slaves while still in their native land, and others claiming it's derived from a 13th century Iraqi dish called "bhat kachang" -- the dish's fans maintain that eating it ensures good luck for the coming year. This may well be superstition, but I'm inclined toward any angle that's gonna get a bowlful of it in front of me on a chilly January 1st.

My grand revelation of the day (though likely hardly news to many of you) is that cowpeas are the genus for the group that contains blackeye peas (most commonly used in Hoppin' John), catjang, and yardlong beans. They're also called crowder peas.

Some recipes for Hoppin' John contain tomatoes or okra, and the swap in of okra for the beans makes it a Limpin' Susie.

Got a favorite variation? Share it below, and peruse my favorite recipe after the jump.

There are few holiday dishes so polarizing as green bean casserole. If it was part of your usual Yuletide feast growing up, the stuff is sacrosanct and utterly essential to holiday joy. The bulk of it -- the french-cut green beans, cream of mushroom soup and French-fried onion strings -- must come blopping and clattering from cans and be baked in a casserole until it resembles a roiling green bog topped with a dry moss of frizzled onion straws. There are always seconds, and there's hardly ever any left over for a midnight refrigerator picnic.

If you didn't grow up with it skulking on the holday table, gosh darn does that stuff look ten-foot-pole nasty.

Got a Prosecco cocktail that's the life of every party? Folks begging you for your Kosher kugel secrets? Sneak a few minutes while everyone around you is slogging through their post-holiday-feast comas and submit your best recipes. At stake -- trips, cash, kitchen gear, and culinary bragging rights for the rest of 2009. Break a ladle!

Are we missing any? Post 'em in the comments below.


Pillsbury's Make America Sweeter Contest

Boboli's Great American City Tour Pizza Recipe Contest

Tutti Foodie's Chocolate Adventure Contest

Pepperidge Farms's Puff Pastry to Paris Recipe Contest

Simply Manischewitz Cook-Off Contest

Mama Mary's Official Pizza Creations Recipe Contest

Mionetto Mixology Cocktails Contest

Jose Ole Coolest Mom Recipe Contest

4th Annual Hood Holiday Recipe Contest

Taste of Home America's Best-Loved Recipes Contest

Crisco Grilling Hall of Fame (Get the skinny from Marisa's earlier post.)

Paula Deen's Treasure Hunt

The Next Hungry Man Dinner

Lo these many years ago, a UK-born boss of mine attempted to wheedle me into swifter production by offering me a small mincemeat pie if I finished a pressing task by 4 p.m. I begged to be allowed to take only half if I knocked it out by 3, and remain fully un-minced if I had everything squared away by 2.

In theory, I should love traditional mincemeat. I'm a huge fan of a meat 'n sweet one-two punch -- especially when there's cookin' booze involved -- but I've never been able to wrap my head around the flavor of suet. It's the hard fat from around the loins and kidneys of sheep and cows, isn't especially full and meaty like lard, and is possessed of a particularly high melting point, making it the perfect base fat for many classic British steamed puddings. It seems to be the definitive flavoring agent in all the mincemeat I've had, but I've not been able to convince myself to care for it. I tend to be a stickler when it comes to ingredient lists for traditional dishes from my vintage cookbooks, but I'm wondering if there's a fat I can sub in that would render a texture that would cleave closely to the original. Most suet-centric recipes I've come across warn that the use of butter, margarine, lard, shortening et al leaves the whole dish overly greasy and flat, but if any of y'all have met with a successful swap, I'm all ears. There may even be a bit of Spotted Dick in it for you.

Other Cooking and Traveling the Cape Cod Way highlights include Forefather's Day Succotash (look for that recipe on December 21st), Beach Plum Jelly, Irish Moss Pudding, Scootin'-Long-The-Shore, Skully Joe and a wicked lot of mouthwatering Portuguese cookery. I'm more than happy to share if there's any interest.

For weeks now, everywhere you turn, it has been Thanksgiving as far as the eye can see. Here at Slashfood, we posted three menus, a bevy of side dishes and some excellent suggestions for wines to drink with your meals. At The Kitchn, they've been talking pie since November 1st (that's a lot of pie). Ree, The Pioneer Woman, has photographed so many Thanksgiving recipes I'm astounded she can still bear to be in her kitchen. And every newspaper section in the country has written about turkey, apples, pumpkins and cranberries ad naseum.

The thing is that for all these recipes, tips, suggestions and turkey tricks, how many of us actually vary our Thanksgiving day menu from year to year? I'm serving up a meal this year for the holiday that is very much like the one I've eaten with my family since I could first gum a couple of spoonfuls of mashed potato.

Over at Slate, Regina Schrambling has written a piece that describes just this conundrum - food sections, blogs and magazines who feel the need to reinvent the holiday each year, when most people turn to the familiar recipes they've been making for years. It's a good read that will get you in the mood to head to the kitchen and cook up your Thanksgiving favorites.

Here's a Thanksgiving post from the archives that contains a whole heap of turkey roasting knowledge that will come in handy right about now. Written by former Slashfoodie (and current Culinate guest blogger) Sarah Gilbert, these tips will have you handling your bird like a pro.

• Start with a clean, dry bird. Remove whatever giblets and random turkey parts are inside the bird, rinse with cold water in your sink, and pat dry with paper towels, inside and out.
  
• Rub with butter, salt and sage. Sage is the classic poultry roasting herb, and is good fresh or dried (I like the powdered "rubbed sage" for easy application). Get your butter nice and soft, roll up your sleeves, and start rubbing. Salt and other herbs and spices can be sprinkled on or mixed with the butter.
• Roast the bird unstuffed. Your turkey will cook more evenly if you put the stuffing on the side in a casserole. I've stuffed many a bird, but the marginal flavor benefit the stuffing receives seems small in comparison to the safety and ease an unstuffed bird ensures.
  
• Roast alone in a large, heavy-bottomed pan. My turkey gets cooked on the pan (not on the rack) in a big hard anodized roasting pan I purchased on sale one year. It's great for creating those crackly bits and making gravy on the stove later.
  

I've never really understood why the holidays hold an embargo on particular dishes. Thanks to modern methods of Frankenfarming, it's possible to obtain the ingredients for green bean casserole, pumpkin pie and cranberry sauce at any point in Earth's annual orbit. It's not as if some celestial window opens up and renders these dishes intrinsically more delicious in the final 1/12th of the year or that the body cannot physically process mincemeat prior to November.

Likely, it's that "tradition" thing that folks and advertisers are so nutty about at this time of year, but I'm sticking by my pet theory that one of our culture's forefathers had a Great Aunt Mildred who insisted on bringing her Tuna-Jell-O Nut Fluff Surprise to each and every family gathering throughout the year and he figured out a clever way to if not end, then at least curtail the frequency.

The first time that I cooked Thanksgiving dinner for my family, it was a harrowing experience. Barely able to sleep the night before, terrified that I was going to forget some important detail or dish, I went over all the potential pitfalls in my mind, hoping that, if I worried enough, everything would go well.

The next morning, I woke up at 6, staggered downstairs, and began what would end up becoming one of the longest days in my life. Nine hours, three trips to the store, and one or two terrifying mishaps later, my Bataan death march of culinary misery was over. Dinner was on the table, everything was more or less in order, and I was completely exhausted. By the time the meal finished, about a half-hour later, I was having a hard time keeping my eyes open. Luckily, my family took mercy on me and let me nap while they cleaned, cleared, and packed away the leftovers.

Having gone through one difficult Thanksgiving, I realized that the key was timing. Although many of the dishes were somewhat work-intensive, none of them was particularly challenging. Basically, I just needed to plan carefully, buy wisely, and make up a reasonable schedule for my assault on the kitchen. I vowed to do exactly that.

The following year, I began by making a list of everything that I was going to cook. Since my sister was bringing the string bean casserole and I had a friend who was taking charge of the apple pie, I needed to provided the following:

Roast turkey with chestnut stuffing and gravy
Roast Virginia ham with honey mustard
Mashed potatoes
Sweet potatoes
Traditional (candied) yams
Salad
Canned cranberry sauce
Homemade cranberry sauce
Bread
Pumpkin pies (four) with whipped cream

I then found recipes for everything and made a shopping list of all ingredients. I fudged on some items, like the pumpkin pie crust and the bread, trusting that Pet-ritz and my local bakery could do a better job than I. Also, recognizing the eating habits of my family, I was careful to pick up an extra pound of butter, an extra half pint of cream, and one package each of salt and pepper.

The next few pages cover some of the recipes that I have since gathered for Thanksgiving dinner. Given that the meal has endless regional and familial variations, you will probably want to add your own items and omit a couple of the ones that I mention. The key, however, is timing, an issue that we'll deal with in the wrap up.

Enjoy!