"new years" news and stories

The Slashfood team is heading out for our New Year's celebrations. But there's still time to get your feast and drinks prepared. Read on for a host of last-minute ideas.

• Before you start your festivities, learn how to open champagne like a pro with LeNell Smothers.
• Don't know the difference between French champagne and Italian prosecco? Our guide will walk you through all the options and we'll even offer you some bargain bubbles that won't burst the budget.
• Not into the bubbly stuff? Lift a glass of the hard stuff and toast to 2010 with these at-home classic cocktails.
• Don't forget about the food. Cocktail party recipes are the sure-fire way to get the party started.
• Did you know that if collards are eaten on New Year's Day, they'll bring wealth in the coming year? Learn what other foods are considered lucky with New Year's food history.
• In 2009 we indulged our way through dozes of new cookbooks, check out our favorites.
• Finally, brush up on the decade with the 10 Greatest Cooking Shows of All Time, Eight Fast-Food Miracles and Missteps and The Decade in Ingredient Trends.

Each Thursday, we round up a selection of scrumptious links from our friends over at YumSugar. Here's what they've got cooking this week:

• Rick Bayless is voted the best chef of 2009 -- a well-deserved honor -- beating out Food Network favorites.
• Let's put it this way: Williams-Sonoma got the electoral-college nod.
• Wind down 2009 and fill up for 2010 with sweet potato and bacon in endive boats.
• If you come across a well-coiffed onion, will this instrument come in handy?
• Bacon continues its starring role to the very end.
• Is family-style dining the way to go during the holidays?
• Roll the dice for New Year's fortune with Hoppin' John soup.

Considering how many Americans will spend much of 2010 looking for a job, the "help wanted" pages might make the perfect New Year's Day snack.

Feasting on foods that symbolize an eater's desires for the coming year is a longstanding global tradition: Jews traditionally serve honeycake on Rosh Hashanah to guarantee a sweet year, Peruvians indulge in turmeric-dusted potatoes that share a hue with the gold they hope to acquire, and Italians eat coin-shaped lentils. A Japanese belief holds that anyone who can swallow an unbroken soba noodle without chewing will enjoy a long life. (Unless, of course, the celebrant chokes on the noodle.)

But in most of the U.S., such practices were derided as quaint and misguided for most of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. While a few first-generation immigrants observed traditions imported from their homelands -- serving pork and sauerkraut as the Germans and Swedes did or baking sweet Greek cakes -- the leading New Year's foods were the dishes of luxury: oysters, sweetbreads and sparkling wine were staples of the well-to-do holiday table throughout the 1800s.

It's party season, and that means if you have any social life whatsoever, someone will be asking you to bring something to a get-together. Certain foods are obvious no-nos unless you're aiming for cheeky: anything made with aspic, blood sausage or Spam, for example. In general, you want to avoid needlessly messy, borderline unhealthy and unintentionally labor-intensive dishes, as well as ones that simply don't travel well.

The following rules apply no matter what kind of party (potluck, New Year's Eve, birthday, tailgating) or crowd (young, old, football freaks, opera fans). If you can't cook at all, bring good cheese and crackers. That's the universal crowd-pleaser.

Hummus
It seems like such a no-brainer -- who doesn't like dip at parties? But this one has a fatal flaw: garlic. All it takes is one big scoop to render your breath intolerable. Great for family get-togethers, not for swinging singles mixers. How about salsa instead?

Want to celebrate the Year of the Ox in proper fashion? The BBC has a simple guide to the Chinese New Year, which begins today. Traditional foods - which vary greatly depending on the region - include Northern Chinese dumplings resembling gold ingots, said to bring wealth for the coming year; big family meals called "poo choi," in which everyone eats out of the same giant bowl to promote togetherness; Southern Chinese turnip cakes given as a sign of respect and honor; and glutinous rice cakes whose sticky nature is said to help families stick together in the new year.

Plus, there's a link to a bunch of the BBC Food's Chinese recipes - think red-cooked pork belly, ginger fish, stir-fried salt and pepper prawns.