"We didn't get the cole slaw!"

Oh, shit! I think to myself. We didn't get the cole slaw!

It's a southern thing to eat cabbage and black-eyed peas on New Year's Day. It's staple for New Year's Day with my family, probably associated with rice, pork, mustard or collard greens and cornbread, and it's always good. (Well, at least to me. To Marilynn, they taste "scorched.")

As far back as I can remember, the black-eyed peas represent luck, and cabbage represented money, although I've heard that black-eyed peas represent coins, and cabbage represents bills. I've also read that Union troops raided Confederate food stores late in the year during the Civil War, and all that was left was the black-eyed peas. The Confederates were so happy that there was anything left to eat that they considered them good luck to eat them on New Year's Day ever after that.

Of course, as long back as I can remember, I never have liked cabbage. To me, it may as well be thin sheets of mucous membrane. That's why I always had cole slaw instead.

Leaving something as important as the cabbage and black-eyed peas on New Year's Day to chance is a terrible thing. Lately I've been doing the lion's share of the shopping since Marilynn's operation, so I made a point to pick up a can of black-eyed peas almost a week before. Last year, that's the bit that I lacked, and we had to go eat at The Black-Eyed Pea to get any of the coveted foods, since they were not to be found at the grocery store.

Fortunately, retrieving the cabbage isn't such a tall order.

After a trip to Long John Silver's for cole slaw (just cole slaw... a massive $1.09 order) and a trip to Randalls for a donut (Marilynn heard something about people in Denmark eating foods that circle back upon themselves for luck), we had our New Year's luck and fortune collection:

Healthful, isn't it? Too bad it plays havoc with my Atkins diet. It may bring me luck and wealth, but I'll be needing both to find the right pair of pants at the big and tall shop when I keep eating stuff like this.

restlessmind