The Holiday Spirit

The drinking started at nine. A.M. The singing started around noon. Both continued for another twelve hours. Our neighbor and his friends assemble in his back yard almost every weekend, but last Saturday’s festivity was particularly impressive. It was as though they were in training for the holidays.

There were no women in sight -- there never are. The men were, as usual, shirtless, but the only sixpacks in sight was the beer they consumed (I believe this accounts for the lack of women). The guys sat drinking and laughing in the pouring rain, under a jury-rigged tarp -- one rigged by an inebriated, impaired jury.

The rain was as noteworthy as the revelry. It was a deluge in the midst of our dry season, it lasted all day, and no tarp was going to keep the rain out. It flooded our street, soaked my garden but did nothing to dampen their spirits.

Sunday was. . . quiet, and for them, probably painful. By late afternoon, the party host, his complexion gray, delicately picked his way outside to the muddy swamp that had been his party playground, and began collecting all the empties.

No doubt, the party will start anew and afresh on Friday, noche buena, the night Latinos celebrate Christmas (and in this case, celebrate and celebrate and celebrate).

I could gladly pass on their lustily warbled but tuneless canciones. I wish they’d put on shirts. I worry about their unhealthy lifestyle (their two food groups appear to be beer and pig). But I admire their spirit. And fortitude.

Wishing you great spirit and fortitude in the new year and all delicious things, including:

Wild Rice with Winter Greens, Lemon, Pine Nuts and Raisins

An old Sicilian trick, balancing the bitterness of winter greens with rich pine nuts and sweet raisins, yields a dish that’s fortifying and fabulous. You could add some cannellini and have a very rad but delicious version of hopping john -- excellent at the new year (and healthier than pig and beer).

1 cup wild rice

4 cups vegetable broth or water

2 lemons

1 tablespoon olive oil

1 onion, chopped

1 bunch winter greens -- kale, collards, dandelions, what you will, tough center ribs

removed, leaves sliced into skinny ribbons

1/4 cup pine nuts, lightly toasted

1/4 cup raisins

1 good pinch red pepper flakes

sea salt to taste

Rinse wild rice in a strainer or colander.

In a large pot, bring water or broth to boil over high heat. Add wild rice. Cover and reduce heat to low and simmer for half an hour. Turn off heat, leave the pot on the burner for another half hour or so, until all the liquid is absorbed. May be done the day ahead. Cover and refrigerate. Bring back to room temperature before proceeding.

In a large skillet, heat oil over medium-high heat. Add chopped onion and saute, stirring until it softens, about 5 minutes. Add chopped winter greens, which will shrink in the heat to a fraction of their volume. Continue cooking until greens are just wilted -- another 3 to 5 minutes.

Tip in cooked rice and stir mixture gently to combine. Grate in the zest of both lemons, squeeze in lemon juice, stir in sea salt and pepper flakes. Add pine nuts and raisins just before serving.

Serves 4 to 6.

Soupe Joumou: Sunshine in the Midst of Darkness

art courtesy of Philip Brooker

When a man pours you his soup, he pours you his soul, even when it’s soup cooked up on a hot plate. Maybe especially then. My friend Marcel celebrated New Year’s Day by making soupe joumou, the beloved soup with which Haitians start the new year. For Marcel, it was not enough to make soup -- he had to feed everyone he knew.

When I arrived, his tiny apartment was flooded with afternoon light and was so jammed, I couldn’t see the host for all the guests clustered around, cradling soup bowls, talking, eating, laughing.

Finally, I found Marcel his makeshift kitchen, holding court and presiding over the soup pot.

I gave him a kiss and picked up a bowl.

“It has meat,” he warned, remembering I’m a meat-free kind of girl.

“I’ll eat around it.”

We looked at each other. He beamed and ladled it up from a battered aluminum pot, rich and golden, like liquid sunshine.

Soupe joumou is the triumph of spirit over tyranny, heart over privation and a damn fine way to warm body and soul. This is a soup tapping into the collective unconscious of a people, evoking stronger feelings than Proust’s madeleine. I wasn’t going to let some bits of beef get in the way of that.

We all love to ring in the new year with its promise of new beginnings, but in Haiti, it’s especially cause for joy. New Year’s Day is Independence Day, the celebration of that New Year’s Day in 1804, when Haitians ended over a century of bloody rule by the French and were no longer colonial slaves but a free people in their own homeland.

Haitians celebrated by eating what had been forbidden them -- meat, cabbage and squash, the latter two grown on their own island. Haitian slaves had cooked these foods for their French masters, while they themselves had survived solely on rations of salt cod and lemonade.

Like hopping john, the new year’s dish invented by slaves in the south, soupe joumou is a dish that sustains and is sustainable. It’s made from what is local and available. The Haitians adapted the soup from their French masters, heating it up with habaneros and ginger and making their own. Like hopping john, some eat it on New Year’s Day for good luck. Others, like Marcel, eat and serve it knowing -- and honoring -- its history. And as with all things Haitian, there is some myth. The soup is said to honor Papa Loko, the Vodou god of the ancient African spirit. Yellow is the color that honors him. In any case, soupe joumou is belly-filling and soul-lifting all at once.

Since Haiti’s earthquake, Marcel, our gracious host of just a few weeks ago, looks crumpled, hollowed out. Most of us in Miami do. Haiti is but 700 miles away. Or it is literally next door. Haitians make up a rich part of our community and though we may not personally have lost family, as Marcel has, we all have Haitian friends, Haitian ties. People burst into tears on the street. Coworkers who once barely got past, ”Hi, how’s it going?” now embrace. There has been an outpouring of relief effort here, along with an outpouring of grief. Those efforts will be all the more important in the coming weeks and months, when the rest of the world might be inclined to forget or suffer compassion fatigue. As if caring could ever tire you.

Soupe joumou epitomizes for me Marcel and all the people of Haiti, who take what little they have, make it delicious and offer it to you with all their heart. It’s time for us, who have so much, to do the same.

At this time of crisis, as President Obama said, "We are reminded of our common humanity." Please donate to Partners in Health (www.pih.org),

the American Red Cross, Doctors Without Borders or whatever relief

organization moves you.

Vegan Soupe Joumou

I have taken the meat out of Marcel’s soupe joumou but not, I hope, the heart. Great by itself or ladled over cooked brown rice.

1 tablespoon coconut oil

1 onion, chopped

1/4 cup garlic, chopped (yeah, a 1/4 cup. Got a problem?)

1/4 cup ginger, chopped

1 jalapeno (or 1/4 habanero),chopped

1 large winter squash, diced

2 carrots, chopped

1 teaspoon fresh thyme leaves

1-1/2 teaspoons allspice

4 cups vegetable broth

1 bunch collards or callalloo, chopped into bite-sized bits, or about 3 cups shredded cabbage

juice of 1 lime

1 bay leaf

Heat oil in a soup pot over medium-high heat. Add chopped onion, garlic and ginger and jalapeno. Saute, stirring occasionally, until vegetables soften, about 8 minutes.

Add allspice, chopped squash and chopped carrots. Add greens a handful at a time. Stir until greens just wilt, about 3 minutes.

Add broth and bring heat to high. When broth comes to a boil, add thyme leaves and bay leaf.

Reduce heat to low, cover and simmer for half an hour, or until vegetables are tender.

Squeeze in lime juice and season with sea salt and pepper.

Serves 4.

Here's Looking At You, Kid

Call me a bit of a rebel, I’m not a big on holiday traditions. For obvious reasons, I’m fine with a turkeyless Thanksgiving. I’m likewise fine with a treeless Christmas, a menorahless Chanukah. I do like New Year’s though, with champagne on New Year’s Eve and hopping john New Year’s Day. There is nothing glamorous about a plate of hopping john -- it's rice, black-eyed peas and collards. It’s cheapish to make and plainish to eat, but I love it for being rich in fiber, folklore and mystique. What other dish promises good luck, fortune and romance?

Some say black-eyed peas look like coins and collards or other greens represent paper money, therefore you’ll make as much money as the hopping john you eat.

Black-eyed peas also fit an old superstition that if a dark-eyed man is your first visitor on New Year’s Day, love and good luck will be yours.

Who knows where such stories started? One version has hopping john originating with the slaves who brought black-eyed peas and rice from west Africa. Some say the dish got its name from a child dancing around the stove, eager for supper. What started as a slave dish, livened with a lttle pepper and pork made its way into plantation kitchens.

It could be hopping john got its start even earlier, from our Celtic forebears who lighted fires on New Year’s Eve and danced around them all night. The Anglo-Saxon word hoppan means religious dance.

In either case, dancing seems as much a part of hopping john as black-eyed peas. I'm a great believer in dancing and a big fan of good luck, great fortune and hot romance. Do I believe a plate of rice and beans will make that happen? Not so much, but just enough -- that's why I’ll start the year the way I have for the past decade, with a pot of hopping john ready for New Year’s Day. Call it the victory of hop over experience (sorry).

Hopping John

Traditionally, hopping john is made with everything going into one pot. Traditionally, it is also made with pork. I -- surprise -- have broken with tradition and make this in two pots and sans pig.

Make it New Year’s Eve or even the day before. Flavor improves over time and hopping john reheats like a dream. You’ll have a nourishing, cheap meal ready to go on a day when some of us are too tired and bleary-eyed to cook. And there’s a bonus -- the sturdy rice and beans dish sops up any hangover.

Happy New Year.

1 cup black eyed peas

3 cups of water

6 cloves garlic

1 dried hot pepper

1 bay leaf

2 cups vegetable broth

1 cup brown rice

1 tablespoon olive oil

1 large onion, chopped

1 jalapeno, chopped

3 ribs celery, chopped

1 big bunch collard greens, sliced into thin ribbons

juice of 1 lemon

sea salt and fresh ground pepper to taste

In a large pot, bring 3 cups of water to boil over high heat. Add black-eyed peas, 2 cloves of garlic (whole), pepper and bay leaf. Skim off any beans that float. They’re duds.

Reduce heat to low. Simmer beans uncovered for an hour and a half until beans are tender, not mushy.

Add brown rice and the vegetable broth. Cover and simmer over low heat for 20 minutes. Don’t lift that lid. Turn off the heat, leave pot on the burner and let hopping john sit.

Meanwhile, heat olive oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add onion, jalapeno, celery and the remaining 4 garlic cloves, chopped. Saute for about 5 minutes, stirring, until the vegetables soften.

Reduce heat to medium. Add greens by the handful, and cook until wilted, stirring occasionally, about 10 minutes.

Fluff rice and beans, fold in collard mixture. Squeeze in lemon juice and season with salt and pepper. Splash with hot sauce.

Serves 6.