Meilleurs vœux pour 2017...

...and Happy New Year. It's another frosty morning here. Yesterday the temperature might have hit freezing, but I think it stayed slightly below. The landscape got whiter and whiter.

I was going to post some more photos of the frost, but I left the SD card the photos are on upstairs, plugged into the TV. Rather than stumble around in the dark and make noise to wake Callie and Walt up, I just went in the kitchen and snapped these photos of our New Year's Day good-luck meal.

It's black-eyed peas cooked with carrots, a leek, an onion, some chicken broth, and a big spoonful of duck fat. Where I come from (North Carolina in the U.S.), eating black-eyed peas on January 1 is considered to be a smart thing to do. As with most superstitions, there probably isn't much to it, but it can't hurt to eat black-eyes anyway — especially if you like them. And I do. They cooked overnight in the slow-cooker, and I think they look beautiful.

But to add a French touch to the feast, I'll be opening a can of confit de canard — duck legs slow-cooked in duck fat — to eat with the beans. Duck and beans are a classic, and what I'm making is a sort of Franco-American cassoulet. I hope you eat your black-eyed peas today, or whatever food you enjoy and believe will bring you good fortune. I wish you peace and prosperity, health and happiness in 2017, wherever you are, and I thank you for participating in my blog for another year (number 12).