After Thanksgiving and Christmas, where most of the traditional foods are avoids, sugary, or both, it is nice to come to a holiday with beneficial customs.

I remember when I was a girl (who dug my heels in and refused to eat vegetables), my mom always fixed black-eyed peas for New Years Day. My parents and my sister loved them. After being repeatedly warned that if I didn't eat black-eyed peas I would have no luck in the New Year, I would hold my breath and eat one.

Now I like black-eyed peas, and because they are beneficial for both As and Os, we have them often. We always have them on New Years Day.

For some reason I also associate cooked greens with New Years Day. So I fixed collard greens with grilled onions today. We also had chicken, butternut squash, and corn (for the As). I save the end pieces to the sprouted bread I buy for sandwiches. I put buttery spread and garlic powder on them and toasted them in the oven for BTD garlic bread.

Another food I associate with New Years is grapefruit. My husband's mom makes ambrosia with oranges, grapefruit and coconut for Christmas. Early in our marriage I would make ambrosia for New Years because neither of us quite got enough at Christmas. Now (sigh) oranges and coconut are avoids for us both. However, we got a box of beautiful ruby red grapefruit as a Christmas gift. We will have grapefruit for dinner tonight.