In honor of Mrs. Jones and Auntie Una, Flat 493 (now in a house) reinstated our New Year’s Day tradition last year.

This year, I was much smarter and cooked most things the day before instead of my Yankee ass wondering why the dang collards wouldn’t cook down faster as guests arrived. Thank goodness the temp was just above freezing so I could set the big pot of greens outside overnight because I had not fully thought through how all said cooked things would fit in the refrigerator.

Menu:

• Coconut Turkey Curry in a Hurry, Instant Pot rice — sub Swiss Chard for texture preferences.
• Gherkins on toothpicks — height of sophistication.
• Collards cooked with a ham hock my mother wasn’t going to use from Davis Thanksgiving and chili limon beer that Hampton has had a hard time finishing since it’s not summer.
• Black-eyed peas from the Q4 Rancho Gordo bean club box — with liquid smoke instead of bacon for more vegetarian fare.
• The famous phyllo torte as requested by our friend Suzanne for her Christmas present.
• Potato Chip Tortilla Española because I leaned our newish neighbor — who was Mr. Hart in my second 9 to 5! — is a vegetarian and I wanted more options and this is easy and tasty AF.
• Labneh with za’atar (sub Greek yogurt when I realized we didn’t actually have the labneh I thought we did), plus TJ’s hummus, ranch cottage cheese, and vegan kale pesto dips, crudités.
• Warm Dates with Olive Oil, Sea Salt, and Lemon Zest. The sleeper hit!
• Wassail Punch — booze optional.

As per often, the house was largely divided with theatre people around the dining table and TJ’s crew in the living room, but it’s one big room, and I think everyone had fun. Very chill — well, except the lady dogs, but Jenny put Raspberry in air jail on her lap for a while after Raz snipped at her, and there was quiet for a bit. Well, from the chihuahuas. Plenty of conversations and laughter from the two-legged folks.