NoJoMo 12 in 2020

Write about a tradition that makes you feel most at home/reminds you of home.

Most of my fondest memories of family holidays seem to revolve around food. Baking with my mom at the holidays, eating our traditional breakfast casserole on Christmas morning, being hung over in college and still eating an enormous dinner on New Year’s Day because it was what we did every year.

New Year’s is the one that probably sticks with me the most. Every year, my dad would cook a pork roast, collard greens, black eyed peas, and cornbread for New Year’s Day dinner. I still do this, even though my family does not appreciate it as much as I do - and my Puerto Rican in-laws are pretty much straight up baffled by it, but they eat it to be polite. Each food has a specific meaning, Dad used to tell me what each thing was for but all I can recall now is that the collard greens are for money and the black-eyed peas are for luck.

Next year, we should all eat a damn bucket of black-eyed peas to see if this goddamn virus will go away. I can send you a recipe.