Day. 75⁰ Areas of fog in the morning. Cloudy with patchy drizzle in the morning then partly cloudy in the afternoon. Humid with highs around 80. South winds 10 to 15 mph.
Night. 68⁰ Partly cloudy in the evening then becoming mostly cloudy. Humid with lows in the mid 60s. South winds 10 to 15 mph with gusts up to 30 mph.
Mother Nature will be providing her own fireworks to ring in the new year. A strong low pressure system and associated cold front will push across the Central U.S. today. The boundary between warm, humid air ahead of the front and much colder and drier air behind it will be where thunderstorms fire up this evening and early Saturday morning. Strong to severe weather threatens northern Texas into the Tennessee Valley. Large hail, damaging winds and a few tornadoes will all be possible. It appears, from current predictions, that our area of Texas hill country will be outside of the most severe storm area.
What would New Year’s Day be without Hoppin’ John? That’s how the headline read. I’m not a fan of Hopping John. (It’s a traditional dish served in the South on New Year’s Day, consisting of a black-eyed pea mixture served with rice. Hoppin’ John is often accompanied by cornbread and collard greens. Legend has it that the black-eyed peas are symbolic of pennies or coins.) Nope, not a fan of black’eyed peas. Besides I have my own New Year’s Day traditional meal, Lentils for wealth and prosperity (because the flat legumes DO resemble coins) and kielbasa. Why kielbasa? I don’t know. It’s what Mom used. Normally I’d serve it with rice. However, this year were given a package of “Pasta de sêmola de trigo durum”. Though I don’t speak Spanish, I understood enough to know that it is pasta made with Semolina flour – the most common flour for pasta. So, I think, we’ll have pasta instead of rice this year.
To the cookie jar I went. It contained only ghosts of cookies past. Crumbs, it contained crumbs. I mixed up some cookie dough with walnuts and milk chocolate chips. I put it in the refrigerator to cool and rest overnight. However, Ella has been consuming spoonfuls this evening. My plan is to bake cookies in the morning when it’ll be cooler. I mixed enough for 4 dozen tablespoon size cookies. We will see how many it actually makes tomorrow.
Tom and Ella Journal 