End and Begin

[vakkotaur]

Yesterday Fairmont got snow rather than rain. Not a staggering amount of snow, but a fair amount that where it drifted became a quite substantial amount. When it had stopped snowing for a while, and I had finished supper and my treadmill time, I went out to deal with it.

A good many folks have opined that 2006 was not a good year, and if you're one of them then that the last day of the year gave me the gift of a broken gas cap on the snowblower will seem an apt end-cap to the year. As it was New Year's Eve the problem was not solved by proper replacement, but patched with duct tape.

Between shoveling steps and other places that the snowblower couldn't deal with directly and hefting the snowblower around (it is self-propelled, but turning with fixed wheels is a rascal) I got a bit sore. Also, I was outside longer than I had expected and started feeling the cold creep into me. I spent much of last night with a heating pad on both to warm up and to try soothe the soreness.

This morning I woke up to clear skies and no new snow. I don't know if the Scandinavian bit about having pickled herring as the first food of the new year bringing good luck works, but I'm willing to try it and so had a bit. If nothing else, at least it tastes and smells better than the stinky beans known as black-eyed peas. Jay maintains that one must eat black-eyed peas on New Year's Day for good luck. I say that after having to eat those, the rest of the year can't help but seem an improvement.

The real breakfast was buckwheat pancakes. I like them, but don't have them often. They're quite good and quite filling and it's probably a very good thing I only rarely eat them. We didn't have much maple syrup left and now we're out. That's not a big deal, just something to keep in mind on a future visit to the store.

Comments

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Here's a suggestion next time you have pancakes. Try yogurt and applesauce with them. I use plain yogurt, unsweetened, because the applesauce has enough sweetness. Total is much less fat and sugar than the usual way of eating them. Buckwheat cakes are especially good that way. ;p

[thecanuckguy.livejournal.com]

I've never heard the pickled herring one, and I'm one-quarter Norwegian! (I would think, living in Minnesota, that you'd come across a lot of Scandinavian folklore, though; I don't know enough about your heritage to know if that was just something you knew personally.) Ever tried lutefisk? ;)

[vakkotaur.livejournal.com]

Ever tried lutefisk?

No. I have threatened to take jmaynard to a place that has a lutefisk buffet around Christmas (or did a few years ago, according to their radio ads) when he stinks up the house with black-eyed peas. That might not be a good idea. I probably would be put off by it myself and Jay just might claim, as he does with black-eyed peas, that it "smells yummy."

[jcw-da-dmg.livejournal.com]

A) My dad ate his pancakes with unsweetened applesauce (he was diabetic) or occasionally with a similar concoction called pear honey.

2) I count myself lucky not to have grown up with any particular New Year traditional foods (my family, in fact, did not celebrate the New Year AT ALL, generally), as most of the ones I've heard about sound distinctly inedible to me.

[vakkotaur.livejournal.com]

I like pickled herring, so that's no big deal for me. Jay claims that "fish pickles are weird" and also claims that black-eyed peas smell and taste good. He did end up having a bowlful after supper last night. I sampled them, again, and found them as I had before. This time I was better prepared, having a shot of $STRONG_DRINK handy to kill or at least overwhelm any aftertaste. That was effective, but it says something that black-eyed peas can drive one to drink. Otherwise my only alcohol this weekend would have been the glass of wine with supper New Year's Eve and New Year's Day.