Happy New Year!

[Papaw]

Hoping for a great year for all Tool Talk members and their families!

Let's make 2013 a banner year for old tool fools like us!

[Batz]

Yes Happy New Years possums, I hope 2013 is healthy, wealthy and wise for you all.

Down here we have already had New Years Eve, I had a quiet one at home having a few very nice home brews.

Batz

[Neals]

All the best to everyone in 2013!

[oldtools]

:) Have a Safe & HAPPY NEW YEAR!!, Hope 2013 is a great year for all.. See you Next Year!!

[amertrac]

HAPPY NEW YEAR AND i HOPE YOU ALL FIND THAT ONE TOOL YOU HAVE BEEN LOOKING FOR. I CAME CLOSE THANKS TO mRCHUCK     bob w.

[Branson]

A healthy, prosperous, and happy New Year to all of us.

[johnsironsanctuary]

Happy New Year everyone!!    :-)

[RedVise]

Whoops !!!  Almost missed this !

Happy New Year !!

Brian L.

[rudeawakening55]

Happy New Year.........

[OilyRascal]

I hope everybody had their black eye'd peas, hog jowls, cabbage, and cornbread for luck!  Happy New Year!

[gibsontool]

 Here's hoping for a good year for yard sales,estate sales auctions and all those other places where we find our treasures. Happy new year to all.

[john k]

This means my yearly allotment of rust starts all over again?   Happy new Year

[Ietech]

Happy New year to all and thank all of you for the interesting information y'all have given. I have one goal in addition to my normal dailyy stuff and that is to learn at least one new thing each day. Well if I have learned nothing during my day I can always count on someone here to give me some NEW insight on MANY things. I thank y'all fer that.

Rich

[Ietech]

I hope everybody had their black eye'd peas, hog jowls, cabbage, and cornbread for luck!  Happy New Year!

Oh Yeah and it was great. Going back for more before I hit the sack.

[Branson]

I hope everybody had their black eye'd peas, hog jowls, cabbage, and cornbread for luck!  Happy New Year!

Yep!  Well, my recipe for Hoppin' John is a little different, but that's the stuff!  Haven't missed making it for close to 50 years.   Black eye peas, rice, a pound of bacon, an onion sliced and sauteed in a cube of butter, couple of dry red peppers and salt.  My wife's a New Englander, and all the fat makes her eyes cross.  I tried to explain that's for the ease of life, but she's still looking leery.    Black eyes and greens is her background.

I almost struck out this year, though.  New Years snuck up on me and I hadn't got the black eyes.  I knew better than to look for them close by (knew lots of folks around here would be making up a batch.  So I went to the Safeway store in a more Yankee neighborhood.  There was a big empty space where the dried black eye peas used to be.  One of the clerks looked in the back and said they were out, but they would have some *tomorrow.*  I told him I had to be cooking them in a half hour, and he looked really perplexed.  But I found some frozen black eyes and the day was saved.

Never used to have a problem finding black eyed peas, but this is the second time I've found the shelves of a store empty! 

How many of us have this tradition?  I always thought it was a Southern thing, but the Yankee store was empty...