One Great . . . New Year's Day soup

Yes, I'm superstitious: I would never consider passing the first day of the year without eating collards, black-eyed peas and a little hog jowl. Some people say the peas represent coins and the collards represent money. My Georgia-born parents used to tease us that if you're eating poor people's food by choice, it's a sign that you're doing pretty good.

Whatever. Given the current economy, I don't intend to take a chance.

I was looking around through this year's crop of new cookbooks when I spotted this in "A New Turn in the South," by Hugh Acheson. Acheson is the chef of the restaurants Five and Ten and The National in Athens, Ga., and Empire State South in Atlanta. But these days, he's probably more famous as the chef with the unibrow on "Top Chef Masters" and a regular judge on "Top Chef."

If you want to adhere strictly to tradition, you could swap the mustard greens for collards, but you'll need to add them earlier, probably when you add the peas. The recipe is a little longer than we usually use for One Great, but you can simplify things and use a mix for the cornbread.

Field Pea, Ham Hock & Mustard Green Soup
From "A New Turn in the South," by Hugh Acheson (Clarkson Potter, $35).

1 tablespoon unsalted butter
1/2 cup minced sweet onion
1/2 cup diced carrot
1 stalk celery, minced
3 garlic cloves, peeled
1/2 cup dried black-eyed peas
6 cups chicken stock (low-sodium if canned)
1 smoked ham hock, about 1 pound
1 batch of cornbread, baked and cooled
2 tablespoons bacon fat
1 tablespoon chopped fresh thyme
2 cups chopped mustard greens
1 cup chopped tomato
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1 tablespoon cider vinegar
Extra-virgin olive oil

Place a 4- to 6-quart pot over medium heat and melt the butter. Add the onion, carrot and celery and cook 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Add the garlic, black-eyed peas, chicken stock and ham hock. Cook until the peas are tender, about 1 hour. Skim occasionally to remove any white bean matter that rises to the top.

Cut the cornbread into 1/2-inch-by-1/2-inch cubes while the soup is cooking. Heat the bacon fat in a large cast-iron skillet over medium heat. Add the cubes and toast until crisp, cooking in batches if needed. Cool on a large plate.

Remove the ham hock and let stand until cool enough to handle. Remove the meat from the bone, coarsely chop and return to the pot. Add the thyme, mustard greens, tomato and salt to the soup. Cook 10 minutes longer. Drizzle each serving with a few drops of vinegar and a dash of olive oil, and garnish with a few cornbread croutons.

Yield: Serves 6 with leftovers.

Polka Dot's Sweet Potato Chips get kudos

Cupcakes aren't the only thing cooking at Polka Dot Bake Shop in Charlotte. The bakery's Sweet Potato Crackers have been picked as Paula's Hidden Gem for the January/February issue of the magazine Cooking With Paula Deen.

The crackers are made with real sweet potatoes (N.C.-grown, of course). They're available in five flavors (yes, they're all sweet potato, but some have spices too) and are Star-K kosher-certified, as well as dairy- and nut-free. The black-pepper flavor is gluten-free, too.

The suggested retail price is $5.99 for a 5-ounce package. They're available at the bakery, 1730 E. Woodlawn Road in the Park Towne Village (the shopping center at the top of the steep hill), and also at Reid's Fine Foods, Earth Fare and Fresh Market stores.

Photo: coolhunting.com

Check out our new Food Facebook page

Ah, the last days of the year, when the bosses stay home and you can actually get a few things done.

One of the things on my to-do list was fixing up a new Facebook page for The Observer's food coverage. It seems like every time I try to figure out the best way to use Facebook, Mr. Zuckerberg changes the whole darn thing. Since Mr. Zuckerberg is apparently on kicked back on a Bermuda beach with my bosses, maybe the coast is clear.

So now we have Observer Food, with links to our coverage but also links to any other good food stories I see out there. Click on over to Facebook.com/ObserverFood and "like" us if you like. I'll try to keep Mr. Zuckerberg busy.

Charlotte-Douglas improves in healthy airports list

If you're taking wing for the holidays, you might have a better chance of getting a healthful bite to eat before you leave Charlotte-Douglas. According to study released today by Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, Charlotte's airport had made the most improvement since last year, with a 9 point increase in the number of restaurants offering a healthful option.

Washington’s Ronald Reagan National Airport improved 8 points, so its now one place up from the bottom. Denver International Airport fell six points.

Best and worst? The airport with the most options for healthful is Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport. And the worst: Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson, the world’s busiest airport, gained a point but still landed in last place.

Check out the full list of 15 airports and how they rank here.

What's the best cooking videos? Think Epic

My college-age son introduced me to EpicMealTime, the head-achingly manic YouTube cooking series. Basically, a bunch of guys make things with over-the-top fat and calorie counts. This involves harsh language, yelling and uses of Baconators that nature never intended.

So which five cooking/food-related videos were viewed the most often on YouTube in 2011?

1. EpicMealTime. 12.6 million views for "TurBaconEpic Thanksgiving," in which our boys make a turducken wrapped in bacon, cook it, then roll it in a suckling pig and wrap it in more bacon and smoke it. And eat it.
2. EpicMealTime, "Showdown at Awesome," 1.9 million views. The boys have a run-in with the Barely Political comedy team on the streets of New York for Super Bowl Sunday and force them to eat an Epic-designed sandwich.
4. An EpicMealTime parody called Healthy Mealtime, viewed 1.85 million times.
5. The Vegan Black Metal Chef's Pad Thai episode, viewed 1.7 million times. (I'm still envious that a food editor I know in Florida got to interview the real Vegan Black Metal Chef.)

No, I didn't skip No. 3. That was the only actual cooking video, an oddity in which someone makes gummy marshmallow candies from the Popin' Cookin' Gummy Land Kit.

Here are the links, courtesy of YouTube. Watch/listen at your own risk, and try not to picture Julia Child hooting with disgust. (If I had to pick a favorite, I'd go with 2, which actually does have funny moments.)

1. EpicMealTime: http://youtu.be/7Xc5wIpUenQ
2. EpicMealTime Vs. Awesome: http://youtu.be/3lF_w3im90M
3. Gummy Candy: http://youtu.be/z_krRs7vsOI
4. Healthy Meal Time: http://youtu.be/Pvz5w7Dofaw
5. Vegan Black Metal Chef Pad Thai: http://youtu.be/CeZlih4DDNg

Food fans, can you spare some love for Raleigh?

It pains us to acknowledge that Charlotte isn't on Southern Living's list of the 10 Tastiest Towns in the South. Although we are in good company, because the magazine from Birmingham managed to put their own town on the list while dissing a lot of candidates. (No Asheville? No Durham? No Oxford, Miss., for heavens sake?)

But Raleigh, our own state capitol, is on the list. And as much as it pains us to direct gustatory fame toward the only city in Eastern N.C. without a legitimate claim to great barbecue, we can help a sister city out. So . . .

On Friday, you can vote for Raleigh out of 10 candidates for tastiest city in the South. Far be it from us to suggest that Charleston, S.C., probably has a better claim on the title. The 10 cities in the running: Baltimore, Houston, Birmingham, Lafayette, La. (good candidate there), Charleston, Louisville, Charlottesville, Va., New Orleans (OK, they might have a good bite of food or two), Decatur, Ga., and Raleigh.

Go here to read the details and get ready to vote: Vote Raleigh. May the best home of the Roast Grill win.

One Great . . . slow cooker stew

The title "The French Slow Cooker" almost sounds redundant. After all, French country cooking brought us things like boeuf bourginon and coq au vin, long before Crock Pot thought about sticking a plug in a Dutch oven.

But that just makes Michele Scicolone's new book even more useful: A slow cooker is a natural combined with recipes like Soupe au Pistou and Bourride.

On a recent winter night, I went the bargain route, grabbing a package of country-style pork ribs and putting together dinner before leaving for work in the morning. We served it over creamy polenta (cornmeal whisked into half water and half milk), but mashed potatoes would do just as well.

Pork Ribs Hunter-Style
"The French Slow Cooker," by Michele Sciolone (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2012).

3 pounds country pork ribs, cut into individual ribs
2 tablespoons olive oil
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
2 medium onions, peeled, halved and thinly sliced
1 (8-ounce) can tomato puree
3 large cloves garlic, minced
2 tablespoons tomato paste
1/2 teaspoon herbes de Provence (it's not exactly the same, but if you don't have them, use a sprinkle of dried thyme, rosemary, marjoram and sage)
Pinch of ground allspice
8 to 10 ounces white button mushrooms, halved or quartered (I added some shiitake caps because I had them)

Pat the ribs dry with paper towels. Heat the oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add as many ribs as will fit in the pan without touching. Cook them in batches, turning occasionally, until browned on all sides, about 20 minutes total. Place in a large slow cooker. Sprinkle with salt and pepper to taste.

Spoon off all but 2 tablespoons of the fat. Add the onions and cook 10 minutes, or until tender. Stir in the tomato puree, garlic, tomato paste, herbs and allspice. Bring to a simmer, stirring well.

Scrape into the slow cooker. Cover and cook on low heat for 8 hours, until meat is fall-off-the-bone tender. About 30 minutes before serving, stir in the mushrooms, re-cover and continue cooking. Discard any loose bones and skim off the fat.