We instituted our New Year’s Day Open House more than twenty-five years ago, after I left my job as a newspaper reporter, as a good way to catch up with old friends and former colleagues we hadn’t seen in a while. We decided to fashion the party after the oyster roasts we’d attended on Tybee, and augmented the menu with a huge baked ham that came to be affectionately known as “The Big-Ass Ham,” and Tom’s famous home-cured gravlax. In the South, good luck dishes like collard greens and black-eyed peas are a must-have on New Year’s Day. My recipe for the grits and collard greens casserole was adapted to suit my lazy ways. A newer version of the black-eyed peas is used in an easy-to-make Redneck Caviar. The open house became such a hit that the party grew by leaps and bounds, until one year we were astonished to realize the guest list had grown to nearly 300 names! When we eventually took a hiatus from the party, we actually had to send out “dis-invites” to warn people not to show up on New Year’s Day. In recent years, we’ve reinstated the party at Ebbtide on a much smaller scale.
SERVES 10 TO 12