Family Tradition

While we have been messing around with some of our traditional meals this year, there is one family tradition that is practically sacred. My husband is part Japanese and his mother was completely Japanese, from Tokyo, so we eat more Japanese food than the average American. Most of what we eat is simply because we like it such as chicken katsu and miso shiru but every New Year's Day we eat o-zoni. This is a Japanese chicken soup flavored with gobo (fresh burdock root) and served over grilled mochi. The soup is always eaten on New Year's Day and it's supposed to bring good luck for the entire year. Since no one really wants to mess around with superstition, we will certainly have o-zoni again this New Year's Day. In order to make that easier, we are roasting a chicken tonight so that we will have some chicken meat, and chicken bones with which to make the soup base. I make a pretty basic roast chicken with thyme lemon butter rubbed underneath the skin on the breast, thighs, and drumsticks so right now my kitchen smells delightful yet again.