Good morning! Today we have for you:

• A Japanese mochi soup to start the new year

• A hearty stew that makes the most of inexpensive kitchen staples

• And, a refreshing cabbage salad to wake up your palate and pair with almost anything

My family doesn’t have too many set holiday meal traditions, perhaps the result of what I like to call “Life Things.” We’re scattered across different countries and time zones, with busy schedules and jobs that keep us otherwise occupied (I was a professional ballet dancer for eight years, and “Nutcracker” performances swallowed up all those Thanksgivings and Christmases). Our gatherings and meals for these holidays have been inconsistent, but always received with a lot of joy and relief.

The one constant? Ozoni. I have never not eaten ozoni on Jan. 1.

Like many traditional foods with deep roots, this Japanese mochi soup eaten on New Year’s Day has no definitive recipe. Hannah Kirshner’s version — adapted from a recipe by Corinne Nakagawa Gooden and Sydne Gooden with Hiroshima origins — features sliced taro root and mizuna in a chicken broth simply seasoned with salt and mirin. “In Kyoto,” Hannah writes, “round vegetables and mochi bob around in a pale miso soup; in Tokyo, rectangular mochi is served in shoyu broth; in Kanazawa, people add multicolored mochi and sweet shrimp to clear dashi; and in Fukui, it’s red miso soup with mochi and nothing else.”

The point, I think, is to pair a soothing, warming soup with chewy, sustaining mochi. Taken together, they represent “good health and good fortune.”

And, truly, none of our ozonis have looked the same from year to year. Sometimes the mochi is freshly made, a lucky get from the local Japanese grocer; sometimes it’s from the freezer. Sometimes we’ll do a chicken broth; other times we’ll do dashi. The vegetables and add-ins change based on what we have: leftover roast chicken or salmon, blanched spinach or napa cabbage, coins of carrots, cubes of tofu, half-moons of pink-edged kamaboko. But it’s always exactly what I want — need — to eat on Jan. 1 to feel grounded, comforted and full of good things.

Akemashite omedetou gozaimasu — happy New Year!

Featured Recipe

Ozoni

View Recipe →

Today’s specials

Sheet-pan chicken with apple, fennel and onion: Let’s be real: Heading back to work after the holidays can be pretty rough. I can’t make the emails go away, but I can help prolong those warm, fuzzy holiday feelings with this Colu Henry dish, which, with its singed fennel and apple slices, adds a little seasonal flair to a standby sheet-pan chicken dinner.

Tomato lentil stew with crispy potato: I don’t think I’ve ever seen lentils, canned tomatoes and potatoes — those inexpensive kitchen staples — look so inviting. Hetty Lui McKinnon cleverly gives the onion, carrot and celery some thin slicing instead of a fine chop, so they’re more prominent in this hearty tomato-kale-lentil mix. Some feathery dill freshens things up at the end, but, as Hetty notes, you can use whatever tender herb you like; parsley, cilantro or mint would be really nice.

Cabbage salad with jalapeño lime dressing: A great thing about cabbage salads (besides their refreshing crunchiness) is that leftovers tend to keep pretty well in the fridge. Sure, the cabbage softens, but it still maintains a good bit of snap, and whatever bright, acidic flavors you’ve added only get brighter. If you skip the avocado in this David Tanis number — or save it for topping your salad later — you could make a big batch of this to eat throughout the week alongside your simply seared fish fillets or baked chicken breasts (or, ohhh, mounded on the side of a burrito bowl).

And before you go

I always start any new year on a vegetarian cooking kick. Partly because, after weeks of a cookie-based diet, my body craves vegetables, but mostly because meat is expensive and I went too hard on the Boxing Day sales. So I’m starting 2026 with 2025’s most popular recipes from Tanya Sichynsky’s newsletter, The Veggie. Hoisin garlic noodles, quinoa salad and crispy potato quesadillas have all joined the queue.

But first up will be a gleaming jar of Samin Nosrat’s mustardy and perfectly balanced house dressing for all my salad needs. And by salad, I don’t just mean leafy greens — this is going on cooked beans and grains and roasted mixed vegetables.

Thanks for reading!