Like Easter eggs, but brown and boiled in soy sauce.

I like the idea of taking stock of life, of looking around and seeing what's been good, what's getting better, and what ought to go take a hike. This may account for the abundance of new years that I celebrate - my year starts a minimum of three times each 365 day period. Jewish and Gregorian are rather implicit, given my background, but I always celebrate Chinese new year as well.

This undoubtedly started with the huge parade in San Francisco that we would go to every year as children, or at least every year my parents felt up to it. Since becoming an adult, less willing to brave the chilly wind and the huge crowds, I've started celebrating the same way my mother always preferred - with a few branches of tree blossoms.

But I've had to adjust, because Philadelphia doesn't have flowering trees in early February, and if you're lucky enough to find a florist with some branches, they'll charge some rather outrageous prices - the only branches I could find last year were in the three digit range. Seriously. I bought some moon cakes instead, which aren't actually meant for the new year, but there's a little shop in Chinatown that makes them fresh, and all the gweilo people I had class with didn't know the difference.

A fresh batch of mooncakes, as far as you know.

So this year, looking around for something easy, fun, and new years-y to do, I came across this recipe for tea eggs.

They're cracked, hard-boiled eggs cooked in tea, star anise, cinnamon, a tiny bit of sugar, and soy sauce which flavors and dyes the eggs through the cracked shell, giving them a beautiful, patterned appearance when peeled. The flavor is complicated -  the licorice, soy sauce, and black tea are all very evident - and the only way I can really describe it is to say that it tastes Chinese. The combination of tastes isn't replicated in Western food, but it's very familiar to the flavors found in Chinese food - and I'm not talking the sweet-and-sour, egg roll, General Tsao, fortune cookie sort of food. It's a much more traditional balance of sweet and salty, with a twist of licorice and a lot of hard boiled egg.

I really enjoy them, although I suspect they're a bit weird to people who are more familiar with putting their fried eggs on toast, rather than rice. And luckily they're really easy to make. You just boil everything together, and let it sit overnight. The smell from the pot as it's boiling is really wonderful too, something about hot soy sauce and tea makes a really comforting aroma.

One note: Do be sure to really crack the egg very hard, and all over before putting it in the pot though. I felt like I was cracking my eggs too much, I was sure they'd be totally black in the morning, and they turned out just fine.

In fact, I like the way they look so much that the hardest part of the whole process was choosing between all the photographs I took.

Happy New Year!