Some New Year’s resolutions for this foodie

New Year’s Day around the world is a time for celebration, making promises, celebrating the old and hoping for a positive New Year. New Year’s is that time when we celebrate our past triumphs and plan for our successes … it’s also the time many   of us  promise to  be better, do better, be nicer, call that neighbor, invite that relative, clean out that attic, eat right, sleep more, exercise regularly and just plain try harder.  For New Year’s, I have always tried to dispense with the negative “giving something up.” I want my New Year to include a plan for “doing.” As always, I have many plans but follow through with few. I think this year, I will break it down to doing one small feat at a time. As a foodie, I walk around the kitchen all the time and think, “When I get the time, I will ...”

You will what, Anita? Clean the cupboard, make the stock? Don’t you realize that your “some days” cause you stress and get you nowhere?

This year, you are going to get somewhere. Without a plan, nothing happens. Without a target, the arrow hits nothing.

Someone once told me (was it Dr. Oz, Matt Lauer, Oprah or my mother?) that writing it down is the first step.  Someone once told me that “sharing” is the second step. So here goes:

A Foodie’s New Year’s Resolutions

I resolve to do the following:?

Organize

- Organize my spice cupboard.  Throw out any spice a year old (or two, or three), all those powdery pieces that have lost their zip. I will keep the jars and buy fresh spices at the Mohawk Harvest Cooperative Market. I will then put all the little spice containers in alphabetical order neatly in the cupboard. Okay, one can dream.

- Organize the cupboard of Tupperware-style containers and recycle all the mismatched margarine container tops and yogurt carton bottoms. Give away the plastic cupcake holder that takes up all the room and never gets used. You know, the one with the detachable handle you thought was so cute when you were at the Tupperware party 10 years ago?   

- Do something with the other one-time use, used-once, take-up-space items in the kitchen. The olive pitter that sorta works, the George Forman grill that is a pain to clean, the mandolin with 13 parts, the commercial meat grinder attachment for the Kitchen Aide, the molded, corn-shaped butter spreader that always get caught in the accessories drawer.

Buy it now

- I will not wait for Christmas 2013 for my family to read my mind. I’m going to buy it now.

- I’m going to purchase a second salt and pepper grinder set. One for the table and one for the counter. What took me so long?

- Get new dish towels and recyle the old ones. Nothing starts the year right like new towels for the kitchen, especially if they are the kind I want.

- Order a new, safe, no-stick frying pan. I want to try the Ozeri Earth Smooth Ceramic Nonstick Frying Pan, 100-Percent PTFE- and PFOA-Free. Why not?

Do it better

- Prepare something out of each one of those cookbooks that I have never opened, the ones that just sit there and shout, “Try me, try me.” Okay, this year I will (or I will regift).

- Make some or throw away those recipes that I ripped out of magazines. I resolve to use or toss those recipes that I piled inside the right side of my dish cupboard that keep falling out whenever I need a platter.

- Organize a binder of my own recipes and put them in some order that my decendents can find.

- Write down that recipe I make up at the last minute that turned out pretty good and that I?want to make again.

- Use a flat spatula to level ingredients instead of my finger.

- Wear an apron. No-brainer here. I currently have flour all over the front of my navy blue sweater.

- Plan meals before I go food shopping. I resolve to no longer need to say, at five o’clock, “What will we have tonight?”

- Set a timer. No, Anita, you will not remember to take it out.

Extend myself

- Make a perfect souffle. The goal here is to serve one to guests. I’m always afraid to try.

- Make sauerkraut. Well, at least try. This was one of my 2012 resolutions.

- Find a different recipe for sorbet. I make one recipe over and over. Certianly I can do better.

- Not be too hard on myself if I fall short of my resolutions.

Happy New Year!

Comments? Readers may write to anita@anitaalacarte.com.