Pledge for a New Year

Eat healthier. Lose weight. Drink less. Maintain a grocery budget. This is the week in which we put up or shut up–when the resolutions that sounded attainable on New Year’s Eve are fully tested. Most will fail, not because we didn’t mean well, but because life is too busy and hard to integrate new chores to the to-do list. The truth is, what we’re after is probably not as inflexible as the number of drinks per night or the composition of virtuous grocery lists, but simply a more satisfying relationship with food. If our meals were at once tasty, healthy, convenient and produced by our own hands, we would probably weigh less, shop smarter and stay well. How to achieve it? The answer is not in rigidity, but in the adaptation of a few simple, guiding principles:

Cook. Many of our collective food issues, including the nation’s alarming obesity rate and our tolerance for tasteless, processed foods results from a sharp decline in cooking. We might think we know how to cook, but compared to our ancestors, our skills have badly eroded. Rule #1 in adopting any sort of food-related resolution is to simply spend more time slicing, dicing, roasting and braising. It’s a lifelong pursuit that never gets old.

Master. Perhaps you find cooking scary and time-consuming, and perhaps your own parents were so stressed they shooed you away from what might have been useful stove-side lessons. No matter. Commit this year to mastering three or four simple recipes that naturally lend themselves to subsequent innovations. Braised chicken thighs is one. Pot roast is another. Bean salads, in which chickpeas, kidney or black beans are combined with torn herbs, chopped raw veggies, and a simple dressing of olive oil, red wine vinegar and citrus juice is a snap. Marinated, sautéed salmon fillets cook in about 10 minutes. Rack of lamb is ridiculously straightforward. Even if you’re an experienced cook, spend this year mastering a handful of new basics that will bring you confidently, and more frequently, into the kitchen.

Explore. Last week, my family and I landed in a divey Korean restaurant while traveling through Georgia in which my picky four-year-old downed kimchi like it was chocolate ice cream. Who knew? Meanwhile, some friends were inspired to experiment with new, soulful guacamoles and authentic salsas after a tour of interior Mexican restaurants in Austin and San Antonio. Eating out at the right places provides a creativity jolt that you simply can’t get from thumbing through cookbooks or watching food television. Why? Because like cooking and mastering, it’s an active, rather than passive step toward a better relationship with food.