2007 Culinary Resolutions

After years of grandiose New Years Resolutions that prove to be unworkable by about January 15, I finally settled on two that I thought I could keep because they were doable and pleasurable. People don't tend to keep to resolutions that make them unhappy - heck, they don't tend to keep doing anything that doesn't give them some kind of reward.

My two resolutions are culinary in nature: first, one new recipe a month. It's a way to get me to step out of my comfort zone and at least try to do something with all those cookbooks and magazines I've amassed over the years. Lots of the recipes are worth trying once, but aren't good enough/fast enough/cheap enough/easy enough to make it into the daily rotation. And occasionally I'll find a keeper.

Second: one new restaurant a month. We eat out so rarely these days that it's really hard to take a chance and try a new place, because I can't just erase the disappointment of a bad meal out with an excellent one the next day.But if we don't eat at new places, we'll never find new excellent places. It also keeps my ear to the ground to find the new places to try - as I've mentioned before, this isn't a restaurant town, but there are gems around.

Last year, I hit 12 out of 12 months on the recipes, and 11 out of 12 on the restaurants (the exception being December, which is a difficult month to begin with made more difficult with all this expletive deleted snow). I consider that to be a rousing success as far as resolutions go, and look forward to continuing them in the new year.

I have one more resolution, particular to this blog: I'm resolving to posting my restaurant reviews in a bit more timely manner. I've found the longer I wait to write the review, the less likelihood there is of it ever being written.