Happy New Year, everyone!

2011 was kind of a rocky year, for me and for a bunch of you. It certainly wasn’t all bad, but the bad parts were pretty bad. We did survive it, though, and the start of 2012 and the new house have me feeling hopeful.

Resolutions never feel particularly genuine to me, but I do like to think about things I’d like to do or am excited about in the coming year. Here are a few food-related ones that have come to mind lately:

1. Start making bread again. I used to, when we lived in DC, and I enjoyed it. The sourdough starter died during the move, and I haven’t gotten it going again. I’d like this to be the year. Making bread is also much easier when you work from home and don’t have to negotiate the rising/resting/proofing schedule with an office schedule.

2. Closely related to #1, make pizza again. It’s particularly easy if you work from home and can deal with the dough a few hours before dinner. There was one variety we would make with fennel, anchovies, lemon zest and mozzarella that I particularly miss.

3. Grilling! We’ll have a grill at the new house! And for the first time in ages, I won’t feel spite when all of the food magazines suddenly decide to have “grilling issues.”

4. Make my own creme fraiche. I need to stop bookmarking or starring blog posts about making creme fraiche and just do it.

5. Go to Emilitsa, a Greek restaurant in downtown Portland that I’ve been wanting to try for a while now, but haven’t ever really gotten it together to do. I LOVE lamb and I’ve heard their lamb dishes are spectacular.

6. Go to Bresca again. I keep wanting to go on my birthday, but my birthday is always on Restaurant Week and while I’m sure they do great things on Restaurant Week, I want to go on a regular week.

7. Cook and eat more meals that are based on beans and grains. Mark Bittman is always writing about this* (see here and here) and I am totally on board in theory, but somehow it hasn’t quite clicked in practice. I have one farro recipe, and one quinoa recipe, one lentil recipe, one white bean soup recipe, and I love those recipes. But one recipe per grain or bean doesn’t really translate into eating those things regularly or incorporating them into the way I cook.

8. Figure out lunch. It’s usually either leftovers or an unsatisfying mix of scavenged odds and ends. I work from home. I should be able to sort this out.

9. Do more canning, and, in particular, try new canning recipes. I enjoy it, but I don’t often branch out beyond the things I’ve made before. I recently picked up a copy of Ashley English’s Homemade Living at the library, which has some interesting recipes, and I own cookbooks with interesting canning recipes, so I just need to make them.

10. Don’t use the kitchen counters as way stations for all the small papers and miscellaneous items that come into the house. It makes me crazy to have piles of things on the kitchen counters encroaching on all my work space, and yet I find it so hard to stop leaving shit there.

We’ll see how it goes. And I would love to hear about your non-resolutions if you have them.

* Lately he’s been writing about being semi-vegan, as in the more recent article I linked to, which is slightly different but similar. And I love vegetables enough that cooking and eating those isn’t a particular struggle.