Every year I sit down and make some resolutions for the kitchen. Given that food is one of my favorite sources of joy, novelty, and connection, it’s a favorite practice of mine to spend a little bit of time making this space more useful, and my time spent in the kitchen more meaningful. Having people around my table (even figuratively) is how I show love, and bring people together – and although we can’t do much of that these days, I’m thankful to be able to take the time to feed myself well.
I’ve been writing these resolutions for more than a decade, and some of them pop up year after year – affirm doing good things that work – and a handful are new each year. You can take a peek through previous years here: (2012) (2016) (2017) (2018) (2019) (2020) (2022) (2023)
I try not to re-invent the wheel, so the categories are the same with some year in review updates!
Re-Commit to Consistent Kitchen Habits:
Particularly the habits that keep me consistent in other areas of my life. I find that most things in my life depend on me eating well.
Weekly Meal Planning: one of my home court habits in my “Let’s Eat” spreadsheet. I also make a weekly Evernote note with my shopping list on there as well. One thing that has made this easier in 2023 is that I now publish my meal plan each week in my newsletter! I plan on continuing this!
Update my “Anytime Shopping List” ie: regular groceries list (favorites, protein, don’t leave the store without this!)
Update my “New Recipes To Try” list (with at least 52 stellar recipes for the year and beyond); and a weekly Turkish recipe.
AND: Dishes cleaned before bed, coffee maker set. Coffee cup next to the coffee maker, ready to take on the day.
Remove Clutter:
While some people find a perfectly spotless and minimalist kitchen ideal; I actually need to be able to see appliances or pantry items in order to be inspired to use them.
Do a systems audit for blockages
Make what I want to use more obvious
Schedule a quarterly KITCHEN PURGE
Remove the storage pans from the oven so you can use it more easily this year
In 2023, I gave myself the gift of an organizer who came once a quarter. We worked on some big projects each time, and cleared out the vast majority of all tupperware from my kitchen. Life changing.
Quest for Best:
This is one of my personal values – I get a lot of satisfaction out of keeping track of the “best of”, like your own neighborhood consumer reports.
Do a pantry audit, and re-stock pantry with “best of” items, update my spreadsheet (did in 2023, do again in 2024)
Seek novelty: Bean of the Month Club, Spice Club, new item at Trader Joe’s or one new item at Formaggio each trip! (NEW: Noma R+D club shipments (re-upped for 2024 – the Dashi RDX and Corn Yuzu hot sauce were fab!)
• Get your knives sharpened. Just do it! (China Fair does it for a dollar) • Review storage containers for more sustainable options (updated with Anyday) • Re-Read a classic cookbook every month • Read more food writing (and memoirs) – added to reading list!
AND: Write a new travel (and local!) bucket list of restaurants. (Currently in my Ideas Doc)
Make Memories in the Kitchen
Update Friends + Family Favorite List so I can cook in honor of my people and think about them (or cook for them!) If I haven’t solicited some from you, drop your favorites in the comments for me!
Monthly: Update Seasonal Favorite Cooking List (in my Ideas Doc)
Monthly: Update my list of “Big Cooking Projects” (in my Ideas Doc)
Zoom Cooking classes with friends! (In 2021, I had a great time taking a truffle making course, and a Lamb Biryani from Pondicheri – looking forward to choosing a few great options to take with friends and family!)
Pick two signature cooking gifts (something to perfect and send to people)
“The Weekly Bean” – I have a subscription to the Rancho Gordo Bean Club that leaves me with a very large stash of beans to eat. I aim for a bag a week. I was very inspired by a picture in the Rancho Gordo Bean Club facebook group of a woman who had a nice running list in a bullet journal of her weekly beans.
Restaurants in Boston I’d Like to Visit
Yes it’s not *technically in my kitchen* (also generally working my way through Eater 38) – this actually got a kickstart in 2023 with a monthly dinner with my friend Kathy! We went to Pammy’s (stand out!), O Ya (truly delightful), Fox & The Knife, and Bar Vlaha.
Still want to try: Oleana • Kava Neo-Taverna • Contessa • Menton
New Cookbooks in 2024:
My bare minimum of reading/rereading starting point – I read a lot more cookbooks generally, but my specific resolution is to add recipes I want to try to my running doc! I also want to read a range for my creative input.
January: Jeremy Lee – Cooking Simply and Well, For One or Many
Do you have any kitchen resolutions this year? I’d love to hear about them!
Hello! Hello!Welcome to another weekly episode of Good Things where I give you a peek into my everyday life during the week, and roundup my good links, ideas, books, and more.
We made it to the last day of the year! I’m spending the day doing some planning, tidying, reading (including re-reading my own Winter Good Things Guide I published at the beginning of the year) and blog posts from years past. I always love the last week of the year for the “in-between energy”.
January Intentions
Each month I sit down and write out a list of intentions for the month ahead. It’s not exactly a to-do list, more like an “options” list. Place-holders also help me make space for more exciting adventures! How do I want to feel this month? Like I eased into January with purpose and renewed energy.
Out and About
Photography Walk with my nice camera – documenting New England winter wildlife • Movie Theater on $7 Tuesday • Dog Walks with friends • Movie Night at Home with Popcorn • Winter at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum with Amanda (Jan 10th) • Monthly Boston dinner with my friend Kathy • Monthly family dinner out with my mom and brother
Good Eats
Food in January List (work in progress!) • Rancho Gordo Popcorn for movie nights • Candied Citrus • Annie’s with crab, tomato paste, sherry • Kapuska (Turkish cabbage and meat stew) • Lamb Biryani
Self Care
Self-Care List • Massage • Eye Masks in the fridge in the morning • Stick on Nails until you can get a manicure again • Float Spa (want to test Float and The Indoor Oasis) • Sauna at Kelo
Move!
The Needham New Year’s 5k • Lift (Weekly Lifting 3x at home with lifting schedule printed out, 1 at gym) • CRAW • Yoga (weekly Ompractice, daily 30 days) • Pilates (Reformer – SolidCore at Arsenal)
Update Lists
Inputs List (Podcasts, Reading, Watching) • Recipes to Cook • Cooking Projects 2024 • Bean of the Month • Hobonichi Prep for 2024 • Placeholders for “Once in a Lifetime monthly activities” • Favorites 2023 (see inspiration)
Tidy up outdoor plants for winter • List 5 things to giveaway on Buy Nothing • Haircut • Updated addresses for New Year Cards • Valvoline • RMV • Labcorp • Order lid screws for toilet • Get knives sharpened
Inputs
📺 Watch: The Banshees of Inisherin • The Taste of Things • Killers of the Flower Moon • Past Lives • Poor Things (theater) • Michael Clayton • The Northman • The Holdovers • Past Lives • The Killing of a Sacred Deer (before Jan 22) • The Iron Claw (theater) • ‘Menus-Plaisirs — Les Troisgros’ (theater) • Fargo (TV) • Reacher (TV) • The Bear (TV) • New Season of Queer Eye (TV) • Jury Duty (TV) • Beef (TV)
📆 Accountability Workshop on 1/6/24
Something I’ve been toying with for the past few months has been how to help other people move things forward. I’m of the belief that community is one of the best forms of accountability. For years I hosted a weekly *Do The Thing Hour, which is currently on hiatus, but love the idea of co-working towards getting things done together! I’ll be trying out something new in January, a “One Month, One Goal” workshop. We’ll come together to identify a *singular* goal you’d like to tackle in 30 days, and work together to make daily or weekly actions on your goal both measurable and more easily implementable. We’ll then have a shared goal tracker (via a fancy Google Slide Deck) Sign up here for the live class, or the recording if you can’t make it! January 6th on Zoom + 30 days of fun! $42.
This Week in Good Things:
🍏 A quick trip to New York City: my friend Rebeqa was visiting from Luxembourg! Highlights included an excellent Korean lunch at Han Bat (seafood pancake was the best! kalbi, kimchi fried rice, tofu stew), hot chocolate at Burdicks, dinner at Mercado Little Spain (pan con tomate, tripe stew, lentil soup, salad with avocado and goat cheese, another salad with egg and tuna, flan, and my favorite basque goat cheese cheesecake). A breakfast sandwich at Sip + Co (bacon, egg, cheese, on a bap). A points upgrade to the Kimpton Eventi (lovely!) Punctuated by wandering through Bergdorfs, Muji, and spending a lovely afternoon in the Housing Works Bookstore doing our end of year review and planning.
🇹🇷 House Dinner with Turkish Food – my neighbor Elif cooked up a veritable feast for us all: köfte and vegetables, mercimek köfte, sarma, börek, carrot salad, potato salad (with yogurt and cornichons!), hummus, fried peppers, baklava. I have the true luck having neighbors I truly adore!
🐾 Pup Walks with Friends: a walk with Sawyer (the Corgi) and her humans.
Good Things to Think About
What’s your backup? This year I’m working on backup lists – ideas for when to downshift because of lower energy, or when I need to intentionally reduce chaos or spend more time resting. I’ve been also thinking of Minimum Viable Consistency: “What’s your chicken fingers in the freezer version of your newsletter? (or whatever you’ve committed to)”
The “Hand-Copying Method”: I’m intrigued by the practice of copying writers by hand (as popularized by Gary Halbert) as a way to practice better writing and learning new skills. I’ve been trying to think of who I’d like to practice this with. Nigella Lawson?
Other Good Things
☕️ Morning coffee with Crescent Ridge Eggnog by the “fireplace” with a good book. I drink my coffee black all other parts of the year.
🔥 Watch (but not with family): Saltburn. (Murder on the Dance Floor is now stuck in my head and may never leave.)
🚀 Learn something new: Aprilynne Alter’s viral video on Youtube Thumbnails (and psychology) even if you have no desire to make a youtube channel, this is fascinating.
🪡 Capturing the year: an embroidery journal (I love the idea of capturing the year in art, journaling, or other mediums.)
I’ve been working on a little project around what I’d like to eat in the New Year. Today I found myself thumbing through two of my favorite authors – Nigel Slater and Nigella Lawson, who seem to have captured what I want to eat at any time.
Sunday: New Year Rice Bowl with crab, avocado, and salmon roe
Monday: Marcus Samuelsson Black Eyed Pea Curry (this is one of my favorite recipes of the year)
Treat options: Tapioca Pudding. TJ’s Pretzel Breadpudding. Chocolate mousse. TJ’s Iced Gingerbread in the freezer. Peppermint Hold the Cones. Walker’s Shortbread. Pumpkin Sticky Toffee Pudding. TJ’s Apple Tartin Tartelettes. (You’ll notice that this list keeps growing – I have a bad? habit of getting fancy desserts from Trader Joe’s from my freezer and taking forever to eat them.
🥑 Good Eats from this past week: I include a weekly meal plan in each week’s Good Things, and things never *actually* go as planned! Some of the standout additions include: Korean seafood pancake, Trader Joe’s tarte tatin with ricotta, basque goat cheese cheesecake.
Welcome to another weekly episode of Good Things where I give you a peek into my everyday life during the week, and roundup my good links, ideas, books, and more.
Abbreviated version tonight – I hope you are all having a lovely and relaxed holiday weekend. I wanted to drop in with a quick hello!
Good Things This Week
🖼 Creative Input: A quick trip to the Museum of Fine Arts. I’d been meaning to go see the Fashioned by Sargent exhibit before it closes in a few weeks, and it didn’t disappoint. In 2024, I’m going to prioritize more quick museum trips, even if it means just popping in for an hour for inspiration.
Tiny Treasures: The Magic of Miniatures. You’ve heard of Fabergé eggs, but have you seen his miniature bulldog, Cody? (This was in the miniatures exhibit, which left me rationalizing a collection of more tiny objects.)
Matthew Wong: The Realm of Appearances. There’s an exhibit by the late Canadian artist Matthew Wong which is really quite stunning. He died at 35. I love some of the inspiration from artists like Kusama (which you can really see in this one.)
Creative Participation! There was an interactive part of the exhibit where you could write a poem. I spent a couple of minutes going through the thick stack of patron contributions. Some of them were truly delightful. Some of them were as entertaining as you’d think giving a crowd writing instruments could be.
Take a seat. The MFA has a collection of chairs in the permanent collection throughout the museum that you can actually sit on. This pair of Conoid chairs were created by George Nakashima and are in the Toshiko Takaezu exhibit in the new wing on the top floor. They are *wildly* comfortable.
Toshiko Takaezu was a ceramist, but perhaps more interestingly she was an artist who worked in a range of mediums, inspiring innovative techniques. I enjoyed the layout of this exhibit which included photographs, video, and sound.
🍫 Chocolate Treats: checking off another item on my December intentions list – a fancy box of Burdick’s chocolates, acquired. Bonus: I got a spot directly in front of the store. After not eating much of anything for an entire week while my mouth healed from a tea burn, I managed to also get myself a warm dark hot chocolate which was the first food in days I finally enjoyed!
⏲ Time to Bake: Cocoa Gingerbread. I loosely adapted this recipe in the NYtimes, adding cocoa and chocolate chips a la Nigella Lawson. It tastes better on day two! I don’t bake often, but when I do, I’m always decently pleased with myself.
A smattering of other good things:
🛁 Watch: Saltburn (only if you like movies from A24 or other arts films and be prepared to be… mildly disturbed.) I enjoyed the movie, but I’m *really* enjoying watching reaction videos to the film. (I’ve also broken down and am watching Reacher, a show about a man who solves problems with his large size.)
🗑 Stop Doing: I deleted Cats and Soup and Two Dots from my phone. I like playing small video games and idlers occasionally while I listen to audiobooks, and then I wake up one day and am done (for the best!)
🌱 Plant Lady Life. Patiently waiting for my waxed amaryllis to bloom. (There’s still time to grab one at Trader Joe’s). I took in my little succulent garden a few weeks ago from my front stoop, and they are thriving on the bookshelf.
A quote to internalize:
“Ideserve a treat when I have a bad week but I also deserve a treat when I have a good week. I simply always deserve treats” – Bettina Makalintal
That’s a wrap for this week!
I hope you have time this week to rest, relax, and connect!
The Second Lunch is a (mostly) food blog by Sam Tackeff about recipes, food writing, ingredient hunting, travel, healthy living, fitness, and everything in between.
Please do not steal! Email me at sam [at] thesecondlunch.com – if you’d like to use one of my photos, and I’d be happy to share my terms. Thanks!
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