Updated again on Thursday, January 4th. These updates are in orange.
Full Disclosure: this list was updated again December 29th, 2006. Updates are in yellow.
Here we are, as promised. These are my food-related New Year's Resolutions for 2007. We'll revisit this list periodically to see how it's coming along. As I am a notorious procrastinator (I like to think of it as "building urgency"), we'll probably accomplish most of this around December 15th, 2007. Some of these things are a call for entry, so if you have something to contribute (a cow, a recipe, a restaurant), please feel free to e-mail me and let me know how you can help.
1. Learn to make pastry cream. Considering my typical baking-related hubris, I have never even attempted to make pastry cream. For some inexplicable reason, it scares me. When I was about 12, I decided I was going to make cream puffs, and I did it. They turned out perfectly and I became a cream puff savant. If only I had decided to make pastry cream filling, I might not be afraid now, but I was want to put boxed chocolate pudding in the centers of my choux. I believe I've already mentioned I was 12. I wasn't even aware that pudding came any other way.
2. Make pate and sausage. Especially now that I have my nifty new grinder, I have no excuse.
3. Eat at Bouchon bakery again. This, of course, would mean a trip the Napa, New York, or Vegas. So taking a vacation with Husband, something we haven't done for a long time, is included in this resolution.
4. Work in a kitchen. Of course, not my kitchen, but a restaurant kitchen. The downside to this resolution is that kitchen work doesn't pay nearly as well as front-of-the-house (ie, serving or bartending) pays, so it's one of those resolutions I keep putting off. I will revise this as necessary to include working in a bakery, cheese shop, meat packing house, etc.
5. Work on a farm for at least one day, preferably before a market day, so I can see what it's like to prepare for the market. I'd like this to be a farm with chickens, as I was an egg-gathering pro as a child, and would like to see if I still retain such prowess.
6. Find a source for raw milk, even if I have to buy a cow. I grew up drinking raw milk, and remain living and healthy to this day. At dinner with my relatives the other night, my uncle, whose son has a Jersey (who produce the best milk) cow, suggested I might purchase my own cow and keep it in my yard. Regardless of how my neighbors might treat their back yard, I'm afraid I'm not zoned for livestock, and must therefore keep my cow on someone else's farm. I'd prefer a Jersey cow, and will proceed to make butter and yogurt from my raw milk. I promise to keep my source on the extreme down-low. Anyone with an Amish dairy for a neighbor, let me know.
7. Can something. Even if it's one jar of jam or tomato sauce.
8. Learn to make new things from others, especially other cultures.
9. Take a few field trips - to a local fishery, grain mill, etc, and continue to search out the best Columbus and Central Ohio has to offer, documenting it and encouraging others to support our local businesses and agriculture.
10. Find more people to pay me to write, and someone to pay me to travel.
11. Make bread.
12. Get out of my downtown bubble and explore other parts of the city, particularly the great Mexican food on the West side and the growing abundance of African food on the Northeast side.
12. Eat at a Taquearia (I'm sure my spelling is incorretc) by the side of the road.
13. Have more people over for dinner (sorry if you get invited and have to wait for me to take pictures of everything.)
I hope we can all make our resolutions a reality. Happy New Year!