Thursday, December 31, 2009

A Saucy New Year to You!

Image taken from the NYT Blog Diner's Journal, 2/15/08

I have written before that I do not make resolutions at the New Year; instead, inspired by my niece, I set nice, gentle goals for myself.

I have learned to make my goals as broad and as generous as possible, so I will not be too hard on myself when I fail to achieve them (or they change direction, as I like to think of it).

I would like to learn how to be more organized at home so that I can do more of the things I want to be doing rather than avoiding the things that I don't want to be doing (and therefore not doing much of anything at all). Toward that end, I want to be realistic about how many things I can do in a day, and not give myself impossible tasks.

I want to make more of the food that I consume and rely less on processed, prepared foods. My attention was caught by an online article at National Restaurant News that mentioned that five fast food items were included on a list of the "Ten Most Memorable Product Launches of 2009." I find it interesting that five of the ten products were launched by fast food providers. I get a little leery of any food that is considered a "product." I wonder how much real food is involved in their production.

One project about which I am most excited is something I am going to do with a friend of mine. She mentioned to me a few months ago that she had found some recipes for Worcestershire Sauce, mustard, ketchup and some other condiments and she planned to make them. I had just read an article in Saveur magazine about making your own condiments, which had greatly intrigued me, seeing as how I have been delving more and more deeply into making as many things as I can from scratch.

"I'm in," I said. "Do you want to do something together?" She agreed, so we are getting together in a couple of weeks to make a plan. We are going to start with Worcestershire sauce, since that requires a few weeks of fermenting before it is ready.

We have decided not to make mayonnaise a part of the project, mostly because it does not have a long shelf life and you have to be ready to use all of it within a week of making it. I have made it before anyway (for this blog event), so that is fine with me.

If the project goes well, I expect to be exploring more do-it-yourself food preparation. I've been thinking about making my own nut butters, and I am eager to try my hand at pasta.

I already buy little from the processed, pre-packaged aisles at the grocery store. My main goal for the new year is to buy even less. I will post reports as I progress.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I cannot wait! I am sure we are going to have some great successes and some terrifying failures!

dejamo said...

Or, we could end up with some great failures and some terrifying successes! I am excited, too.

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