Resolutions
I quite like the idea of New Year's Resolutions: new year, new start, taking stock, all that kind of thing. This year I think the important thing is not to resolve the same old, same old. I don't know for how many years I have been resolving to eat less, drink less, exercise more, so clearly I never do it or I wouldn't have to resolve it all over again. I suppose there is the possibility that if I never made the resolutions in the first place I would become huge, slow and utterly drunk, sliding inexorably into decadence like Julie Burchill at her worst. But I think not.
So this is the year for some others. I have just been sorting magazines into piles so here is number one:
I will stop buying new magazines and start rereading the ones I have got. Anything I am not prepared to reread must go to recycling. I'm always keeping them, especially gardening magazines. They accumulate in piles in various corners of the house. So read them or chuck them and don't invite any more inside (other than the ones on subsription, sorry, didn't tell you about those. Is that cheating?)
And here is another gardening one:
I will really try to do the successional sowing of vegetables that I am always reading about, thinking about and intending to do but somehow never quite managing. Let us start small. I won't be able to do it for loads of different things so just two: peas and rocket for sweet full peapods and tiny young leaves of rocket.
And a cooking one.
I have a huge selection of cookery books. Instead of just reading them or taking them out of the shelves and putting them back I will cook one new dish every week. I have a really lovely book by Tessa Kiros and that is the place to start with food from Scandinavia and the Lebanon, the main thing the recipes have in common (other than her heritage) being strong and singing flavours.
And a Welsh one: more listening, more speaking, more practice.
And I think I will finish with an impossible one: I might try to combine my passionate attachment to gardening and food and living in fleece with becoming incredibly glamourous, not every day, perhaps on Thursdays.
There we go. I'll report back on early progress at the end of the month.
So this is the year for some others. I have just been sorting magazines into piles so here is number one:
I will stop buying new magazines and start rereading the ones I have got. Anything I am not prepared to reread must go to recycling. I'm always keeping them, especially gardening magazines. They accumulate in piles in various corners of the house. So read them or chuck them and don't invite any more inside (other than the ones on subsription, sorry, didn't tell you about those. Is that cheating?)
And here is another gardening one:
I will really try to do the successional sowing of vegetables that I am always reading about, thinking about and intending to do but somehow never quite managing. Let us start small. I won't be able to do it for loads of different things so just two: peas and rocket for sweet full peapods and tiny young leaves of rocket.
And a cooking one.
I have a huge selection of cookery books. Instead of just reading them or taking them out of the shelves and putting them back I will cook one new dish every week. I have a really lovely book by Tessa Kiros and that is the place to start with food from Scandinavia and the Lebanon, the main thing the recipes have in common (other than her heritage) being strong and singing flavours.
And a Welsh one: more listening, more speaking, more practice.
And I think I will finish with an impossible one: I might try to combine my passionate attachment to gardening and food and living in fleece with becoming incredibly glamourous, not every day, perhaps on Thursdays.
There we go. I'll report back on early progress at the end of the month.
What a good idea to cook one new dish every week. I will look at my huge collection of cookery books, and maybe do the same!
ReplyDeleteDon't forget to put up a pic of yourself next Thursday in the common room!!!
ReplyDeleteThose are very good resolutions. I especially like the magazine one and the cooking one.
ReplyDeleteI keep magazines far too long, so when we moved I limited myself to keeping only one year of a magazine. Of course, that was one year ago, so I probably have two years now. Better get to work . . .
Oooh, I like these, Elizabeth - not a hair shirt among them! Especially the one about a new recipe every week - I have a hopelessly stunted repertoire and loads and loads of cookery books. Also like your idea of glamorous Thursdays. Although it would mean I would have to go out on a shopping spree. And possibly venture into tights...
ReplyDeleteLooking forward to hearing how your vegetable-growing goes. Happy New Year!
LBD xx
can i just go ahead and resolve to be "huge, slow, and utterly drunk"? i love that phrase.
ReplyDeleteUtterly glamorous, i wish....we'd have to stop gardening walking scootering drinking [ cos beer isnt glamourous]unless disguised in a champagne flute, shhh and swearing I just don't think i could manage for a whole day xx good idea though..
ReplyDeleteFabulous! I love the idea of being glamourous on Thursdays. So much easier than Saturdays!
ReplyDeleteGreat resolutions and I look forward to your progress report:-)
Happy new year from New York.
ReplyDeleteI so understand that you are not cheating at all re maybe ... not tossing all the magazines that you subscribe to!
I like all your resolutions. Sometimes when I go to my very wonderful neighborhood market, I try to buy something that I have never, never bought before. So many options: a seasoning, a type of apple, a type of chocolate (cheating, but I do it,) a new cheese, an unfamiliar bread or bean or lettuce or pasta noodle, or ... new cut of meat or neauveau fish. It is just to shake up the tastebuds, and unlock my brain from familiar pathways.
Fun!
I'm going to join you in the cooking one. I have all these cook books, look at them sometimes, pop them back on the shelf and make the same old boring stuff. (Oh and the eat more healthily, lose weight, exercise stuff I do every year and never achieve)
ReplyDeleteHave just been reading your blog and it's quite spooky how much we have in common. In fact, I think I need to take on your New Year Resolutions! Thanks for the suggestions.
ReplyDeleteNice blog!
Welsh? Blimey! Siarad Cymraig? Neither do I.
ReplyDeleteAnd yes, that's cheating (the subscription thing). Most magazines are twee rubbish anyway, catering for people who have time to read them and full of recipes for cakes and totally devoid of any decent advice or help.
See what happens when you get me started.
Oh Elizabeth, that last one has got me laughing like a drain! Did you read my secret list? I have resolved (on the quiet of course) to stop arriving at the school gates looking like Julie Walters in one of her worst disguises. We have also resolved to stop just reading our lovely cookery books and try a different recipe once a week - also have the Kiros bookand it is gorgeous. As for the garden - successional sowing? Here too! So funny xxx
ReplyDeletewhatever you do, don't do the 'cooking a new dish' one on the same day as the 'looking more glamorous one'! That could be a recipe (geddit?) for disaster!
ReplyDeleteHappy new Year to you and good luck with those resolutions.
Pigx
Good to hear some innovative resolutions. I didn't make any this year - but you have inspired me with the recipes and the successional sowing.
ReplyDeleteAnd from your previous blog - please congratulate that hen on her Boxing Day egg. What a super gift!
I love the thought of Glam Thursday. It's like dress-down Friday, isn't it, only in reverse!
ReplyDeleteI had a friend once who taught himself to cook with a Robert Carrier cookbook and working through the recipes. But I find the problem with recipes in general is that they always require something that you haven't got while never offering a home for that week old cabbage that ought to have turned last Tuesday.
Excellent resolutions - and do-able. I think I'll pinch the cookery one too, as long as I can persuade myself not to going buying more cookery books! Maybe we should post a recipe of the week on Purplecoo?
ReplyDeleteGood luck - especially with the glam Thursdays! I could do with pinching that one - especially since I seem to going down the Julie Birchill path. I have piles of magazines too - but then I seem to have piles of everything lying around - sigh.
ReplyDeleteI'm guilty of buying magazines when I haven't read the old ones so will also try to read thoroughly first. Back to Welsh tomorrow and I'm dreading it!
ReplyDeleteHow sensible are these! Have been cooking more - well, have a fab new kitchen so no excuses (even if oven man is downstairs fiddling, for the second time in a month). Hate magazines, luckily, but def sensible to re-use what have (whether books, clothes, music etc) rather than forever reaching for MORE. Glam? Hmm, I'll wait until the house is done...
ReplyDelete