A Year Without Meat

As you may or may not know, my New Year’s resolution last year was to go through 2011 as a pescatarian (one who eats no meat except seafood). Tonight, at midnight, my year is successfully complete. This is the first New Year’s resolution I have ever kept the whole year, and I’m glad that I did. The past year forced me to investigate parts of menus I often overlook (seafood and vegetarian sections); it encouraged me to discover recipes or alter my pre-existing recipes to substitue new ingredients for meat; I discovered veggie chorizzo; my imagination involving pizza toppings and pastry fillings soared.

As I look forward to this next year, I am excited by the prospect of reintroducing meat to my diet. Cooking meat has never been my strong point (with the exception of Steak Diane), but my year without using meat at all in recpies has filled me with a curiosity about how to use it more wisely. With that in mind, I would love to hear your suggestions for recipes involving meat.

This year’s resolution is to cut beer and soda out of my diet. I am hoping that the void of these basic go-to drinks that require so little thought will encourage the same artful investigation of more unique and tasteful beverages. If you have wine and/or beverage suggestions that avoid the use of soda and beer, please share those as well.

In your own contemplations of what to add or subtract from your life in 2012, I encourage you to challenge yourself in a way yet untried. Do something unique and stick to it. Delayed gratification in a world where our iPads and SmartPhones keep information and entertainment at our fingertips constantly is an almost lost virtue. Challenge yourself to leave something behind. Or to add something that takes time, and perhaps silence. We must not forget the ability to say “no,” or to wait. Patience is not only good for us, but adds to our enjoyment when we finally do once again partake in what we’ve set aside. I  can’t wait to have my first bite after midnight. Give yourself something to look forward to on Jan. 1, 2013.

Time Passes…

I am no longer a first year teacher, a first year Catholic, or any other first year that I can think of right now. I have moved to a new school where I believe that my teaching skills are being honed and bettered on a daily basis. I’m also living with my sister since the first time since I graduated from high school, so that involves its own adventures. I have a new church home where I am currently less involved than I was before but where I feel able to simply worship and fellowship with God for now. My friendships and relationships have morphed; many of my closest friends are on the path to take vows of one sort or another in the not-so-distant future.

Time has passed as it always does and will continue to do so. This blog will do a mediocre job (because it can only do as well as the effort I put into it) of documenting the sharable portions of that time. Enjoy!

Welcome!

Edna St. Vincent Millay once wrote, “My candle burns at both ends;/It will not last the night;/But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends—/It gives a lovely light.”

As a first year teacher, a first year Catholic, a long-time writer/thinker, and a professional amateur cook, I often feel like my candle is burning at both ends. I aim through this blog to allow some of that fire to shed some light on matters of interest to me.