‘Tis the season for New Year’s resolutions but for 2024 I’m going to lean heavily on last year’s list as I don’t think I quite stuck to my initial plan for 2023.
In general, 2023 turned out reasonably well. Opportunities opened up to eat out some more – Higgs’ Field providing some nice breakfasts in Kilkenny for the few months they were open, a major Campagne-shaped itch was scratched in May and in all, I’ve probably been able to eat out more in the past 12 months than the previous three years. Certainly not to the level I’ve enjoyed in recent years, but travel also featured, with a food-and-beer-focused trip to Nuremberg, Germany, among the highlights. On the home front, breaks in Dublin, Wexford yielded some new restaurant finds so as least I managed to scratch off some of 2023’s list.
So in the spirit of tradition, let’s see what we might put into action for 2024. I outlined six goals last year but I’m adding a seventh in case I start getting through them a bit easier this time around.
1. Learn a new dish
I feel this should be on everyone’s list, every year, and it’s definitely on mine. There’s always room for learning something new, especially in the kitchen. It could be something simple, just for yourself, or maybe something you’re looking to add to your arsenal for group meals or family gatherings. The trick is that in learning a new dish, you take it to the point where you make it your own, you don’t need a step-by-step and you can pull it out of the bag at the drop of a hat. Learn it, develop it, master it. One new dish, that’s it.
For me, I’m thinking Indian or Asian where the spices make the magic. It could be something that goes into the batch cooking routine for the working week or one for that dinner party I never got around to throwing in 2023…
2. Eat somewhere new, in Kilkenny
Believe it or not, but I only got around to scratching Campagne off my dining list this year and it took me turning 40 to do just that. Needless to say, it didn’t disappoint. The length and breadth of Kilkenny, there are plenty of places I’ve yet to eat in or from and while looking for one a month might be a tad ambitious (and start to add up on the cost front), I think six new places is a good target. Like many others in Kilkenny, I’m a creature of habit. I’ve a select number of places I really enjoy eating in, particular dishes on menus that I will revert to but I’ve been putting together a hit list of places to visit in 2023 and it’s not a short one either. More on that during the week.
3. Eat somewhere new, not in Kilkenny
In this case, I’m not talking about nipping into a random cafe for a sandwich while I’m travelling for work, but actually making a point of picking an eatery outside of Kilkenny and heading there specifically for a food experience – be it a Michelin-star evening or a hotel breakfast. There’s so much love and effort being poured into the Irish food scene that as much as I’ll be aiming to do the majority of my eating on home soil, it would be remiss of me not to go beyond the county-bounds and see what’s been stirring in west Cork since my last visit, Clare, Cavan, Wicklow. Have a few extra days off this year, will travel.
4. Enroll in a nutrition course
This is one I’ll be documenting via Any Given Food, the name once bestowed on this blog before I had a change of heart a few years into writing about food. My relationship with food went under a big microscope for the latter part of 2023 (all offline) and for all the books and podcasts I’ve read and been listening to, I feel it’s time to take things a step further. Whether it’s a weekend course or a year-long adventure, I’ll be looking to formalise nutrition education this calendar year. On that note, if you’ve any recommendations, I’m all ears.
5. Bring back the podcast
This is something more blog-related than specifically food-related but it’s all connected. Almost four years ago now I produced a short series called ‘Food In Five Minutes’ as part of the Ken On Food podcast. An episode was recommended to me a week or two back while out walking the dog and I took a listen to the last edition of it where fresh ears found it short, snappy, to the point and I began remembering the production process, the research, avid note taking and all the rest of the preparation that went into delivering a simple 5 minute podcast week in, week out.
Content creation is high on my agenda this year so as part of my food plans I’m hoping to bring back the podcast, both in the five-minute form and longer form too. And if the opportunity presents itself, maybe a little more on the radio front too.
6. Grow something, from scratch
Whether it’s recycling avocado pits or planting tomatoes in a grow bag in the sunroom, I’ve got to grow something from scratch this year. Granted it’s going to take me another year or two to get the garden sorted so I’m happy to start with the windowsill variety of herbs. I got close in 2023, inheriting a chili plant but it was already sprouting by the time I took it on.
I can’t honestly tell you what the last thing I grew from seed was. Not a clover of garlic, spud, strawberry or otherwise. This year, that will change.
7. Go whole-food, plant-based for a month
From August to October I managed to shed a little over 10kg from my walking around weight. Part of the reason I want to focus on nutrition this year is to understand what’s right for me to live, stay living and live on as long as possible. For a while, I was using the Limbo service where a combination of blood-glucose monitoring, AI and human feedback on your food choices and more are supposed to steer you towards a better, healthier, lighter you. In a way, it did. In no way was it being looked at as a diet, but more as a tool to help me understand the impact of my food choices on how my body works and has been working.
I ditched sugar, alcohol, and most vices and it paid off if you consider the weight loss a pay off. Two years ago, I chose February to follow a plant-based diet for the month (because Veganuary is so cliché) and with Mrs. Ken On Food a near lifelong vegetarian, and now with a four-year-old who’s fruit and vegetable-loving, it seems like a good idea to pick a month to ditch all the processed, quick-hit foods and start adding some more grains, pulses, legumes and the rest to my intake. I’ve got 12 months to pick from and it sure as hell isn’t going to be January or December but somewhere in between I’ll make it happen.
Happy new year!
So there you have it. Seven, attainable enough goals for 2024. They may move, shift, stretch, but they’re there, they’re on paper and they’ve got me raring to get stuck into a new year. To you and yours, happy new year and hopefully the next 366 days (it’s a leap year) are good to you.
