Saturday, January 10, 2015

Make a Resolution for a Food Revolution



Happy New Year from Amy’s Food Revolution! 2015 is a big year for my Food Revolution because it marks the 5 year anniversary of when it all began. And, as some of you may know, it all started with a New Year’s Resolution. In fact, it is the only New Year’s Resolution that I have ever really kept. Most New Year’s resolutions are “lose something (weight),” “stop something (a bad habit),” “don’t do this” or “don’t do that.” On January 1st of 2010 I decided to make resolutions that had a positive spin on them. Each resolution had the word “more” in it and one of them was to “Cook more.” Now I wasn’t quite sure how I was going to accomplish this but I knew that if I was going to cook more I would need to learn how to cook. I could barely boil water for pasta (me and boiling pots still don’t really get along too well) so how was I going to learn how to cook? 

A few weeks later my husband and I watched the movie “Julie and Julia” and the movie stuck with me. I was sure that it was the key to how I would learn to cook. If you haven’t seen the movie, Julie Powell cooks her way through Julia Child’s “Mastering the Art of French Cooking.” The famous cookbook has a daunting 524 recipes and I knew my young family was not going to let me get away with copying Ms. Powell’s journey exactly as she did it. I needed to find another book. Now, this was months before Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution TV show in the US and honestly I didn’t know a whole lot about him. But one day at the book store, I came across Jamie’s Food Revolution Cookbook (while chasing a toddler who was gnawing on Max and Ruby books and running through the store.) And the rest is, as they say, history. I did cook more. In 365 days, I cooked all 173 recipes in Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution cook book. I not only cooked more but I:


My “Cook More” New Year’s Resolution has been a journey that outlived its New Year's Resolution status. 

So, if you’ll humor me, this year I’ll be revisiting my original days of Amy’s Food Revolution. I hope that going back and looking at my journey will inspire others to take a bold step into their kitchen. 

So, for 2015, I hope you will resolve to spend more time in your kitchen. "More" can simply mean to eat out a little less or cook a new recipe with your family just once a week. Who knows, you might find out that it is the easiest and best resolution you ever kept.

Happy New Year!

Amy