We’re resolving to do away with empty resolutions and to get back to cooking and eating what we love.
December 17, 2021
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It’s been a long, long year. Improbably, this year felt even longer than the last, with all of its highs and lows, and all those moments of fiercely cherished optimism tempered by sudden, nagging uncertainty. If you’re anything like us, you’re tired—tired of the damn pandemic, tired of trying to make up for The Year That Wasn’t by making this past one The Year That Sorta-Kinda Was. Maybe you went to all the weddings that got canceled in 2020, or perhaps you threw a blowout Thanksgiving to erase the sad Zoom get-togethers of our first plague year. And after all of that, you need some comfort.
So, that’s our gift to you at the close of 2021. Forget all the stuff you’ve ever read about NEW YEAR NEW YOU. Don’t attempt some January 1 “detox” and fall into that trite old cycle of trying to turn over a new leaf. In 2022, we’re resolving to do away with empty resolutions and to get back to cooking and eating what we love. That starts with a week of comfort food.
Don’t get us wrong—this isn’t a free-for-all. Comfort isn’t just about stuffing your face with simple carbs or embracing the wild “any hour is happy hour!” ethos of those early days of lockdown. Instead, we’re keeping sustainability in mind with this mostly-vegetarian-but-totally-pescatarian plan of dinners for the first week of January. We’ve drawn on both beloved recipes from the Epicurious archives, as well as some new recipes from recently published cookbooks we’re crushing on. None of them feels like a herculean effort, but none of them feels like throwing in the towel, either. We’re reminding ourselves that we cook not simply out of necessity or obligation, but because we love it.
Feel free to swap one day’s recipe for another if you feel like it, or check out our vegan and vegetarian menus for this week for extra inspiration if you’d like. Just be kind to yourself and others, and take it easy as we roll into 2022—because we’ve got another long, long year ahead of us.
