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New Year's Food Resolutions

We all know the scoop on New Year's resolutions: They rarely stick. Especially those ones about eating better or less.

So this year, instead of making a vow I'm unlikely to keep beyond February, I'm going for a modest goal. I'd like to host more dinner parties.

Okay, let's get real here. I'd settle for serving up a meal for six to eight adults at least once in 2010. The kind where courses are served and grown-up banter can be had. Sounds like fun and seems doable, right?

Somehow these days I find all sorts of reasons why I don't dish up dinner to a group of friends -- too busy, tired, immersed in familyland or intimidated by others culinary skills or dietary restrictions. Just excuses, really.

So let's see if I can follow through on this intention. If you have any advice about a plan for operation dinner party, bring it on.

And if you have your own food-focused New Year's resolution -- I mean goal -- let me know below and perhaps readers will chime in with tips that might help you meet your target in 2010.  Happy New Year!

Book Giveaway: Cool Cuisine

Here's a concept: Eat well and help prevent climate change at the same time.

That's the premise behind Cool Cuisine: Taking the Bite Out of Global Warming, an easy-to-digest account about our overheating planet that focuses on solutions to the problem and includes culinary tips and techniques designed to mitigate global warming.  Written by environmental activist and chef Laura Stec, with climate change scientist Eugene Cordero, Cool Cuisine could come in handy for folks who want to begin the new year by eating better and impacting the earth less.

The guide (think manifesto rather than cookbook) includes recipes of the "eat more plants" variety, such as Grilled Persimmon Salad with Maple-Spiced Walnuts, Spinach, & Frisee and Spring Barley Risotto with Asparagus, Dill, & Fresh Artichoke. Each chapter includes a practical page with ideas designed to trigger discussion for book club or potluck purposes, along with field trip suggestions, film and book recommendations, and tips for taking small steps towards eating and cooking in a more environmentally-friendly manner.

Cool Cuisine also has helpful hints on making a basic sauce, stocking a condiment plate with lesser known items (gomashio and umeboshi vinegar for starters), selecting salts, and cooking with whole grains you may not have heard of like hato mugi (Job's tears) and emmer (farro).

Read a review here.

It's naive to think changing your diet can stop global warming, of course. But limiting or cutting out beef consumption, buying local, seasonal, organic produce, drinking tap versus bottled water, reducing food waste, and increasing food-scrap composting can help lower your food-related carbon footprint -- and is better for you to boot, say the authors.

Tell me one thing you do on the food front to help fight global warming to be in the running to win a copy of Cool Cuisine.

Submit your entry by 10 p.m. PST on Wednesday, January 6, and I’ll pick a winner at random from the suggestions shared below.

Full disclosure: Lots of chatter in the blogosphere of late about freebies, and even rules and regulations on accepting swag from the FTC.

So here's my ad hoc policy on such matters, in case you were wondering: I give away books because I'm an avid reader and firmly believe in the good karma inherent in sharing the printed word with others.

Some books come my way as comps from publicists or agents, some I buy, some are gifts from author friends. For a book to meet my giveaway criteria it needs to be a terrific read, explore a compelling concept, and/or offer innovative recipes.  In short, I only offer contests for titles I think my readers (that's you) may find useful, entertaining, or both.

Oh, and my bias, if I have one: You're unlikely to see bestsellers in the giveaway mix, since you can find those tomes easily enough yourself and I prefer to showcase writers who may fall under the radar.

That work for you? Thought so, feel free to enter below.

Seeking Comfort Foods During Season of Excess

Had too many fancy-pants dinners lately? Sick of rich desserts? Over overindulging on the eating and drinking front at holiday parties?

If I'm in Australia this time of year I start to O.D. on nibbles like taramosalata dip, champers, and triple-cream Brie. In California, it's enough with the holiday cookies already.

So, quick question: During this season of excess consumption, what foods do you seek out to bring back balance in your diet?

For me, it's porridge or granola, fruit, & yogurt for breakfast. Manchego cheese, rice crackers, & fuji apple for lunch. A big green salad or roasted root veggies for dinner.

What foods help you stay on track during the holidays? Do tell.

Sam Siegel, 10, Seasoned Chef

How many 5th graders do you know who wonder what to do with orange marmalade languishing in the refrigerator, decide to mix it with some brown sugar, soy sauce, olive oil, and garlic and use it as a sauce to accompany braised cod for the family dinner? Exactly.

I bumped into Sam Siegel, a former student of mine, at the farmers' market on Sunday. When Sam was in second grade at Malcolm X School in Berkeley, he signed up for all my after school cooking classes. Sam was keen as mustard to try every tool, technique, and recipe that came his way. It was obvious, even then, that he was passionate about food.

I lost touch with Sam, now 10, when he switched schools a year ago (he's in the same grade as my son). But at a stall selling his holiday cookies I learned what's been cooking lately on the edible and entrepreneurial front for this earnest young chef.

Sam is active in the Sprouts Cooking Club, which takes children into real restaurant kitchens and bakeries in Berkeley and Oakland, such as Chez Panisse, Bread Workshop, and Pizzaiolo, to learn from real chefs. He's attended summer cooking camps hosted by Spun Sugar and this week created edible gifts at Paulding & Company cooking school in Emeryville, the kitchen location for the first season of Top Chef.  (An aside: Owner Terry Paulding taught animators at Pixar how to cook so they could authentically replicate the process in the film Ratatouille.)

Sam's off to the south of France on a culinary tour with the folks from Sprouts, including chef Jed Cote, over spring break next year.  He's looking forward to learning to cook dishes he hasn't even heard of yet. By baking cookies for his synagogue, bar mitzvahs, and other events, he's raised enough to cover the cost of the $2,000 trip. Now he's saving to go to China with his school choir this summer; his other love is singing.  Sam hopes to earn $4,000 to pay for that trip. That's a lot of cookies. Did I mention that Sam, who now attends the Pacific Boychoir Academy, is just 10?

In September, Sam was part of a three-member team who won a Sprouts Cooking Club Cook Off modeled after Iron Chef (think time crunch and secret ingredient) sponsored by Whole Foods in Berkeley and judged by local chefs. The winning dish: Eggplant parmigiana with goat cheese. You can watch an amusing account of the competition here.

Sam's favorite kitchen tools: A garlic chopper and onion goggles, picked up from Sur La Table (though the editors at Eat Me Daily sniff at such eyewear, in the kitchen kids will try anything to avoid tearing up while chopping). He loves ethnic cuisine, particularly Indian and Italian. He finds recipes a bit boring, preferring to experiment with ingredients, temperatures, and techniques. And, like all good cooks, he's had his share of flops: Hot and sour soup so spicy it burned his tongue. A few inedible misadventures with a slow cooker. He shrugs off such failures as part and parcel of perfecting his craft.

Here's what Sam enjoys most about cooking: "I really like it when other people enjoy what I make. That's very satisfying, especially if it's a dish that takes a long time to prepare, like vegetable moussaka."

In ten years or so if you run across a cafe called Essen (it means "to eat" in German and a certain kid thinks it's a cool name for a restaurant) serving salmon teriyaki and lemon souffle you might inquire about the name of the chef. Don't be surprised if it's Sam Siegel.

Sam takes email orders for his ginger, chocolate crackle, and oatmeal raisin cookies at bakingmonster@pacbell.net.

Menu for Hope

Here's a shout out for a worthy cause sponsored by food bloggers around the globe during this season of giving, getting, and overeating.

Menu for Hope is an annual, above board, fair dinkum, fundraising campaign to help feed hungry people worldwide. The devastating tsunami in Southeast Asia provided inspiration for the first campaign, which raises funds for the UN World Food Programme.

In the past three years alone the event has collected nearly a cool quarter of a million. This year the money goes to help local farmers in countries of need through a program called Purchase for Progress.

What is Menu for Hope? It's essentially a virtual raffle. You plonk down 10 bucks a bid on a delicious donated item, or two or three. Could make a great holiday gift for family, friends, or, you know, maybe even your good self. Just purchase tickets by December 25. That's next Friday.

Browse the array of prizes on the award-winning blog Chez Pim.  And kudos to Pim Techamuanvivit for kicking off this campaign six years ago.

I'm eyeing a bunch of tempting prizes up for grabs on the West Coast including foraging excursions, photography workshops, artisanal goodies and cookbooks signed by celeb chefs. Hmmm...what to choose?

Scroll below for a list of prizes in your neck of the woods hosted by five fab food bloggers & an in-the-know wine guy (high fives to you folks):

US: West Coast: Shauna Ahern of Gluten-Free Girl.

US: East Coast:  Helen Dujardin of Tartelette

Europe *and* the UK: David Lebovitz

Canada: Tara of Seven Spoons

Asia Pacific, Australia, New Zealand: Ed Charles of Tomato

Wine Blog Host: Alder Yarrow of Vinography

You might get lucky.  You'll definitely do good. And feel good.

Winners announced January 18 on Chez Pim.

Let the bidding begin.