New Year’s cookbook and cooking intentions

December 31, 2024 by
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We are just a couple of hours away from 2025 (and some of our Members are already in the new year), so it’s time to reflect on the past year and look forward to our aspirations for the next. In 2024, I wrote that my intentions were to make more high reward/low effort recipes and to make better use of kitchen tools. I’m happy to report that I achieved both; I found a few recipes to make use of my oval cookie cutters and I made a lot of snacking cakes (thanks in no small part to Snacking Cakes by Yossi Arefi). In 2024 I also winnowed my cookbook collection, and my main intention for 2025 is to read or re-read every one of the books I retained. That is about 400 books so it is ambitious, but I am not holding myself to an in-depth dive on each volume, just a refresher as to what the book contains.

A white book opened to see the blank inside pages, on a white background

My related secondary goal is to tag at least one recipe from each book with the “I want to make this” bookmark on my EYB Bookshelf. I’ll bet you can guess what my third goal is: to make more recipes from said bookmarks. Finally, since I received a lovely hardbound notebook from one of my coworkers, I plan to keep a journal of what I make. These goals are flexible because some of my cookbooks are more inspirational than practical, and because real life has a tendency to get messy. I may never make anything from Alinea by Grant Achatz or Room for Dessert by Will Goldfarb, but it’s still fun to look through the pages for ideas on flavor or texture combinations. Likewise, while it is a grand idea to keep a journal of all of my cooking and baking, I know that sometimes I will forget or be too busy to document every recipe.

Allowing yourself grace when setting goals or intentions can help you stick to them. If, for example, you say “I’m going to make a new recipe every week” and then you miss a week, it’s easy to give up because it seems like you have already failed. However, if you instead set a goal of cooking 50 new recipes, you can “make up” a missed week so you don’t feel defeated just because a certain number of days have passed. I prefer not to set hard number goals because that fills me with anxiety, but I know that other people are more motivated by picking a number and working toward it rather than having a vague intention.

What are your cooking, baking, and/or cookbook New Year’s goals? Did you achieve what you set out for your 2024 intentions? Oh, and Happy New Year!

Category: Antipasto, Holidays & Celebrations

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12 Comments

  • VeesVersion  on  January 1, 2025

    Happy New Year, Darcie! I love your writing and messages within. EYB is a wonderful retreat for my passion – cookbooks! So pleased to be privy to this community and your dedication. Let it be that 2025 is a joy full year, good intentions fulfilled. Have at those 400 and have some fun in your kitchen fulfilling the inspiration they afford you.

    I hope to follow suit. My Dacor range of 3 years has hung up on its ability to provide heat as of Christmas day’s demands. I’m extremely grateful for EYB’s extensive resources on stovetop venues. A fix is on the horizon for my range, I’m hoping against hope. 2025 must be a GOOD year, it just must.

  • JimCampbell  on  January 1, 2025

    Very nice!

    I try not to set resolutions for myself these days, and for a lot of the reasons you outlined.

    This year I will take to heart a couple of the ideas you have put out. One is to re-visit the cookbooks in the collection. Another is to identify a recipe in each cookbook to cook. I thought about whittling down the collection from it’s current 1530, but each time I review a cookbook, even an older one, I seem to see it through a different lens, and I always see something new, and, wonder why in the dickens I marked some of the recipes I did the last time I looked at the cookbook. I usually chalk these up to “I must of been in the mood for…..”

    Happy New Year EYB!

  • LeilaD  on  January 1, 2025

    I started this goal back last year, but I am likewise going through every cookbook I own and tagging “I want to make this”. I am 60 cookbooks through my collection, and currently on my 2K+ recipe Good Housekeeping cookbook, which I started a week ago.

  • matag  on  January 1, 2025

    Love Snacking Cakes! Especially the Swirled jam cake ! Super easy recipes and the family love to grab a hunk.
    I have so many tried and true recipes but I’m bound to try more new rethink year!

  • JaniceKj  on  January 1, 2025

    Well, day one in 2025, and I’m just taking a break from all new recipes, until tomorrow. I have set goals similar and I hope to get through at least 2 recipes a week. It’s getting to be a challenge being empty nesters and seniors. So, mostly, my try new ones are for close to the weekends when the children and grandchildren visit. I’m looking forward to 2025 with my daily dose of EYB and my growing collection…

  • eliza  on  January 1, 2025

    Happy new year to all. I generally don’t make resolutions (or goals, intentions, etc) but I do keep a calendar of everything I make thru the year, and I see from it that I made 60 new recipes this year. After reading the article and comments, my only goal will be to make a few more cakes from that Snacking Cakes book. I tried a few that weren’t that great, so now I have to find some of the good ones.

  • Rinshin  on  January 2, 2025

    I do not set New Year’s resolutions. However, I have few things I like to get accomplished this year. Declutter my clothes and reduce by more than half. Continue getting rid of magazines throughout the year.

    Looks like I made 40 new recipes from books, magazines or blogs found on EYB. I probably made about the same number of recipes found elsewhere too.

    My cooking is getting simpler with age. Since my husband is not a dessert person, I make very few desserts now. To get my sweet craving after dinner, I eat one Sander’s sea salt caramel chocolate.

  • KarenGlad  on  January 2, 2025

    No resolutions for me either, but what I did do over the last year was resolve to use the books (556 plus) that I have and not buy more…well be more selective when buying more. I even culled a few which is really really hard. What I did do is make an organized list of all the recipes I have tried – hard copy I’m old school and not all my books are indexed. So I now have a binder that tells me where that elusive recipe is that I tried 2 years ago. This year I’m going to bookmark here all those recipes that I can. Thank you eatyourbooks….i love you.

  • averythingcooks  on  January 2, 2025

    Happy New year to everybody in the EYB community! Mine is not really a resolution any more….it’s just how I “pledge” to continue to use my modest (200 titles give or take) cookbook collection to its fullest potential. I had set myself a goal of 2000 comments by Jan 1 a while ago (which is 1 of the 2 key ways I keep myself on track/accountable re: trying new recipes from my books) and I quietly went past that number at the end of November without even realizing it 🙂
    EYB is now a “lifestyle” (or better word??) for us…I can’t imagine not having this resource that I use everyday so THANK YOU for all you do.

  • noumena12  on  January 2, 2025

    Happy New Year! My 2025 goal is to read 12 bookbooks (one a month) and cook at least 1 new receipe from the book.

    I created a Goodreads cookbook reading group called “Cookbook Reading Group”…I know…inventive huh?!? But it is a great way to track my goals.
    https://www.goodreads.com/group/show/1260337-cookbook-reading-group

  • Julietcooks  on  January 4, 2025

    How lovely to read you are going to keep a journal of what you have made. I too started a hardback book I’ve been keeping since New Year’s Day entitled 2025 what I ate and cooked. Loving it. I was inspired by rereading Nigel Slater’s The Christmas Chronicles. Beautiful Writing. It’s been an eating and cooking Christmas and New year here in NZ.

  • dbuhler  on  January 5, 2025

    Happy New Year! I love this conversation! I make cooking and baking intentions every year, and I get very excited to plan and write out what I hope to accomplish each year. Every year for the past 5 years I’ve had a goal to make one new recipe from every book that I own. Each year that gets harder and harder to do as my library grows, but I I still keep the same goal. I track this in a hard copy journal and I love that I can see at-a-glance what books I’ve used and how much (in 2024 I made 20+ recipes from TecipeTin Eats Dinner!). Even though I don’t ever meet my goal, I do like to see trends about which books I’m not using each year and that encourages me to either open them up and dig into them, or to find them a new home were they will be used.

    Based on the discussion here I think I am also going to set a goal to read one cookbook a month to help me get into my books more. I do love reading my books cover to cover but I’ve gotten out of the habit of that and I would like to get back into it and one a month seems very doable. Good luck to everyone in their goals and hopes for this next year!

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