The benefits of setting a cooking goal

For many of us, the one-year ‘anniversary’ of work from home is fast approaching. The suddenness with which this occurred (at least from my perspective) meant that there was not much time to plan for how staying home – and making almost every meal at home – should look. Along the way, we hit a lot of ‘walls’ with respect to cooking and other areas in which our lives were disrupted. We struggle against cooking burnout and find it difficult to muster up the enthusiasm to make yet another dinner. While there is no ‘one size fits all’ approach to best cope with the situation, Missy Frederick makes the case for setting a cooking goal as a way to cure kitchen boredom.

Frederick sets a single weekly goal to keep it from being too burdensome. She has been doing this since before the pandemic. One year she explored the theme of meatballs, and another year set out to make at least one recipe from each of her cookbooks (plenty of EYB Members have more cookbooks than there are meals to make during the year, but Frederick had a modest 70-volume collection). “Having the structure of a cooking goal takes away some of the mental load of meal planning — at least I know when I sit down to write the grocery list, I’m making, say, at least one taco each week,” she says.

I think Frederick might be on to something. Even though I generally eschew clubs, I have found that joining cookbook clubs (including the EYB Cookbook Club) has made a huge difference in finding mealtime inspiration. Limiting myself to one cookbook to find tomorrow’s dinner is more likely to result in a successful meal plan than randomly thumbing through volumes. It works for me because deciding between too many options often ends up in what my friend calls ‘analysis paralysis’. Too many choices can seem almost as limiting as not having any. Do you set cooking goals? If not, how do you stay inspired in the kitchen?