Looking back at 2006

At the tail end of 2005, I set myself a list of food related things I wanted to accomplish. I didn't get to do all of these things but nevertheless, it was a very good year.

The biggest goal I had was to keep posting here regularly, avoiding the long, weeks-long gaps that have been the norm in the first two years of its existence. This I did accomplish, and perhaps because of that there are more visitors to this site than ever before. Thank you so much to everyone who stops by for taking the time to read, comment and email! Yes, even to that grumpy person who told me to go f--- myself and get a job, or was it a life. I put in a decent print stylesheet finally so when you try to print off a recipe, it should fit on 2 pages at most, not 12. And on a related subject, I swear, the recipe index really IS coming soon.

2006 was a year in which my approach to food changed quite a lot, but I am not unique in this. I started to pay a lot more attention to food in the news, and the political side of food production. I became more aware of where my food came from, and how it was produced. It's been quite an educational year. While I want to continue to educate myself, I do not want to get to the point where I am paranoid about my food, and being a natural born skeptic I will always question and investigate the various food and health claims and scares coming at us these days.

The one personal event in 2006 that had the most effect on me was, oddly enough, when my old refrigerator broke down. The process of choosing and buying a new one made me realize that even such a mundane issue like what kind of fridge you buy has all kinds of implications, from how different models impact the environment to how a fridge influences the way one cooks and eats.

While 2006 was the year of food miles, food contamination scaresand questions about soy, it looks like cloning and genetic engineering will become big topics this year. And, what about the world of food foam, aka molecular gastronomy? Will it continue to be the hot topic of haute cuisine or be vilified into oblivion? It looks like another interesting year is coming our way.