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Perhaps it’s the excitement of the new decade¹, but I seem to have started this year with the idea of setting up a suite of food- and drink-related routines².  If I’m honest, the real motivation is to establish some easy-to-stick-to habits that I’ll be able to continue when work starts up again.  All too often I fall into the pattern of responding to the “do you need anything?” text with “yep – dinner” and it’s nothing more than laziness and a lack of planning.

A couple of these are not new: we have attempted alcohol-free weeknights before without a great deal of long-term success, but I figure that it might work in the context of the other plans. So far, it’s working out, however resisting the call of the gin and tonic in last night’s conditions was difficult. Frozen grapes and Calippos just don’t cut it after a while. Trying to persevere with an after-work gym session (clearly my penchant for alliteration would be greatly satisfied if we could have fish on Fridays and a workout on Wednesdays, but that’s inconvenient) was almost derailed with the surprise closure for “renovation” and menu makeover of An An. Fortunately Old Town Kopitiam has opened their Mamak place at QV and I need little encouragement to go there on a regular basis, so it looks as though this will stay on track.

As a way of planning some variety into the diet, we’ve instigated Fresh Fish Thursdays. The day might change during the year depending on when I’m working and able to coordinate market visits, but I’m quite looking forward to dusting off some of our less-used cookbooks and exploring ways with fish. Last Thursday was the first of the fish days and I was reasonably pleased with the results (pan fried John Dory), however it did expose a weakness in our kitchenware which Myer and it’s 35% off Fissler cookware has rectified. It’s also exposed a deficiency in my knowledge of sustainable seafood and I’ve been surprised that Fisheries and Wildlife (or whatever they’re called now) don’t produce an easy-reference sheet to aid shoppers. Still searching for one, but I am fairly confident that the JD doesn’t make the cut.

The other new element to the routine is Meatless Mondays. I came across this idea at Penny’s blog.  The summer curry just seemed so lovely that I was inspired to dedicate a day a week to leaving meat off the menu, and Mondays seemed as good a day as any – possibly the best day – to slot it in.  Of course, yesterday I couldn’t face having any sort of heating element on in the flat, so I was agonising over what to make – as a kick off dish I wanted it to be impressive, not something minus meat – when Reemski posted this amazing Panzanella recipe.  I did some tweaking to avoid using the oven and to accommodate ingredients I had on hand or could get from the IGA³, but the result was amazing.  The perfect summer evening meal and a brilliant start to this new custom.

I wasn’t organised enough to start this in the first week of January, so this will be the first full week of the new programme. I’m hoping that it’s simple, yet varied, enough to become established.

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1. Please don’t tell me that the new decade doesn’t start until 2011. I’ve heard this; I understand the reasoning – I just prefer to keep my numbers together. Otherwise, using this logic, didn’t I squander a year where I could have still been enjoying my 30s?

2. I guess these could also be seen as rules, but then I’d be tempted to break them. I figure that by calling them routines I’ll see them as more benign. Time will tell.

3. I bought roasted capsicum from the deli and added some black tomatoes to the almost-past-ripe vine tomatoes I had in the fridge. There was also some leftover lemon thyme and rocket from the weekend so I added a bit of both and subbed some stale Turkish bread for the sourdough. Oh, and used Raspberry vinegar for a bit of a tang in the dressing.