Putting our best foot forward for 2025. Together, we’ll explore how to set a vision for the year, prepare a lucky meal fit for a visit to the casino, and other ways to end the year with a bang (or an early bedtime).
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Episode Transcript:
Hello, and welcome to Feed Your Fire. I'm Kim Baker, founder of Kim Baker Foods, and this week is the start of a new year. In today's episode, we're gonna explore how to start 2025 with our best foot forward.
Come along and join us. And we will, of course, have food to share.
Reaching a quarter century feels like a pretty big deal when you think about the fact that back in 1999, we thought the world was going to shut down at midnight. And here we are popping champagne 25 years later. Have you ever heard anyone get to New Year's Eve and say, I wish this year just would last a little bit longer?
Yeah, me neither. Especially this year. I don't know if there's some sort of numerological code that was cracked in 2024, but it's kind of been an insane year for everyone that I know.
And while in some ways, New Year's is just an ordinary Wednesday, it does symbolize a rebeginning. And we should take advantage of those moments to relaunch, reset, maybe even reinvent. We can set a vision or an intention for the year and work our way towards it day by day.
I was thinking about an art class that I took a year or two ago. And the feeling at that beginning of the class, when you're staring at an empty page, the transformation from that blank canvas to the work of art that you ultimately create, begins typically with finding a source of external inspiration, a photo, a pattern, a color, a word that inspires you. And then that becomes a sketch.
It's not the time for details. We're just anchoring in, creating an outline of the periphery. We add color and texture as we go, and we can make adjustments along the way as well.
And that formula for creating art can be the process by which we create a vision for ourselves as well. And because we know that even the best laid plans can go awry, we're going to start the new year off with a lucky tradition. In Italian culture, lentils are symbolic for good fortune.
Their circular shape is believed to signify prosperity and abundance. But we're not stopping there. We're going to make a delicious lentil salad that also has pomegranate seeds in it, which have meaning in many cultures and religions, symbolizing love, everlasting life, generosity, victory, and wisdom.
Could we ask for any more from a salad? Let's hope it works. We're going to start by preparing the lentils.
For a salad, I usually prefer a black lentil or a French or poi lentil, but I've only got green ones on hand, and so that's what I'm going with today. So you'll want to start by just sorting your lentils, making sure there's no debris in there, give them a good rinse, then put them in a pot covered with cool water and put it on the stovetop. Bring that up to boil and let them cook.
The green ones that I'm using take about 20 minutes to cook. Once they're tender but not too starchy, you'll want to strain them from that water. I typically lay them on a baking sheet covered in parchment paper to cool.
Then I put them in a bowl and I add in a ton of herbs. This particular recipe was inspired by falafel, so I'm using cilantro, parsley, and dill with roughly equal parts of each. Then I'm going to add in the juice of a lemon and a drizzle of tahini.
Though not required, I also like to add in some chopped almonds. Add a pinch of ground cumin and coriander, a little bit of cayenne pepper, and a lot of salt and pepper. You'll want to be really generous with the salt.
Lastly, I add in a finely chopped clove of garlic, a little drizzle of maple syrup, and some extra virgin olive oil. Let that all sit together in the refrigerator for a little while before you add in your pomegranate seeds. Cutting open a pomegranate is a mystical experience.
If you've never done it before, I suggest you watch a YouTube video to do it properly, or you can just kind of hack into it. But if you cut the top of the pomegranate off, you'll see that the seeds follow a pattern. Typically, there's five sections, and you can cut neatly into the pomegranate following its natural architecture.
Because this salad was inspired by falafel, I like to serve it with some pita bread and some salted cucumbers. For anyone keeping track of our lucky traditions here, pita bread and cucumbers are also in circular shape, giving us perhaps a little bit of a bonus. Anyone that knows “me knows my love of lentils, because they evoke the spirit of my family.
And so, there's no better way for me to ring in this particular year than with family traditions that are anchoring, comforting, familiar, and suggestive of good fortune. So with a vision set and a delicious lucky meal before us, there's really only two last elements that make for an optimal New Year's Eve, in my opinion. The first is fun.
Now, I don't care if you're clanking pots and pans on the couch,... at a dance party, three sheets to the wind, or making small talk with your cat, while you sip champagne.
Time is precious, and you won't be able to kick off 2025 quite the same way after the new year's passes. So find the joy wherever you are, and then get some good rest. Sleep is my superpower, so I won't have any trouble on this front.
But it's important to restore, and to give your body a chance to build its reserves for whatever the year ahead holds. Wishing you the happiest of new years. Until our next episode, I say so long.
Feed Your Fire, where food nourishes growth.