Cooking is a basic human activity dating back thousands of years. I’m not a very good cook. So, my major resolution for 2009 is to train myself to become a top vegetarian chef. I’m not looking to head up a restaurant in Beverly Hills or sell a line of overpriced cookbooks or anything like that; becoming great at preparing a wide variety of vegetarian food from a bunch of different cultures will suffice.

Before the new year started, I had the cutesy idea of trying to cook something from a different continent every day of the week. (Get it, seven continents, seven days?) That proved to be an unrealistic goal since the ingredients don’t overlap enough–I’d have wasted way too much leftover quinoa and couscous. Continue reading →