Kristen Antonette - Receptionist
My 2011 resolution, as standard as it is, is to join a gym. I want to wake up and go at least twice a week before work (which is a challenge for me since my train leaves at 7:15) and also to go at least one on the weekends. I want to eat healthier, and try to replace my snacking habits with more fruits and vegetables. I also want to have more patience with my family, specifically with my dad because we argue about the little insignificant things in life way too much!
Amanda Furino - Event Sales Assistant
My new year's resolution is to try a new flavor or food each week (and try to get over being the picky eater that I regrettably am!)
Nancy Isa - Assistant Event Director
I want to dine at new and different restaurants in NYC so that I can expose myself to the latest trends in cusine, service and decor and expand my culinary horizons.
Tim Sullivan - Executive Chef, Dizzy's Club Coca-Cola and BAM
Like years past, I have made several new years resolutions to eat healthier and exercise more. However this year I will focus most on one thing. I will try to appreciate all time and live more in the moment. Too many times this year I felt like saying, God let me just get through this week or this month. Our industry can be tough because our busiest times are around the holidays. I want to live more in the moment and appreciate all time even the tough times. I will appreciate what I have and as cheesy as it sounds take time to smell the roses.
Alexandre Amsz - Cafe Manager, Studio Museum in Harlem
-(Seeing that I am sending this list on Sunday evening, the most obvious resolution to begin with is to...)
Not procrastinate as much
-Create more secure email passwords that have not been recycled but can also easily be remembered
-Use my credit card miles before they expire
-Acquire some tires that grip in the rain (for both my car and bike)
-Remember to dedicate some time during the week to do something artistic and creative
-Remember that when I cook for myself at home to wane down the serving size to just 1 person
-Cut back on soda and caffeine
Lisa DePasquale - Accounts Payable Manager
My new year’s resolution, my reason for polar bear swim, is to cleanse myself of all the things in 2010 that did not go as planned, so out with the old and in with the new 2011, go forward and never look back.
Ronnie Davis - Managing Director
I resolve to extend even the simplest daily salutation to all of those we work with on a daily basis. Sometimes even the smallest of kind gestures goes a long way in turning someone's day brighter...and who better than those we spend the most time with. In the heat of our rushing to get our work done and the normal pressures that being in a hospitality industry presents...it is easy to rush to your office without stopping to say "hello". Service starts somewhere...and there could be no better place than being available to also serve those we work with.
Todd Krafchin - Beverage and Warehouse Director
For all not to use an excessive amount of salt in cooking.
Mary Villamizar - Manager, El Cafe at El Museo del Barrio
First, I would like to start my year by learning how to eat healthier. I'm planning to add more vegetables to my diet, but of course part of this is to go back to the gym, I need to get back the energy I had years ago.
Also, I would like to redecorate my apartment using feng-shui, I'm very interesting in feeling the energy that this technique is suppose to bring to your life.
Something else that I've been wanting to do is to put my hands on my cooking books which I bought with a lot of hope in learning different culture gastronomy. I have some Japanese books where it shows how to prepare Sushi ...love it...delicious and healthy....I see myself rolling the sticky rice and creating different kinds of sushi, sashimi, rolls, etc....lol.. hmmm getting hungry...and second in the list is Italian food...I love Pasta!!!
And of course I could not leave it aside...TRAVELING! I will take my mother and father to any country they may want to visit, but the most important trip I want to do is to have my whole family including their family (kids, wives, husband) back to Peru for Christmas, it's been my dream and I hope 2011 will allow me to achieve my dream.
Last but not least is a secret wish that, if it happens, you would be the first ones to know it... ;0)
Jodi Smith - Event Director
Stop using Juliette as an excuse to not go to the gym.
Start cooking dinner more often.
Maureen Carey – Jr. Event Planner
As a new years resolution and jump start to our “wedding diet”, Ben and I have decided to eliminate all takeout/delivery, a easy solution on busy week nights, and take the time to cook dinners at home in order to have better control over what we are eating and making it healthy!
Rob Arango - Director of Client Development, CPS Events at The Plaza
Listen more and carry less in 2011.
Sally Parham - Special Project Coordinator
I resolve to entertain more... if for no other reason than to put my "Smart Women Are Very Entertaining" cocktail napkins to good use.
Sara Goldwitz – Event Sales Assistant
My resolution for 2011 is to eat better to feel better. Mostly unprocessed, whole foods, and less food that comes out of bags or boxes. I am also going to try to cook more and order takeout less. Cooking in bulk for the week will make that easier when I feel like ordering in after a long day!
Vincent Cham - IT Director
Try to recreate some of the best dishes that I've found dining in NY.
Marie Robinson – Event Sales Assistant
To challenge myself daily and mix up my routine, to explore and absorb more of New York and to maintain all the things I love about my life
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New things: run through a part of the city I have never been too, try a new class at the gym, take a different route on my daily dog walks, make a new soup, try a new cheese, go on a weekend road trip to somewhere I have never been, make a new friend or reconnect with an old one, try a new cuisine, find a new favorite band
Maintain: my relationship with my boyfriend/family/friends, being a vegetarian, working out and being active, being a generally happy person, being a good dog mommy.
Joe Wickes - Event Director
2011 - one thing I notice that has been bothering me has been the onslaught of A.D.D. as a result of all the communications in our lives - the emails, the texts, my laptop, Facebook, my bank account, the Jersey Shore. Of course I plan to continue to eat healthfully and am getting to the gym (my goal is three times a week for now). On the food front, my plan is to lay out my day-by-day servings of food to create my perfect food pyramid. When was the last time you actually looked at a table with your 5 servings of fruit and vegetables and proteins and what have you and then ate it. But more so I really want to focus on limiting my distractions and focusing on one thing at a time. I also plan to meditate more.
Karen Hillburn – Event Director, Sotheby’s
To cook at home at least once a week, take a few new classes (flower arranging and cooking are a must!), travel internationally (don't do it often enough), take my vitamins (something I commit to every 12/31 but always fail to do), better manage my stress during busy season and the NYC marathon 2011!
Peggy Phan – Event Sales Assistant
1) Patience goes a long way. Be more patient with my mother, roommates, well… basically anyone that deserves that kind of respect.
2) Now that I have a great kitchen and new appliances purchased from Black Friday … USE THEM! That sweet stand mixer I promised to bake cupcakes with will not stand mix itself.
3) Rely less on post-it notes and list-making.
I was able to keep my 2008 Resolutions up so hopefully these three will be a piece of cake!
Sammy Elratrany - Assistant Cafe Manager, Wave Hill
My new years resolution is to finally become fully independent and move out of my parents' house. I learned a lot about become fiscally responsible while saving money and paying off debt. The time has finally come and I am excited!!!
Nick Vecchio - Assistant Venue Manager, BAM
Getting back in the gym is always something for which I try to find the time and motivation, but more specifically I’d like to start running again. When I was younger I used to run in road races, 3-5 miles, and it was great. This year I’m going to make a commitment to run in at least three 5k’s, but hopefully as I get training again I’ll find time to do even more.
Linda Abbey - Vice President, Director of Sales
I do not have any resolutions, but more of an insight to live by in the New Year, which is taken from a Leonard Cohen song:
Ring the bells that still can ring, forget your perfect offering.
There is a crack in everything; that’s how the light gets in.
Alice Walton - Farm Project Coordinator
To resist the temptation of the off-season berries I see on supermarket shelves in January, my 2011 resolution is to learn to preserve! My plan for snowy weekends is to jar my own apple butter and orange marmalade so I can be ready for the onslaught of berries and stone fruit as soon as it arrives in the summer.
Josh Satterthwaite - Operations Manager
To learn how to cook. As sad as it is to say, I spend my whole life working with food and have literally never cooked in my apartment.
At least the first step is a good excuse to shopping and pick up the basics, then time to practice. I'll give some updates soon with my successes (or more likely dramatic failures) but by 2012 my local takeout places will be losing some business! I want to learn how to make clam chowder!
Chris Harkness - Director of Food and Beverage
To resist keeping up with the Jones’. This year it is my goal to teach my kids to donate things that they do not want and also donate two things that they feel they cannot live without.
Carrie Welt - Kitchen Manager
My resolution is to begin a food blog. I will use the blog to document food that I make for dinner parties, exceptional hobby cooking, new heirloom varieties I grow this year in my “fourth floor farm”, the building of my roof arbor for growing my tomatoes, my trip to Greece, and excellent wine pairings I discover from my class at WSET.
Joanna Nadel - Event Director
I want to try to cook more for my kids...to encourage them to try and enjoy more new food as much as their mommy does!
John Harenda - Director of Joint Ventures
My main resolution is being a good role model for (my son) Cash.
Mindy Birnbaum - Director of Business and Legal Affairs
Renewing our family's commitment to healthy eating using local ingredients.
Lonnie Firestone
- Public Relations and Marketing Coordinator
2011 will be the year I learn to cook without recipes. The one downside of buying cookbooks and discovering new food blogs is that it's made me dependent on written recipes. I'm looking forward to a little experimentation this year with intuition and taste buds to guide me.
Jill Cole - Event Director
To find the freshest and most exotic local seafood on an upcoming vacation.
Liz Neumark - CEO
No matter how busy I think I am, I need to make more time for little moments of family and friendships. ‘Making today count’ is not just about work goals – it is about life. And make/take the time to see the world; whether it’s a trip to the Bronx or Barcelona.
Cynthia Yang - Ronnie Davis Productions
I resolve to actually make some of the recipes that I star from the seemingly infinite food blogs in my Google Reader. I also resolve to be okay with eating cereal for dinner instead of cooking if that’s what I prefer.
Bob Walker – Katchkie Farm Manager
I plan to eat more fresh "vegetables"!! and spend more time kayaking.
Peter Marrello – Venue Chef, Sotheby’s
My 1st priority this year is to serve more sustainable fish instead of just letting the price and budget be the deciding factor. No more farm raised salmon!
Dean Martinus – President
1) Tyler and Farren are going to research twice a month a city or country history, cuisine and etiquette, then on our Sunday cooking days, we all will prepare together and experience.
2) Going to the gym
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3) Staying ahead of the game.
Stella Rankin – Event Director
My food resolution for 2011 is to eat more simply. That includes my wanting to make better choices at the supermarket, at restaurants and those moments when I am undeniably possessed to cave to my cravings. What does “better” mean to me – eating only happy meat, more seasonal foods and supporting local farmers!
Oh yes, and promoting more use of vegemite in my co-workers daily food intake – Can’t blame an aussie for trying.
Terri Lee - Co-Director of Style and Design
Drink more wine—and learn more about Old World wines.
The drink more wine never seems to happen. So perhaps the learn more is more salient.
Shaun Roberts - Event Director, BAM
Stop using M&Ms as a means of getting color in my diet (somedays, that is the only color in my diet). Complete my Jamie Oliver cookbook collection. And cook more with friends, because it is more fun that way.
Chiara Issa - Manager, Mae Mae Cafe
Twenty - Eleven
Two - Zero - One - One
Here's my New Year's Resolution
Shining Bright like the Sun.
Buyin' all my veggies from the local farmer's stand,
Organic, slow and raw,
It's Mother Nature - my 2011 Plan
Don't get me wrong, I'm not a raw-foodist.
I'm just a girl who loves her greens,
Made how the Chef chooses!
Reducing carbon footprints, eaten' local, what's in season,
My meals won't just be rrreal goood,
They'll be planet-pleasin'!
Cooking all my meals from scratch, gives an opportunity,
To start composting while at home,
Ensuring my soil's fertility.
The food we eat and where we get it needs to be considered,
If you wish to know where I get mine,
Soon it will be twittered!
So I ask of you to join me now, in this earth-friendly, food crusade,
Support Your local farmer & your body,
Strut your stuff like you're on parade!
Eat your veggies!
Happy 2011!
Matthew Riznyk - Event Production Chef
Yeah, we're all going to go on a diet, lose the 10 lbs, cut out the sugar, eat more fiber, and the list goes on and on. But, you know what, that’s just not for me! I’ll tell you what I am going to do, not calling them resolutions for starters; that would be a sure-fire way to set myself up for failure, let’s just call them awesome goals!
There is such a diverse culinary world out there beyond our island, and yet, so many of us never venture outside of Manhattan, myself included. So, in the coming year I will try to make that 7 train trip that has foiled me in the past (laziness also plays a key role sometimes ) to experience the one of a kind Chinese and Korean delicacies I can’t get delivered to my apartment in 15 min or less! The Brooklyn that I will seek out in 2011 won’t be the skinny jeaned set eating fried chicken and drinking craft beers to an indie soundtrack, even though that certainly has its place and I’ve donned a pair or two in my time! No, I seek the old Brooklyn, Italian communities with deep roots and a strong sense of food culture, learning how it relates to family and the ever-changing landscape of our city. I know, it’s a lot to ask for out of a slice of Sicilian, but what can I say, I have lofty goals! The Bronx and Staten Island present their own challenges, one, in transportation (so far away!) and two, I don’t know any locals to guide me through the ins and outs of these seemingly foreign boroughs, but hey, that’s what the blogs are for! Caribbean, Dominican and Puerto Rican in the Bronx and some cool Sri Lankan and Mexican flavors swirling around Staten Island are what will get me on the subway for an hour and a half or even ride the ill-fated ferry!
Now, with every action there comes an equal and opposite reaction. I foresee the reaction to this endeavor being; I GET FAT! Because I will be traveling outside my comfort zone and spending precious moments of my life in subways and buses, this will inevitably lead me to overindulge merely out of principle, and I just love good food so, so much! To balance the reaction I have started running, something I previously deemed ludicrous for a man of my build and profession! But, what was a goal to run the NYC half in March (I didn’t get in the with the lottery), has now turned into the simple realization that I can eat a lot more great food AND I don’t have to worry so much about dropping dead at the age of 35, I think that’s the best New Years “resolution” EVER!
Anna Hammond - Executive Director, The Sylvia Center
When I was in 3rd grade, one of our science projects in school was to make a “hobo stove”. We used giant tin cans from the cafeteria, cut holes in the top with a church key, then we fashioned a burner out of an empty tuna can with corrugated paper saturated with paraffin. Once finished, we gathered outside, lit our stoves, and first cooked little strips of bacon, then a fried egg in the bacon grease, then toasted a bit of bread over the remaining flame. Eating together there, we pretended we were sitting by the railroad as we told imaginary travel tales to one another. This was a school where we had a sit down lunch every day, cooked, served, and eaten family style. Some of our teachers had lived abroad and brought delicious things to cook with class so we could taste other parts of the world. So the hobo stove wasn’t our first adventure in cooking, just one of many memorable ones.
I was also lucky enough also to grow up in a home where dinner was prepared by both of my parents, and we ate always together at 7. No books, no toys, no television at the table. Only good, home-cooked food and conversation. This daily connection and the many guests that joined our table -- friends, family, students, out-of-town visitors, was the fulcrum of every day. There was always room for one more at the table and many of them would take over at the stove and make some favorite dish, or a weird but delicious meatloaf fashioned out of leftovers from the icebox.
I am inspired by all of my lucky experiences, and 40 years later, that hobo stove still reminds me that you can do a lot with very little, and that the most important thing is knowing how to make it yourself and then sharing it with others.
I have one of the best jobs in the world. I run The Sylvia Center, the not-for-profit arm of Great Performances. And we teach children, in primarily underserved communities, to cook. We definitely don’t make hobo stoves or cook with bacon grease. But we do make and have meals together. We teach many skills for certain, and as importantly, we carve out a time in the day to stand at a table and quietly concentrate on cutting a vegetable, tasting it raw, thinking about its seasoning, cooking enough to share, in order to sit down together and enjoy a necessity of life that has been made in a healthy way by a group working together for one another.
Everyone who reads this column of resolutions will have many memories of food made, cooked, shared, and eaten with friends. So, my New Year’s resolution?
Well, if you run a not-for-profit, can you make a resolution for others as well as yourself? If so, then mine is that each of you who reads this column about food and resolutions will take up the baton in some way, will help a child you know learn to cook, will get involved in changing food policy by being informed and pressuring the politicians you vote for to advocate for food justice in its many manifestations, will join The Sylvia Center in expanding our programs so more children can have these skills and enjoy their benefits not only in health but in spirit. It’s easier than making a hobo stove and will be as memorable, I assure you. Come; help me make my resolution come true.