One new recipe a week

October 7, 2026

For a long time I cooked the same five dinners in rotation. They were fine. They were also so familiar that I could make them without noticing I was cooking at all.

So I set a modest goal: one recipe I have never made before, every week. It doesn't have to be ambitious. Last week it was a lentil soup; the week before, flatbread in a dry pan.

Not every attempt works. The flatbread was too thick the first time and too dry the second. But a new recipe forces attention back into the kitchen: reading the steps, tasting as you go, deciding when something is done.

A meal you have to think about is a meal you actually remember.

Three months in, two of the new dishes have joined the regular rotation, and the old five no longer feel like a routine I am stuck in.