Grub Street

Those of us who inhale large amounts of food for a living tend to make new resolutions not just on a yearly basis, but month to month, week to week, even day to day. But since 2007 will soon be celebrated by Chinese astrologers, and fatso gourmands the world over, as the Year of the Pig, the Gobbler has resolved to make himself a special list. It does not take effect, for the record, until February 18, the beginning of the Chinese Lunar New Year.

The Gobbler resolves, in this New Year, 2007, the Year of the Pig:

• To never pay for Wagyu beef with his own money.

• To eat no edamame.

• To eat no hen-of-the-woods mushrooms.

• To never visit a boutique hamburger bar.

• To never drink sake cocktails.

• To order only tequila drinks at really fancy restaurants.

• To write no more (or maybe a little less) about ridiculous restaurant bathrooms.

• To wear a disguise, just once, possibly involving a toupee.

• To divine the true meaning of that nebulous and mystical term “biodynamic.”

• To listen raptly to all sommeliers.

• To learn how to say “turn down the goddamn house music, please” in Japanese.

• To stop avoiding his nutritionist.

• To teach Ms. Gobbler the Heimlich maneuver.
— Adam Platt