January: No Makeover Required | Cook’s Culinary Collective

January has a very specific personality.

It’s a little damp in the soul. It gets dark too early. It’s the month where you walk into a grocery store, forget why you’re there, and leave with a lemon, a bag of something crunchy, and absolutely no plan. It’s also the month where you look at your calendar like it personally betrayed you and then immediately make soup to cope.

January always shows up like it forgot we had plans.

No sequins. No soundtrack. Just a gray cardigan of a month standing in your doorway holding a clipboard like: “Hi. It’s me again. Time. Also, everything costs more now.”

And immediately the world starts yelling.

Reset! Reinvent! Optimize! Become a new person who does sunrise yoga, journals in perfect handwriting, and drinks something suspiciously beige.

Respectfully: absolutely not.

I’m not interested in the January that treats you like a fixer-upper. I’m interested in the January that tells the truth. The one that says:You are not behind. You are not broken. You are a person in winter. Let’s start there.

Because January is a threshold month. A doorway. A pause in the hallway where you can hear the hum of what was and the faint clatter of what’s coming next. It’s not saying “fix yourself.”

It’s saying: take care of yourself.

The honest kind of newness

Newness does not require a personality transplant.

Sometimes newness looks like:

• eating lunch before you’re mysteriously furious at everyone you love

• sitting down to eat instead of hovering like a hungry moth

• making something warm on purpose, not as an emergency response

• saying “I don’t know yet,” and letting that be a sentence with a period

January is not a makeover montage. It’s a slow cooker. It’s soup. It’s citrus. It’s simple food that feels like a small lamp clicked on inside you.

Also, let me say this as a chef and a long-time teacher: you do not need to cook “impressively” to cook well. You need a plan you can repeat when you’re tired, hungry, and one mild inconvenience away from ordering takeout with the intensity of a life choice.

A small kitchen confession (from a chef who has seen some things)

Feeding yourself well is not a reward you earn by being “good.” It’s care. It’s steadiness. It’s a quiet vote for your own life.

Not “well” as in rigid. Not “well” as in perfect. Well as in: enough protein to hold you up. Something green to keep you bright. Something warm to make the day feel possible. Something delicious because you are not a robot and pleasure is not illegal.

And yes, we’re going to talk about toast.

If dinner is toast, it can still be good toast:

• toast with butter and salt and a sunny side up egg

• toast with greens dressed like they’re going somewhere

• toast with ricotta and lemon zest and that jam you bought at a holiday market and keep “saving” like it’s a fine wine

I am pro-toast. I contain multitudes. And crumbs. And a fridge door that’s basically a pickle museum with aspirations.

The grief part (because it’s real)

January can be tender in a way that catches you in the ribs.

Sometimes the holidays leave little bruises. Sometimes you miss someone. Sometimes you miss a version of yourself. Sometimes you’re walking forward and it feels brave and lonely and thrilling all at once.

If you’re carrying grief right now, I want you to know this: it doesn’t disqualify you from joy. It doesn’t make you behind. It doesn’t mean you’re doing January wrong.

Grief is just love with nowhere to put its groceries.

So let's give it a place. Let's make something warm. Let's feed ourselves anyway.

And if all you can do is stand in the kitchen for five minutes while water boils, that counts. That’s care. That’s enough for today.

The joy part (because it’s also real)

Joy in January is rarely loud. It’s not confetti-joy. It’s more like:

• garlic hitting hot oil and suddenly the day has a plot

• the first bite of something bright after weeks of beige

• the comfort of a pot quietly doing its thing while you do yours

• the moment you remember you can make your own life taste better

Joy can be a simmer. Joy can be a habit. Joy can be a ten-minute dinner you actually sit down for, not eaten standing at the counter like a kitchen goblin (unless you’ve been to my house, in which case you’ve seen the eating pickles-over-the-sink lifestyle). No shame.

Chef’s Note (Teacher Shannon)

If your food tastes “fine,” it’s usually missing one of three things: salt, acid, or texture. Add a pinch of salt, a squeeze of lemon, or something crunchy. Taste again. Repeat until you stop saying “fine.” (It’s fine. Everything is fine.)

One week into January (we did it, team)

If you’re reading this about a week into January: congratulations, sincerely. We made it through the “Is it Tuesday? Is it March?” segment. We’ve located at least one respectable pair of pants. We are hydrated-ish. We are still here.

And here’s the fun part: exciting new things are on the way.

Lately I’ve been sketching out what I want this season to feel like: warm bowls of deliciousness, hands-on cooking, and skills that actually make weekday life easier. The goal is simple: food that tastes good, confidence that sticks, and a kitchen that feels like yours again.

Coming up soon:

• Supper Club nights, for when you want a welcoming table, a seasonal menu, and a little midwinter joy with good people.

• New classes landing soon, from confidence-boosting fundamentals to seasonal deep-dives

• More kitchen content here, because sometimes what you need is one good idea and a gentle nudge back toward the stove

And because I’m me, there will absolutely be at least one class where I gently insist you salt your food like you mean it and then immediately make you taste the difference. (Affectionately. I will not let “fine” win.)

What I want for you this month

I want you fed. Not in a moral way. In a real-life, Tuesday-at-6:12pm way.

I want you to cook at home when you can, not because it makes you virtuous, but because it anchors you. Because chopping an onion, stirring a pot, and tasting as you go is one of the quickest ways to feel like you’re back in your own life. Because it’s one of the few places where effort reliably returns as comfort.

And if all you can manage is noodles with something green stirred in at the end, call it a win. If you make soup and eat it three days in a row, call it smart, not boring. If you buy “fancy” citrus and it makes Tuesday feel slightly less like Tuesday, call it medicine.

A year is long. January doesn’t need to nail it. It just needs one small win you can repeat until it’s basically your personality

So here’s a gentle leap of faith for the month: Feed yourself like you matter. Even when you’re tired. Especially when you’re tired. And if you want company in the kitchen this year, that’s what Cook’s Culinary Collective is here for. Real skills, real life, real food.

We’ll build confidence one small win at a time, until your kitchen feels like home again, not a place you avoid until you’re starving.

Taste. Learn. Connect.

With love from the kitchen,

Shannon