Simkin: Eating better often means eating stranger

Food-themed New Year’s resolutions usually revolve around one thing: dieting. It’s the… Food-themed New Year’s resolutions usually revolve around one thing: dieting. It’s the tried-and-true classic resolution, something you’d like to do anyway and hope might become easier when tied with a resolution.

If that’s your intention, best of luck to you. Drink plenty of water and be safe about it — no crash dieting. But what I’d like to propose now is a little less useful and quite a bit more fun.

This year, a new idea might be to resolve to eat more bizarre things. Spice things thing up, figuratively with foods you’ve never tried or literally with, well, spices. Almost anything tastes better with rosemary.

In the coming weeks before classes really pick up steam and start spewing work assignments, try this grocery-store adventure. Consider adding to your basket of college staples the most bizarre or whimsical food item you come across, within reason and budgetary constraints, of course.

Get something you’ve always wanted to try like a pomegranate or just something with an outlandish name like a rutabaga. Try a favorite item in a new flavor or style, or something you hated growing up and subsequently haven’t had in 10 years — you might be surprised how your tastes can change with time.

If you’ve chosen a raw ingredient, now is the time to get inspired with a recipe from Google, friends, cookbooks, Telefact operators or any of the recipe resources at your disposal. View the constraints of your pantry stock as a creative challenge or make a second grocery trip with your new ingredient list in hand.

Though you might encounter exotic items at IGA or Giant Eagle — and certainly at the Giant Eagle Market District in theimports aisle — step outside the ordinary shopping arenas. Browse Bombay Food Mart on Centre Avenue, Kohli’s Indian Import on Craig Street or Seoul Mart on Fifth Avenue (near Neville Street).

Try something you’ve never heard of, ideally with directions or labels in a language you can’t even read. You’ll either come out of the experience with a new delicious favorite food or, at the very least, a story to tell.

That’s all good and well, but what about culinary adventures for the kitchen-challenged; that is to say, those currently residing in dorms? Yes, you might be restricted by the confines of your meal plan, but even still there’s room for exciting New Year changes.

If you’re a lower-campus-dweller, try strolling up to the Perch at Sutherland once in a while. Hiking up Cardiac Hill will negate virtually all the calories you consume there anyway and a change of scenery can do wonders for even what is essentially the same cuisine you’ll find in Market Central.

Obviously the inverse holds true for upper campus residents going to Market Central, but one can take cafeteria food an additional step further: out of the café! Grab a boxed meal at Market to Go and dine al fresco (if weather permits) on Towers Patio or in Schenley — plaza if you’ve got class shortly after, park if you’re up for such an escapade.

There are also ways to use your dining dollars that you might not even be aware of. Did you know there was an Einstein’s in the basement of Benedum Hall, or a Jazzman’s Café in Mervis Hall? Do you even know where Mervis Hall is? Have you tried the food court in the Petersen Events Center? The campus is awash in Panther Card-friendly dining options to which your normal paths might never take you.

There are a million things about which you could make a resolution. Time consuming, boring, self-improvement type things. But since you’re hardly limited to choosing just one, consider making 2011 the year of interesting and bizarre food choices in addition to whatever else you’re going to attempt. After all, you have to eat something.