With so much food "advice" out in the media and online, I am finding people getting very confused and frustrated.  How many "Super Foods" do I need to eat?  Was it cabbage or broccoli that is good for fighting cancer?!

To Canadians, Americans, New Zealanders and Australians it is an eggplant.  To the Brits and the French, an aubergine. Most believe it is a vegetable but it is actually botanically classified as a berry.  

I have blogged quite a bit about how to eat healthier and how to add more veggies to your recipes.  I want to share with you my new favourite quick, healthy dinner, Okonomiyaki.

Tomato sauce.  Mundane.  Outstanding.  Banal.  All words I have used to describe one of the most commonplace sauces in any cooks repertoire.  

To make a great tomato sauce the most important ingredient is the tomatoes.  If you don't start with great tomatoes it won't matter what you add to your sauce, it will not be very good.

So who doesn't need to add more veggies to their diets?  Have you ever heard someone say "Geez , I really have to cut down on the number of vegetables I am eating."  Didn't think so.

The best meal I ever ate was in Bouze-les-Beaune, in the Cote-d'Or, in a rustic little place called La Bouzerotte; an unexpectedly perfect meal in picturesque Burgundy.  But that was 15 years ago.  Would it be the same if I recommended it to someone today?  Hopefully, but perhaps the chef has changed, the owners have sold or the manager who kept everything running smoothly has departed.  

I adore oysters.  Fresh from the shell, baked with just about anything or breaded and fried and served on a fresh, crusty bun.  Like wine or cheese, oysters reflect the flavour of environment of where they are grown.   They taste of the sea just about more than any other seafood.  They are also a nutritional powerhouse with lots of Omega 3 fatty acids and are an excellent source of zinc, a proven immunity booster.

Into the fourth week of my healthier eating plan and I have been doing a lot of reading about gluten, dairy, soy and meat.  There is a great deal of contradictory studies and hypothesis regarding all of these hot button food items.   So who to believe and what to eat?!  These are some of the choices I have made for my diet through trial and error and what works for me.

Two weeks into my intention to eat healthier food and I feel really great.  Don't roll your eyes at my predictable evangelical zeal....I really do.  I have really only felt somewhat deprived on two occasions.  The first was having my mom over for dinner and offering her a glass of wine and not having one myself.  The second came at my husband's birthday dinner (okay, I confess, I cooked ribeyes) when it came time for dessert.  I really wanted some of the chocolate cake....just a mere morsel, but I resisted.  

I don't make New Years resolutions.  I make New Years intentions.

Resolutions have such a weightiness about them.  Making  resolutions focuses on the negative and if you break them, you are a failure.  An intention is a kinder and gentler way of changing your behaviour or habits by reinforcing the positive.  Intentions allow for more flexibility and flow for the way most of us really live.