Most American New Year’s resolutions focus on how to eat less food. Mine are trained on ways to consume more.

More dinner parties! More tackling of recipes that have been sitting in a manila folder since before my now college-age child was born! More late-to-the-party Instant Pot cooking! More fear-facing: I will master bone broth!

Before embarking on new cooking odysseys, one must reckon with the spice drawer. It is hard to face faded dried herbs and spices, especially those you may have picked up during, say, a trip to Mexico, ones you wrapped in several pounds of dirty clothes with the hope of tricking the customs dog, which actually was not remotely interested in your oregano.

Dead spices, unlike spoiled yogurt or moldy cheese, somehow feel like failures, a reminder of big culinary dreams that you failed to fulfill in the prior year. But sniff, accept and toss you must. Then you can reorganize, and assess what you have left.