vvjl The Secret to Perfect Veggie Meatballs Is Imperfection

ImageCredit...Linda Xiao for The New York Times. Food stylist: Maggie Ruggiero. Prop stylist: Megan Hedgpeth.

The name, Ultimate Veggie Meatballs, was given to this recipe before it was created. It was still a vision, really, an intention to give the cook some comfort once the virtuousness that follows the holidays — broths, slaws and general avoidance of all the things we actually desire — had run its course. It anticipated the inevitability of our clawing back resolutions, losing the clarity we thought we had about what we want to eat, what kind of life we want to lead or who we want to be in 2025.

A yearly cycle — it’s not a question of if but where we are on this inevitable slippery slope. As most “experts” seem to point to February as the time when complete amnesia sets in regarding resolutions, it’s fair to assume that we are halfway there. And so, my ultimate meatballs (i.e., comfort and indulgence) are stuffed full of vegetables, lentils and herbs (i.e.,gold99 games virtue and goodness).

Perhaps, I am thinking, I should have called them Middle-Ground Meatballs, or even less sexy, Middle-of-the-Road Meatballs? Or Compromise Meatballs? Would you cook those?

Seriously, though, at a time when Merriam-Webster’s word of the year is “polarization,” I turn to meatballs — what can be safer than that! — to showcase the need to let go a little in 2025, to give yourself slack, to be less uncompromising.

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