My cousin Mark has big plans for 2025. He and his wife designed and bought a sailboat in 2024, which they sailed around the coast of Maine all summer (“A LOT of lobster buoys,” said an exasperated Mark), then sailed home to Annapolis, Maryland. It was a practice run for this year, when they are slated to sail across the Atlantic to the Azores, then spend several months tootling around the Mediterranean.

Mark didn’t describe this grand adventure to me as an item on his bucket list, but he didn’t have to. He and his wife Laura have been meticulously preparing for the trip for a few years. Mark and I were born within six months of each other and have reached an age when the notion of doing things before we “kick the bucket” has an increasingly urgent appeal.

Admittedly, Mark and Laura also have several things I don’t: sailing chops, for one. Flexible jobs, for two; they own their own company, so are able to give themselves the OK to work remotely from Tillie’s sleek, high-tech cabin. (Note to Press Herald management: Can we consider a Mediterranean bureau?) And, it goes without saying, they have the good fortune to be able to afford such a trip.

But just because I lack those advantages doesn’t mean I can’t have my own, more modest bucket list. A culinary bucket list.

I’ve assembled a list of 12 things I’d like to cook this year, one each month of the year. They’re all items I’ve never made before but have long meant to. In 2025, I intend to, finally, turn good intentions into meals. Many of the items on my list are examples of “project” or “weekend” cooking. I haven’t made them before mostly because I’ve lacked the time. This year, though, I am determined to carve out hours for canning tomatoes, shaping spring rolls, making homemade gummy candies and more, exactly nine more.

Twelve items didn’t actually give me enough play. I’ve had to whittle down my list. Baking kolaches (a wonderful pastry I’ve enjoyed in Texas and the Czech Republic that is only just showing up in Maine) and pogacsa (a yeasted cheese biscuit that may compel a return visit to Budapest) will require a 2026 bucket list. Paneer and babka, mastering sourdough bread (ha!) and the perpetual, practical learn-to-cut-up-a-chicken, will also have to wait.

To make my list manageable, I intend to tick off my items month by month and then one year from now let you know how my cooking adventures went. Actually, I’ve already completed one item that was on my original list, which turned out to be so easy, and so good, I’ve axed it from my bucket list and added it to my repertoire: homemade ricotta cheese.

What prompted me to make it was a compulsion to eat blueberry-lemon ricotta pancakes last Sunday coupled with annoyance that every single ricotta brand I was able to find at the supermarket contained additives I didn’t fancy eating. Making homemade ricotta involved just two ingredients: milk (and cream if you’re feeling celebratory) and lemon juice. Also, a thermometer, a cheese cloth and perhaps five minutes’ hands-on time. What had I been waiting for?

Without further ado, here are the items on my list. I’ve listed them in alphabetical order, not the order I intend to tackle them. Also, I am reserving the right to change my mind and make a swap or two if the whim takes me. The adjective “homemade” modifies each of these things: cajeta (goat’s milk dulce de leche), canned tomatoes, gummy candies — no, not that kind, jelly roll cake, naan, onigiri, pasta, pop tarts, salt-crusted whole fish, spring rolls, stuffed cabbage and stuffed grape leaves.

Readers, by its very nature this list is personal and likely doesn’t resemble yours. Write and tell me what items are on your culinary bucket lists — to cook or perhaps to eat. A Michelin-starred meal? A bug? The Mr. Bagel breakfast pizza challenge?  (Eat the 5-pound breakfast pizza with cheese, egg, cream cheese, bacon and ham in under 11:36 minutes, the current record, and $100 is yours.)

I have been reading up on bucket lists on the internet. If I write a list — or is it if I complete the list? — I have been variously promised a sense of confidence; a sense of joy; the ability to live my life to the fullest; and a sense of togetherness, that last because I’ve shared my list with you and now you are supposed to cheer me on. (Or, as with publicly announcing one’s weight lost goals, now I am committed?) I’ve read that I am meant to write up “actionable goals” and also to “fulfill my dreams,” two things that sound a little contradictory to me. Well, the items on my list are certainly actionable. We’ll wait and see on the dreams.

I have a developing, more ambitious bucket list, too. Write a book; visit many more national parks (No. 20 on Americans’ bucket lists, according to a 2024 survey reported on in Forbes); see more of Maine; take a cooking course in India; go dog-sledding; and (its opposite?) snorkel in a tropical place.

But just now my life feels a little wobbly. Local newspapers being in the state they are, my office is undergoing more change than usual. My partner’s firm is merging with a much bigger one. My 96-year-old mom is, in the word of my sister, “waning.” Nationally, the next four years may be a roller coaster ride. So a quieter, steadier, more soothing bucket list appeals. I intend to bake and breathe, roll and relax, chop and chill, stir and slow down.

First up: Stuffed cabbage.

HOMEMADE RICOTTA CHEESE

I’m told that white vinegar in place of the lemon juice is perfectly acceptable.

Yield: Scant 2 cups cheese

4 cups whole milk
1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
1 ½  to 2 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice

Gradually, bring the milk and salt to a slow simmer in a pot over low heat. When the mixture reaches about 185 degrees F, add the lemon juice. Shake the pan for a minute or two. Cover the pot and let it sit off the heat for 2o minutes without stirring. The mixture will curdle into curds.

Meanwhile, line a bowl with a cheese cloth. After 20 minutes, use a slotted spoon to lift the curds into the cheesecloth. Drain for 4-5 minutes (more, if you prefer firmer curds). That’s it: You’ve made ricotta cheese. Congratulations! I challenge you to resist eating it while it’s warm, sweet and milky.

Save the whey! You can make many delicious things with it.