A Very Happy New Year to all you intrepid readers of the Hungry City blog! I hope you have all had restorative Christmases, and are feeling suitably braced to face the challenges of 2009. For, whatever it may hold for us personally, there is no doubt that 2009 is going to be an exceptionally challenging year. I am sure you don’t need me to tell you what those challenges are: the one good thing that can be said of 2008 is that the combined forces of credit crunch, food riots, terrorism and war have sharpened awareness of the precarious position we now find ourselves in globally. That, together with the tantalising promise of new leadership from the U.S., make this New Year one of the most momentous – yet hopeful – I can remember.

More of that in coming weeks. But meanwhile, I would like to share with you my New Year’s Resolution, such as it is. I have had an extraordinary year, and have been wondering how I can build on the amazing energy that the publication of Hungry Cityhas generated. The response to the book has been overwhelming, and I would like to take this opportunity to thank the very many people who have supported me and it over the past six months. I am resolved to build on that energy by taking the work I began in Hungry City forward. At the moment, the best way I can see of doing that is to find a way of researching in more detail just what Sitopia (the name, meaning ‘Food-Place’, I invented in the book as a way of seeing the world through food) might involve. Watch this space!