For many years I wouldn’t eat a beet. No reason, really, and it probably had little to do with an old Nick at Nite sketch I saw on TV once as a youngster visiting America, a skit in which a princess’s parents torture her nightly for not eating her beets. Each time the beets, blood-red and threatening, hit the dinner table, all sound faded out to be replaced by the ominous, rhythmic thump-ump. thump-ump. thump-ump. of a beeting heart.

And then, sometime in the last year or so, I don’t know when the turn came exactly, my antibeet stance was reversed as inexplicably as it was originally assumed. Today, I hardly remember those beetless days of yore; the road since then’s been paved with sweet beets at Mogador, roasted beets at Westville, tangy beets from Rick’s Picks, beet dip at Erciyes—this last, deep pink permutation either mopped up with the doughy ends of a succulent suçuklu, or straight up on its own on the tip of a silver fork.

So: item! In 2005, I’ve decided, ginger will be the new beet. I like a gingersnap, and it is with open arms that I welcome a slice (a loaf) of gingerbread, but I’ve yet to fully embrace the rooty herb and all its potential. The conversion’s underway: yesterday I chugged a juice of pineapple, orange, and ginger, today I picked out a ginger brûlée with crushed pistachios at the Bourke Street Bakery. Both were wins, and I dare say the ginger added a lovely sharpness to the eggy brûlée. Meet me in a year, and we’ll see if I’m not standing in line in Chinatown buying a bottle of ginger soy milk and a handful of ginger candies.