Retrospective

Looking back over the year, it's amazing how much has changed. I've married the love of my life, moved to the other side of the world, started a really exciting job and adapted to a whole new climate. Through all of this I've managed to keep updating this blog, just over once every two days, on average. Despite an abrupt reversal of seasons in July, I've managed to post probably 90% of my fallback classics, and written down tens of new recipes I would otherwise have forgotten about. I've really enjoyed writing down what I've learned, and being able to look back and see what mistakes I made has helped me improve each dish every time I make it.

I'm especially happy that I recorded our awesome Christmas food, which included loads of family classics and really captured how crazy we go over food during the holidays. The BBQ challenge week was also lots of fun -  restriction breeds creativity, and taking out some options actually leaves you thinking more about the ones remaining. BBQ itself is also pleasantly seasonal - I know that come "bitterly-cold mid-teens" of winter, I'll prefer the heat of the oven to stay indoors - so creating that challenge gave me another variation to look forward to next summer.

It's a good time to think about where I want to take this blog for the next year. On the subject of seasonality, I'd like to posit a challenge for next winter - learn more curries! Some friends of mine have this enormous Indian cookbook - I need to buy a copy and start learning :) Maybe it'll be fun to do a few 'regional Indian challenge weeks', and see how that goes. It'll also be really interesting to live in Australia during autumn. Summer's been wonderfully Mediterranean, with lots of cheap peppers, aubergines, courgettes, tomatoes and stone fruits. I wonder if root crops are good in the autumn? Or maybe squashes?

I'd like to promise that I'll update the blog every day, but that won't happen simply because I don't cook every day! One thing I'm not sure about is whether to start including meals out. I'm not sure I want to because it doesn't show how you actually make the meal. But then, sometimes I have a really great meal that I want to look up, but I forget about it! Perhaps I should resolve to make more of an effort to order really exciting new things while I'm out, and then figure out how to cook them at home.

I'd like to improve my food photography. The main thing that's holding me back is the lighting. It's very dim in the evenings, and especially with the lack of daylight savings, I rarely cook quickly enough to be able to use the sunlight. Maybe that's something I can try to fix... I have a few ideas about lights I could put up or move around.

If any of my lovely 'followers' are reading this and want to see more of something, or less of something, or whatever, then feel free to reply and let me know. You're all such lurkers though, I won't feel offended if there are no replies :)