Hello! Welcome to back to my annual January blog adventure. In 2012, I celebrated a different holiday each day in January, according to when they took place throughout the year. Those exploits can be found here. In 2013, I did something that I had never done before each day, details of which can be found here. In 2014, I had someone teach me how to do something new each day. Those lessons can be found here. And in 2015, I did something every day to prepare for the birth of my son, Elliot. Those stories can be found here.
This year has been one of incredible change. Elliot has completely turned our lives upside down (in the best way possible), and priorities that I once had have flown out the window, never to be seen again. I feel like I'm the same guy, but I know that I have absolutely changed in innumerable ways (most of these are for the better...the nervous tic I now have is just something I'll have to deal with).
Parenting, like any major relationship, is about sacrifice. Elizabeth and I don't go out as much any more, and when we do, it's usually to family friendly activities (no more loud biker bars for us). We don't sleep as much either, and we spend more time binge watching shows on Netflix than ever before simply because we are normally too tired to do much else.
We have not, however, forgotten our shared love of adventure, and our shared love of travel. We still find a way to take little road trips (Elliot has already been to National Harbor, MD and the ATL, along with several trips to the beach). We are still finding new places to explore in our neighborhood and in our city, and we are quick to throw Elliot in his backpack and see where an adventure can take us.
It's not lost on me, however, that I was writing a very similar introduction post to "The Baby Month" last year while sitting in a hotel room in Paris. The scope of our travels and adventures has certainly shrunk when compared to what we did pre-Elliot, and that's fine and to be expected. But in thinking about what I could do for this year's January blog, I wanted to do something that could honor that love of exploration and take my little family around the world (without actually having to board a trans-Atlantic flight with a crying six-month old).
I love to cook, and probably do 99% of it here at home. This love of cooking came up during my first monthly project, "The Holiday Month," and it's grown ever since. Because of this, I thought that cooking would be my passport around the world. Which leads us to this project.
During The Global Grub Month, I will be cooking cuisine from a different country each night. I wanted authentic, Old World stuff, so I asked around to co-workers, friends, and family, to see what they had to offer. Some of their recipes will show up this month, and it was great to see these recipes shared. Others were either found in old cook books or online. My goal was to do something that was unique to that particular country,
The countries were selected by looking at a world map and thinking "Hmm, I wonder what I could cook from there!" The list features staples of world cuisine (I couldn't do something like this and skip over Italy, China, or France). It also features places that you might not automatically think of (anyone want to come over for Botswana night?) I tried to select traditional recipes, while also trying for things that might not be as well known. I'll try to do a lot from scratch, but please excuse me if I do take short cuts from time to time. Also, if I get to a country and you have a great recipe from there, feel free to send it along! A lot of the fun of this project will be learning about what other people grew up eating, and sharing new recipes with one another.
I'll do a post each day about the country and the food I cook. I also plan to do a post or two on what I do with the leftovers throughout the week, as well as some features on the global markets in Greensboro that I plan on visiting to pick up some of the specialty items that will make this month a success.
Follow along this month on a gastronomical adventure around the world!
