Hello to you all on this final day of 2021!

I’m feeling a bit off since getting back from Cape Town (where I was invited to a most special wedding). I’m putting it down to that sort of deflated feeling I get at the end of something that I’ve been looking forward to for so long.

But mixed in to it all is definitely some anxiety over what next year may hold – or rather what I will make of 2022. I can really feel that the success of this little one-woman business is going to depend on me. And that feels like a lot of pressure. I’ve been thinking about it all day and figured – let me write about it as that seems to always help. And let me put some of the ideas floating around my head out into the world – as a kind of nudge/push/reminder of what I want to achieve. So here goes:

• Continue to find joy in my cooking
• Have another successful “cook through the book” series of menus – I got *TWO* cookbooks for Christmas so…yay for new dishes!
• Attract/recruit/secure (don’t know what the phrasing is here) more customers by selling my food at some sort of market. Current idea is to do a “harvest table” where the customer takes some of each dish – their plate is weighed and that determines the price. The idea being that this approach showcases all my salads, finger-foods, platter-type dishes
• Re-do the website
  • Blog posts to be comment-able
  • Catering menus to be accessible and visual
  • Cake menus to be accessible and visual
  • ?? Consulting – not sure how this will be incorporated.
• Finally hold some sort of supper club – when, where and how to be determined
• Look into hosting a cooking class…?
• Make an Esterházy-Torte
• Make enough money to pay off my credit card
• Feed more people

Nine things. That feels like a lot. But also, it’s a long year – maybe it’s a thing a month. That sounds a little more manageable. Oh, and I just thought of one more thing! Take a two-week holiday – like a real, real holiday – where I have to pack at least 10 pairs of underwear – and maybe even get on a plane to get to said holiday destination.

There we go – that makes it 10. Let’s go!

Wishing you all a most wonderful New Year! In Austria its customary to say “Guten Rutsch!” – which translates to “good slide” or rather “good slip” – i.e., have a successful slide/slip/glide into the new year. (Which seems like quite an accurate description of how one might actually transition into the new year considering icy streets and the amount of alcohol consumed on New Year’s Eve)

I hope to be cooking for you all soon.