Looking Back on 2017

I’m not going to lie… 2017 wasn’t exactly my favorite year of all time. It was an exhausting year of school/clinical work. The news cycle was like 99.9993457245999% negative. And don’t even get me started on our “president.” We try to keep it positive around here – so we’ll move away from all of that. After all, this blog is our creative outlet and happy diversion!

So let’s focus on all the wonderful things that happened this year! For starters, we’ve successfully completed another year of school! (We graduate in 🎉 🎉 129 days, in case you want to count along with us… We’re not excited at all 😉) Ally’s sister, the last of the kids, graduated from UVA in May. We had great, albeit far too short, visits to Washington DC, Cleveland, Virginia, and a few spots around the state of South Carolina. (Selim also visited Seattle… Ally’s still a little bitter about being left behind.) We watched the total solar eclipse down here in Columbia, which was pretty awesome. We were happily able to attend quite a few weddings of friends and family. Selim grew his hair out, which was a big change for us all. And we had some great times with our friends down here in SC.

You know what else we did this past year…? We made a lot of delicious food! This past summer, on our one year blogiversary, we shared some statistics and favorites from the first year of the blog. We’re going to shift that round-up to the end of the calendar year from now on (long live the blog!), because of the way that WordPress keeps track of statistics – it makes way more sense this way!

Top Three Dishes of the Year: 

♥ Ally – Roasted Grape & Prosciutto Flatbread, Rosemary Risotto with Asparagus, & Spinach & Feta Gözleme

♥ Selim – Baklava, Spicy Korean BBQ Tacos with Tangy Slaw, & Pumpkin Roll

Biggest (Good) Surprise: 

♥ Ally – Syrian Mini Meatballs (Dawood Basha)

♥ Selim – Kimchi Braised Chicken with Noodles & Spicy Feta Dip

Most Difficult Dish: 

♥ Ally – Pumpkin Roll

♥ Selim – Baklava

Dish I Want to Improve: 

♥ Ally – Pumpkin Roll

♥ Selim – Cacio e Pepe

Most Viewed Post: Bay Scallop Risotto

Number of Culinary Bucket List Items Checked Off: 5, with additions to a few more

Cuisines Sampled: Turkish, Syrian, Mexican, Southern, Jewish, Bangladeshi, Italian, & French

Number of Followers: 30

Number of Unique Blog Visitors: 2,154

Location of Blog Visitors: US, UK, Canada, Australia, Romania, France, Namibia, Sweden, Switzerland, New Zealand, Netherlands, India, South Korea, Germany, Philippines, Ghana, Brazil, Italy, Turkey, Croatia, Spain, Vietnam, Hungary, Antigua & Barbuda, Greece, Singapore, Poland, Egypt, Ukraine, Bulgaria, South Africa, Morocco, Ireland, Belgium, Estonia, Malaysia, Czech Republic, Hong Kong, Puerto Rico, Colombia, Venezuela, Bahrain, Indonesia, and Qatar!!

2018 Blog Goals: 

• Celebrate random food holidays
• Make more Turkish recipes
• Finally share Selim’s perfect chocolate chip cookie recipe 🍪🍪
• Continue to work on our Culinary Bucket List
• Improve our photography skills
• Relatedly ⤴️, move into a place with a larger, more well-lit kitchen & a gas stove
• Share more about our favorite wines
• Use our blog Instagram more frequently (follow us @bonappetitbabyblog & #bonappetitbabyblog if you want to see incredibly infrequent Instagram posts)
• Finish graduate school! 🥂🖤👩‍🎓👨‍🎓🎉🍾