Our yearly recap has become my favorite blog post to write each year! I’m still proud of us for keeping up with our blog for all this time. Now some of you may interject here… ‘What about the fact that this is the first Bon Appetit Baby! post since mid-November? Where have you guys been? We thought this blog was going to fall off the face of the planet, like so many others.’ True, true… but I promise we had a good reason for our absence! We’ll elaborate later. But meanwhile, let’s celebrate 2018 and look forward to 2019!
2018 has been a big year for us! Some of the biggest accomplishments of our lives happened this year. We completed our graduate degrees, graduated from the University of South Carolina, passed our boards, moved from South Carolina to Virginia, started new jobs, and are under contract for our first house! We had so many great times with our friends and family too! So many exciting things happened in 2018… we can only imagine what 2019 has in store for us!
But despite our absence in the past few weeks, we’ve still made a lot of delicious food this past year! Take a look back with us!
Favorite Dishes of the Year:
♥ Ally: Tangy Moroccan Meatballs, French Onion Meatballs, & Southern Pimento Cheese
♥ Selim: Cheese & Herb Monkey Bread, White Wine Poached Shrimp, & Sultan Selim Kofte
Dish I Want to Improve:
♥ Ally: Shrimp Beignets – I think our dough to shrimp ratio isn’t quite perfect
♥ Selim: Southern Fried Chicken – we need to work on maintaining the proper oil temp for each batch
Best Surprise:
♥ Ally: Sabse Borani
♥ Selim: Fig Chutney
If We Had a Restaurant, This Would Be the First Thing on the Menu:
♥ Ally: Prosciutto & Basil Topped Lemon Ricotta Pappardelle or Roasted Patatas Bravas with Super Garlic Aioli
♥ Selim: White Wine Poached Shrimp or Bahraini Chicken Machboos
Most Viewed Post:
Bay Scallop Risotto retains the top spot for another year!
Runner-Up (2nd most viewed post):
Number of Unique Visitors: 3,223
Number of Followers: 51
Number of Bucket List Items Checked Off: only 3 which is disappointing, but we did add to 12 more
Cuisines Sampled: Spanish, Cape Verdean, Cajun, Afghani, Southern, Bahraini, Cuban, Irish
Nationality of Blog Visitors: US, Canada, UK, Australia, Romania, Hong Kong, Germany, Switzerland, China, France, Turkey, Denmark, India, UAE, Netherlands, New Zealand, Singapore, Sweden, Barbados, Russia, Ireland, Chile, Philippines, Mexico, South Africa, Italy, Spain, Bangladesh, Japan, Poland, Puerto Rico, Argentina, Malta, Bahrain, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Belgium, Hungary, Antigua & Barbuda, Israel, Laos, Armenia, Tanzania, Kuwait, Qatar, Portugal, Egypt, Macau, Honduras, Malaysia, Azerbaijan, Norway, Algeria, Nepal, Croatia, EU, Trinidad & Tobago, Myanmar, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, & Guam! (This is perennially my favorite statistic! Hi everyone!👋🏼👋🏼)
2019 Goals:
- Celebrate more food and worldwide holidays
- Finally share Selim’s perfect chocolate chip cookie recipe 🍪🍪 (we’ve been saying this for 2 years)
- Have more guest posts from our talented friends and family 👨🍳👩🍳
- Keep working on the Culinary Bucket List
- Explore more new-to-us ingredients and world cuisines 🌍🌎🌏
- Move into our new house AND remodel the kitchen into our dream kitchen! (We’re finally going to have a gas range and windows!!!!)
Happy New Year and Welcome 2019!!! 🍾
Bon Appetit Baby! 