I'm a little late on the whole, "2012 wrap up" thing, but you know what I say to deadlines? Balls. Balls to deadlines. I do what I want when I want to, dagnabbit.
2012 went out with some serious fireworks. What is it about the end of the year that makes me always feel like it's the end of the world? All that racing around, losing your mind, trying to beat every last little breath out of the year while you still can – it's exhausting.
I'm just now recovering from the madness, thus the lateness of my reflections on the past year. Now that I am getting down to it, I think that I'll take a different approach that usual. Here is my year, in recipes, a recipe from each month of 2012, just about, and a little scribble about where I was at way back then.
January / Kale Slaw – Last January kicked off my year of health food. It's kind of amazing how far I came over just twelve months. My jeans haven't changed sizes or anything, but I feel better, and that's what counts right? Reading this post now is kind of hilarious. The foods I'm bemoaning being restricted to actually sound pretty good right now. (I'm three days deep in a juice fast as we speak.)
February / Brussel Sprout Greens with Bacon and Beans – I do believe that I had just started my CSA with Johnson's Backyard Garden about this time. February also marked the official launch of Chef Hangout. I taught my first official class that month!
March / Roasted Tomatillo & Buttermilk Ice Cream – March was crazy! During SXSW, I did a live hangout with Zagat, went head to head with Theo Peck for Brooklyn Brewery, and won the "Most Experimented" prize at The Austin Taco Experiment. With all that going on, I still managed to pump out recipes all month. I was a real dynamo in March. Where is that girl?
April / Strawberry Ice Cream Pie – It was Scott's birthday, so I made him Strawberry Ice Cream Pie using Jeni's Splendid's ice cream recipe, and the corn cookie crust from Momofuku. He bought himself a motorcycle. My parents came for Easter, bringing piles of delicious chocolate from Switzerland.
May / Thai Spiced Spaghetti Squash – I met Michael Natkin, author of Herbivoracious, at a food blogger event in May, which inspired me to write a series of posts on Vegetarian Cooking, Then and Now. Writing the series subsequently inspired me to go back to vegetarianism after what has probably been about three years of wanton carnivorousness. In May, I stopped cooking meat at home.
June / Faux Pho Noodle Soup – By the end of June I decided to give full-on vegetarianism a try. I still eat meat on special occassions, when the mood strikes me particularly hard, and when I'm on the road, but for the most part, the remainder of 2012 was vegan or at least vegetarian. In 2013, Scott and I plan to take it more seriously than ever.
July / Heirloom Caprese Salad – My birthday! Weeeee!! I love birthdays. This year I celebrated mine at Quality Seafood, happily ripping apart lobsters with all of my friends. Not too vegan, but hey, neither was July's recipe. Oh hey, we bought a house in July too!
August / Black Bean Falafel Tacos – I need to cook these again, because they were so damn good. We spent most of August settling in to our new home, painting walls, hunting for furniture on Craigslist, and adjusting to the idea of being grown-ups, sort of.
September / Yaki Onigiri – I started trying to do more hangouts on G+ in September. I also set some goals for the rest of the year. I did pretty well on my goals, but I can't claim 100% success. I really need to get on those videos!
October / Cashew Rangoon – October was a busy month! Maggie and I put together a Food Day Blog-Along, I donated some kettle corn to the Vegan Bake Sale, threw an awesome Halloween party, and adopted a new best friend.
November / Texas Pad Thai – I hosted my first online cookoff over G+ hangout on Black Friday, attempted and failed at NaBloPomo, cooked Thanksgiving dinner for fourteen people, wrote a recipe for In.gredients, and said goodbye to my new best friend.
December / Creamy Vegan Broccoli Soup – December was an emotional roller-coaster. First, I launched my new community on G+, then hopped on an airplane. Our trip home to Connecticut was intense. We came home to a week with my parents visiting, which was just the kind of coziness I needed. After Christmas I developed a nasty cold, which I nursed through to New Year's.