A happy 2022 to all our readers

 Well, let's hope. 

I'm not great at new year's resolutions at the best of times, apart from 2018 which I simply vowed to "make space", and had a good few months of throwing stuff away and unsubscribing from trash before I lapsed. But I am not bad at making up projects and rhythms for the year. Duolingo, at which I now have an 1814 day streak, was a new yearish project. So was yoga, albeit one started around January 10th. 

And so have been various menu planning/cooking games over the years. Cookbook roulette (if you don't want to cook something new from an old book in a whole month, chuck it out); Flavour Thesaurus challenge (pick one flavour combo per week to explore - huge fun but an ingredient hassle); and my current veggie/vegetarian/fish n chicken/anything pattern which has lasted through at least four years now and made me cook vegetable-forward stuff far more frequently. Which is all good, but I'm feeling a bit uninspired by another year of it. So I'm adding a layer - and recording it here, in case any of you want to join me. 

The twist is a simple one, based on those cookbooks that I still have. A geographical theme of the month, to layer onto my existing plans. I've jostled the randomisation of my twelve themes to make Italian the start, because Italian is my default and is already all over my menu plans for the next couple of weeks. And the wine. Themed drinks might become a thing, maybe. Not sure. I certainly saw in the new year with this glorious Moscato d'Asti, a 5% juicebomb that is a basically perfect antidote to gloom and solo drinking. 

Recording for posterity. This was ££ but brilliant

And I'm not planning to cook exclusively these cuisines, just to make sure I'm cooking a bit of these specifically in these months. Hopefully.  

I twote this, but to record it in full:

Jan Italian

Feb Eastern Mediterranean, including Turkey, Greece, Lebanon, Israel

Mar French [this is possibly my biggest challenge; I have the recipes but I don't cook massive French stuff a lot; and it's too early simply for a load of asparagus]

Apr Far Eastern - basically Japanese from what books I have, but I might possibly try branching out

May Belgian and Dutch. I need to disinter my copy of Everybody Eats Well in Belgium, and source some chervil.

Jun Mexican - though this may spread wildly to cover Latin America if I get hold of a Peruvian recipe. I rather fancy the way they cook, but I don't have anything much already

Jul Caucasus - mainly Georgian, but I've a couple of Black Sea-area books that also cover other Caucasus-type cuisines. Sorry this isn't a more wintry month, as there's loads of baking potential here that I rarely bother with but might do in a challenge

Aug Scandinavian - mainly Swedish with a side of Danish, might scare up the odd Norwegian recipe. May have to be mainly smorrebrod given the time of year. Might source some herring and be damned to my innards. Might source some crayfish...

Sep Germany. I've really only got one book for German food, but it's a good one, and this is a good time of year for it

Oct Eastern Europe - mainly Ukraine from what I have, maybe the odd Hungarian. I might have to branch out here, and I don't expect this to be easy; not my kind of cooking, though some of you have helpfully pointed me at good Polish options.

Nov Indian - finally some spice, I'm sorry my cookbooks are so Eurocentric and I've no intention of ignoring India all year till now. But some specific cooking would be fin.

Dec Spain - this might be fun. I don't cook a load of Spanish food, but it's a mistake to think of it as hot weather stuff only. 

So. I am ripassing some old yellow broccoli like it's April 2020:

And it remains ugly but delicious.

And Italian, woop.