For all of the travellers who feel stuck at home during the now more than one year-long pandemic, I sympathise! I rarely leave home except to exercise. In contrast, back in 2019 I was on a plane more than once per week on average. I definitely had the travel bug and imagined that would never stop. Just over one year ago on 11th March, the WHO declared the global pandemic. This was only two days before my last flight from Doha to London on 13th March 2020. After that day, I assumed that I would not fly again for awhile, though I would not have guessed it would be this long! At that time, I feared boredom and confinement, and felt annoyed from cancelling trip after trip.
Time to experiment in the kitchen
On the other hand, I have enjoyed this extra time at home, which has tested my creativity. One way I have learned to be creative is by expanding my cooking, baking and beverage preparation repertoire. In the past, I spent a lot of time travelling for fun and work. I also spent time commuting for two or more hours per day. What a gift to have more time to spend in the kitchen, creating wonderful things to eat. As a result, my Instagram account has morphed from travel photos to food and drink photos.
Travel through food
So, it seems one solution to boredom at home is taking the opportunity to travel through food. Food is a major and enjoyable part of local culture. Familiar tastes bring wonderful memories rushing back in my mind, and similar feelings of exploring and adventure that I feel when I am experiencing a new country. Luckily, cooking courses were a top priority during many of my travels, and also while living in Vietnam and France. So I have a lot of recipes already in my cookbooks. However, I am currently expanding this and asking my international friends to share recipes from their home countries. Our goal at home is to see how many countries we can “visit” through our cooking before the end of the pandemic. Let’s hope we do not make it through the whole world by then!
The Cooking food map
Here is our food map, which has an increasing number of links to the international recipes we have tried so far. Comments and recipes are welcome. Join us on the journey!