shrimp bisque

Exactly 3 years ago, The Travelling Chopsticks was born! Time to crack open the bubbly!

champagne-bottle1 — Picture from: http://onlymissm.wordpress.com/

What started off as a rather timid blog to keep my friends and family posted on my life in Mexico, it has slowly gathered momentum and morphed into the cooking and travel blog that it is today.

It has turned into my creative outlet and something I am immensely proud of. A project that is ever evolving, ever growing and in a way taking on a life of its own. What has been incredibly encouraging and rewarding is the warm reception that the TTC has received from my friends and family, and people who have stumbled upon it all over the world. Your comments and enthusiasm has really motivated me to keep on going. Thank you :)

As I was rather shy and self conscious in the beginning of sharing my blog with everyone, I feel that there is some really good content that has been overlooked, so as a little birthday homage to The Travelling Chopsticks, I have put together a list of all my favourite and most memorable posts I have written over the years and thought I would share them with you.

1. Hello World: My first ever post, written almost a month after I set up The Travelling Chopsticks as I was so nervous about writing in a public forum.

2. Corrida de Toros: My first (and last) bull fight.

3. Christmas Away from Family

4. Oaxaca

5. Shrimp Bisque: One of the best recipes I have come across and one where I was so impressed with the outcome.

6. Long Weekend in Guanajuato: A little trip outside of Mexico City

7. Survival Tips for an Expat Lady of Leisure

8. Saffron & Shrimp Risotto: My all time favourite recipe and comfort food!

9. Day of the Dead & San Angel

10. Roast Duck: A tedious recipe but one where I was very proud of the outcome

11. Tamales: One of my absolute favourite days in Mexico City, where my colleague opened up her home to me and taught me how to make tamales with her family.

Once again – thank you to everyone for all your support, encouragement and kind words. The last three years has been such an interesting journey and hopefully we will go on many more adventures together in the future!

Skål!

P.S The Travelling Chopsticks now has a Facebook Page…I know, I’m finally getting on this Social Media bandwagon! If you would like to see mini-updates of my life in Brasilia and around Latin America, please go ahead and ‘like’ my page :)

https://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Travelling-Chopsticks/424827514288003

Have you ever made something that was so incredibly good that you even surprised yourself? You think- how on earth could I have made that?

That was exactly my reaction on Saturday when I made this Shrimp Bisque for ‘C’ who was returning home after a week-long business trip. Although rather time consuming, and I had a few kitchen cock-ups, the end result was worth it. The flavours were so deep and rich that I could not stop myself from dipping my spoon into the pot every few minutes while I was making it, just to re-confirm that it really was that good.