Cross CountrIES Kitchens!

Hello all! 

I'm back in action, and since it's the start (ish) of a new year, it's time for a new goal!  (See old blog for previous goal.)

I discussed this with Nick today (who, you may or may not have heard, is now my HUSBAND!!) and after a few bleh ideas, I think we've come up with one that'll make everyone (and by that I mean he and I) happy. As a result of the abundant generosity of our families, I am now the proud new owner of several fun new kitchen gadgets (which I can't wait to get organized, once we have our new W/D set up!!) which is inspiring me to step a little outside my comfort zone in the kitchen.  Besides that, isn't the first year of cooking supposed to be terrible anyway?  This is my last chance to experiment with the copout of "hey, I'm a new wife, give me some slack!"


So, without further ado...
This year's cooking theme/goal is "Cross CountrIES Kitchens".  The rules are these: 

• Cook 5 nights a week (leftovers count, but should really be used for lunches)
• One night a week (hopefully Sunday) will be reserved for "favorites" in which the dish need not be part of that week's region, but can be from ones we've tried before. 
• Each week gets its own region.  How do we pick the region?  I'm going to do some research and pick 52 regions (think southern, New England, south France, etc).  More details later. 
• Weeks can be traded but not skipped...for example, if I know the upcoming week is going to be a particularly busy one, perhaps making traditional Indian food (which I can only assume takes FOREVER, given my old neighbors used to start cooking onions around 8 am every day...I could be making that up based on a singular presumed event though) might not be the best choice. So I can switch it with the next week, but can only trade each week once (so I can't get to the next week and say "I'm too busy again" and put off, say, deboning a duck). 
• Not every meal needs to be dinner (desserts are ok too), but the entire meal needs to be from the same region...so no making a foreign main dish and using box potatoes as a side. In fact, a sub-goal is going to be avoiding box potatoes and the like altogether this year.

So that's the gist of it.  Now, I'm going to need a little help from my loyal followers here.  Over the next couple days I'll be brainstorming a list of regions, then putting them in some kind of order.  What I need from you (especially my foreign or well-traveled followers) are suggestions of regions, preferably with a recipe or two to back them up.  Also, if you have suggestions of recipe books (preferably with authentic recipes, none of this Americanized for your pleasure crap), especially ones that cover multiple regions, I'm all ears (or eyes, as it were). 

So that about sums it up.  I hope to have the list of regions (in some sort of order, no promises it'll be the final order) posted by the end of the week, so let's hear some suggestions! 

Other goals for this blog for this year include (but are not limited to): 

• More consistent blogging
• More pictures
• Better descriptions of processes, failures, successes, and workarounds.