View of the Shanghai Pudong Skyline from the Bund riverfront, 2012.

What a year 2012 has been! According to my end of the year review on WordPress, this past year was the busiest year of this blog — and rightfully so! It was an exciting year full of changes and transitions which for this blog meant more cooking at home (as my stress-reliever) and the opportunity to travel. Looking back on the past 12 months sort of makes my head spin and I cannot help but feel rather blessed.

While I wasn’t off experimenting with Avocado Key Lime Pie or making Stuffed Squash Blossoms, I was fortunate enough to head to the Caribbean for a brief getaway to Puerto Rico where we indulged in lechon and made memories on a boat trip to a bioluminescent bay. We visited the boy’s family for a wedding in Pittsburgh and experienced the old (Primanti Brothers) and the new (Meat & Potatoes) while soaking in the charm of the city. In the fall, we ventured to Europe– flying over snow-topped Swiss mountains on the way to Venice where I had some of the best seafood of my life on the island of Burano. There are so many memories from our time in Italy, I haven’t even finished blogging about it (so stay tuned)! Three weeks after we returned from two weeks in Italy, we were off to China for two weeks which included many of the country’s major cultural sites and a few days on a luxury cruise of the Yangtze River (the photo above was taken in Shanghai).

But it wasn’t just the trotting around the globe that made my 2012 so memorable. We didn’t have to stray more than 3 miles from our apartment to one of my favorite meals at Animal and a handful of hours took us north to beautiful Morro Bay. Whatever this new year brings, I am hoping for more of the same: adventure, growth, and memories that will last a life time. Happy New Year!