Saturday 29 June 2013

MexiGoals Revisited

In the beginning of this year, before I became a dad for the second time, I outlined some goals I had for 2013.

Now that the first six months of the year are over, I thought it might be time to revisit them and see how I'm doing.

(I was thinking of doing this three months ago, but I had too many nappies to change.)

I had 6 goals I wanted to accomplish by the end of 2013. Let's start with what I have acheived:

  • Shoot a video
Done.

I had thought I would need to work with an editor, but I'm actually pleased with the job I did (especially considering it was my first attempt).
I'm planning to do more videos in the future, but I'm not rushing into it.
  • Sell t-shirts
Technically I haven't sold any yet, but my MexiMerch has been live since January, so I'm gonna count this one as a win.

So that's, what? Two? Out of Six?

Ouch.

Now let's move on to things I haven't done yet, but still may accomplish in the next six months.

  • Make another mole
I had hoped to make the Oaxacan black mole, and I still might get around to this at Christmas, but for now baby-care duties prevent me from cooking anything so ambitious.

However, the salsa de cacahuates I cooked recently is nearly a kind of mole.

Also, my mother is visiting me next week and she's bringing my great grandma's recipe for what they used to put on enchiladas but is actually a variety of mole rojo (red mole).
So this one is still in the running.
  • Put up an ofrenda for Day of the Dead
An ofrenda is a little altar to your deceased relatives that you put up for el día de los muertos.

Obviously I can't do this until end of October, but I'll need to pay an e-visit to Between the Trees before Autumn comes round.

So if I can pull this off that will be four out of six, which is not bad.

Then there's something I have sort of done.

  • Do restaurant reviews
I actually have written a restaurant review, but it was of a Venezuelan restaurant, so I haven't posted it.
I would still like to try out all the local Mexican restaurants, but in the meantime I've been reviewing products and producers like Gringa Dairy, Tamal.co.uk, and Habaneros' homemade salsa. Which has been lots of fun. More of that to follow.
And Edinburgh Mexican restaurants: I am still coming. Just as soon as my wee one gets on to solids.

So that puts us at four and half out of six.

But then we get to the thing I might not actually get around to doing this year.

  • Cook for someone else
My idea was to do three courses of not-so-spicy Mexican food, to counter the misconception that all Mexican food is hotter than hell.

I have two of the three courses planned (avocado soup to start, followed by pollo en mole blanco (white mole with white chocolate and peanuts). I'm still stuck on dessert, but more importantly I have no idea when domestic life will settle down enough for me to sort this meal out.
This one is in danger of not coming true until 2014.

On the other hand, I've acheived some things that I hadn't planned on, like tripling my pageviews from around 2,000 to nearly 6,600 and making lots of new connections like Gringa Dairy and Mexico Retold.

Also, my social networking across the board has been going strong, even when my cooking has fallen behind.

I just want to take this opportunity to thank everyone who has reached out to me across all my platforms, not only the blog but also Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube.

You guys are really making 2013 the Year of MexiGeek. 

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