I’m popping my head above the water for the traditional holiday post! It’s been a busy year. Over the past twelve months, I’ve created something like fifty recipes covering Slovenia, Croatia, Montenegro, Bosnia, Serbia, Macedonia, Kosovo, and Albania; I’ve taken two more trips that included four of those countries; I’ve written all the text for my upcoming cookbook, edited hundreds of pictures, and reviewed the page layout. The book is almost ready and looks beautiful! Here’s a small teaser – a contact sheet with all the pages in their near-final state:
This means I’ve left my blog sadly neglected – I’ve had time to write just three posts this year, only one of which is a recipe. So there will be no new holiday meal suggestions. Oh well, at least people keep visiting these pages assiduously. Here’s a list of the most popular dishes of 2024:
- Qurutob, Tajikistan’s National Dish fell slightly behind Bosnian Ćevapi with Kajmak, Ajvar, and Lepinja. These two recipes, which take the 5th and 4th spot, respectively, remain my most popular posts of all times.
- We have a newcomer in the third position: Roasted or Pan-Fried Turbot, and How to Cook Fish. I’m glad to see my favorite seafood got its share of the spotlights, and I have a fantastic turbot recipe coming in the cookbook.
- Swiss Chard and Potatoes, Dalmatia’s Favorite Side Dish remains number two after its meteoric entrance into the chart last year. Not a bad choice of garnish with turbot, by the way.
- Kajmak, the Clotted Cream of the Balkans still tops the ranking. I’d be curious to know how many people really undertake the multi-day process of preparing it from scratch.
I’m hoping to post more next year – and I sure have a lot of material to work with!
Previous years:
Happy Holidays 2023
Happy Holidays 2022
Happy Holidays 2021
Happy Holidays 2020
Happy Holidays 2019
Happy Holidays 2018
Happy Holidays 2017
Happy Holidays 2016
Happy Holidays 2015
Happy Holidays 2014
Happy Holidays 2013
Happy Holidays 2012
Happy Holidays 2011
Photo credit for Vlad’s drinking picture of the year: Teetotaler Putin downs another glass of bubbly with his buddy Kim Jong Un, 2019, TASS (though the Soviet relic press agency didn’t caption the picture in such terms).
