Regular readers of this blog will be familiar with 2024’s Tangible Challenge. For one year, I wanted to take a monthly, in-person class on something I knew nothing (or next-to-nothing) about. It was a thrilling endeavor that I chronicled in monthly blog posts. In December, I ran around my apartment, collecting the items I’d created in the past 12 months—an embroidered shirt, a candle, a wall tapestry.
As I arranged these items on the folding table in our dining room, I was immediately struck by what one simple monthly resolution, repeated consistently, can grow to. “Look!” I kept imploring my partner. “I made all this!”
This is how I got to thinking about doing this over and over again, though not necessarily with classes. What could I repeat each month and what fun thing would I have to show from it in 365 days. Around the same time, Erin, my dear friend and author of The Footprint blog posted her first blog about her and her husband’s international food tour. Basically, they would randomly select a country and then make a traditional dish from that nation while listening to music from that country followed by watching some sort of informative video about the country while they ate. I highly encourage you to follow The Footprint so you don’t miss a single installment of their international food tour review.
Years ago when Erin mentioned the food tour to me, I remember being super inspired by it. It hits on a few personal interests—good food, travel, learning, and let’s be honest, a lot of creativity. Maybe this was something I could do monthly. Maybe I’d do my own food tour. Except…
I like to cook well enough. But I love to bake. Last year, when my friends and I briefly got very into the Men’s T-20 Cricket World Cup, I made South African donuts and Indian cookies for our viewing parties. Since then, it’s been in my mind to expand my baking horizons and try more regional dishes. Perhaps this was the exact challenge I needed for 2025. I knew it wouldn’t have the same picture moment at the end—hard to hold onto a muffin from March—but it would be fun and anyway, photo collages exist.
But before I could really begin scheming my baking plan, I was hit with another thought.
Am I just filling my time to distract myself from the actual work I want to be doing?
What is the actual work I want to be doing? Why am I so skittish to start? What would it look like to prioritize writing the same way I prioritize fun classes or homemade trifles? What would it look like to drop 12 completed pieces on the folding table at the end of the year?
BAKE AROUND THE WORLD; WRITE IN THE KITCHEN.
Baking is joy to me. So is writing. But serious writing is serious business and serious writing is serious work.
And I want to be serious.
The idea with “bake around the world; write in the kitchen” is to bake a monthly treat from a randomly selected country and also take some meaningful step toward non-Smile Project writing. It can be a sloppy short story or just one heavily edited paragraph that I’ve mulled over for weeks. But I need to write something that matters on a monthly basis and submit it myself… submit it to the December 2025 me that will be staring at a folding table seeing the output and result of consistent effort.
I look forward to expanding my confectionary acumen and baking around the world. And I look forward to sitting closer to home, writing for myself.
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