New Year, New City, New Blog

I just moved to New York, meaning that I’ve lived in three cities in as many years. Might as well get started on my third blog too. My first one, Cooking Off Book, was all about the cooking. It soon got usurped by, Oh, Nothing Much, which started off as a ‘Happiness Project’ of sorts, and turned into mostly a travel blog about our explorations of California and our time in Australia.  The only problem is that while food and drink was always a huge part of mine and my husband’s travel, cooking kind of got pushed aside.  It’s time to bring all my passions together into one blog.

I love to explore the world, from exotic travel to the café around the corner – and now I have a whole new city to get to know.  Food is the lens through which I tend to connect to the world most deeply. I like to eat, analyze, think about, and cook food. I think it’s the best and easiest way to begin to understand a new place or culture.  On the most basic level, my most vivid memories tend to be of amazing meals I’ve had with my husband, family, and friends and I often try to relive and build on those wonderful memories by trying to recreate a dish at home.  I love to take inspiration from everywhere, which only makes me want to explore more, and so the cycle perpetuates itself.

Why the “Nibbling Gypsy?” Well, to tell the truth, my husband, Greg, came up with it after all of my original – and perhaps more generic—ideas for blog titles turned out to be taken.  He claims that I’m a relentless nibbler (which was another title idea) and must always take a bite off his plate and anyone else’s who I’m comfortable enough to steal from. I love a sample of this and a little bit of that. Maybe he has a point.

The second part comes from the fact that I’ve always had a soft spot for the romantic image of gypsies -- probably due to the fact that I’ve had a pretty nomadic existence.  The three moves of the last three years is really part of a larger pattern.  My family moved around a lot as a kid, which was hard at times, but has likely contributed hugely to my wanderlust. 

I suspect, however,  that when Greg came up with the name, he was thinking less about all of this, and more about the huge earrings I like to wear.