Good-bye 2012, Hello 2013!

At the beginning of this year, I listed off some 2012 goals for Fifth Floor Kitchen- and looking back I think we did pretty good!  I’m so humbled and proud of this little space we have created, and since I’m feeling a little nostalgic about 2012, I wanted to share a handful of favorite highlights from this past year.

2012 Top 3 Recipe Posts:
1. Indian Chicken Soup

2. Vegetable Coq au Vin

3. Seasoned Popcorn 2 Ways

2012 Top 3 Travel Posts:
1. Bonn, Germany
2. Boston: Sam Adams Brewery Tour
3. Warsaw, Poland

Other 2012 Highlights:
1. We got married!  We had a wonderful wedding near Charlottesville, VA (check out our posts about this great city here and here) and we spent an amazing honeymoon in Phuket, Thailand (blog posts: Pt 1, Pt 2)!

2. Where else did we travel? Boston (Posts: 1, 2, 3), Philadelphia, and Baltimore.

3. Food-wise some of our personal favorites were: Cowgirl Creamery Cheese Pairing, Lobster Mac ‘n Cheese, Birthday Fruit Tart, Crunchy Fish Tacos with Chimichurri Sauce, Brazilian Fish & Shrimp Stew, Chocolate Chip Banana Bread, S’more Cookie, and Buckwheat Crêpes with Corn Salsa.  If you haven’t tried these, definitely add them to your “to-do” list for 2013!

3. Other fun stuff: Eat Write Retreat Blogger Conference, Slave-free Tomato Day, Holiday White House Tour, An Edible Mosaic Book Launch, and being part of the Food Matters Project.

4. We also started a series “Monthly Reviews”, a great way to see some of our iPhone photos and adventures we might not write about: May, June, July, August, and November.  A December one is coming up soon!

Over the course of 2012 we have had 116 posts- that’s a lot of words, photographs and recipes!

But I do love the feeling of a New Year- a fresh start, being able to look ahead towards all the new opportunities this year will bring.  We are looking forward to 2013 to continue sharing our culinary and travel adventures with you all- remember to keep up with us on Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest and Instagram!

We wish you all a happy and healthy New Year!  Thank you so much for reading, commenting and being part of Fifth Floor Kitchen!

Warm wishes for a happy new year!

Many hugs,
Evi & Sam

*Our wedding photos were taken by our friend Meaghin Kennedy- check out some of her photos here, or her blog: These Salty Oats

Travel Photos- Bonn, Germany

My second part of the trip included the area around Bonn, Germany.  Here is the photo version of the trip:

I took the train from Frankfurt to Bonn.  Although it is winter, the trip wasn’t as pretty as it could be, but I can imagine how beautiful it is here during the summer.  Along the way, there are small towns on the Rhine River:

I really didn’t get much of a chance to walk around Bonn; but I did get to explore a bit.  Just steps away from the Bonn Hauptbahnhof (Bonn Central Station), is the Münsterplatz.  It’s a large plaza, filled with a lot of shopping (H&M, department stores, chocolate stores, etc).  It also has:

the Beethoven Monument!  This bronze statue of Ludwig van Beethoven was unveiled in 1845 in honor of the composer’s 75th birthday anniversary.  Bonn was his birthplace.

On the other side of the plaza is:

is the Bonn Minster, one of the oldest churches in Germany.

I couldn’t leave Germany without having a delicious pretzel!  There are so many bakeries, almost on every corner, which sell fresh bread, pretzels and sweets.

At the hotel I stayed in, I had some delicious meals:

This was a chicken and egg sandwich.  The chicken was breaded and fried, with an egg on top.  Another dish I had was:

a salad with a schnitzel (a boneless, breaded, fried piece of meat) and another fried egg!  There is something to be said about egg yolk on top of of some fried meat and salad- I think we should try this for dinner sometime.

I did stop in a grocery story, got an extra large Ritter chocolate (hazelnut and milk chocolate), and some strawberry-rhubarb jelly (my favorite!).  I almost never see this in the US, so I had buy some to bring home.

And that is how my Europe trip ended!  I wish I had some more time to explore (and a partner in crime!) but we’ll save that for another time!