Most people dread the day when they realise they have one more year in their twenties. Well, that is what i had heard before. Yet, as i sit on the eve of my 29th birthday, i only felt a sense of excitement for the year ahead. I am looking forward to turning 30. Maybe it is where i am in life at the moment but for me, turning 30 i knew it meant i was going to be reaching a good part of my life. Yet there is one thing that has played on my mind for a while before hitting this milestone. There were so many experiences i had yet to try, i had always talked about trying and had always planned on trying and well, just never done. I had never completed my foodie list.
What is my foodie list you ask? Well, for the last probably five or six years, i have always loved watching was happening on the food scene in Sydney. I say watching because that was what i had been doing, watching, not enjoying. I always love reading about the newest restaurant or cafe to open up. What the top rated dishes are each year. Or where were people i know going. Don’t get me wrong, i do go out and i have tried lots of places and dishes over the year, but for how much i paid attention to it, i didn’t really stay on top of it. I always read reviews or articles and make the mental note, “i really want to go there” or “ it would be get to get these people together to try that one” but that was all it often ends up being, a mental list.
It was when i was reading Terry Durack’s The 50 things every Sydney food lover should try in the Sydney Morning Herald late last year, ticking off in my head which ones i had done, that the thought came to me about what my 50 things were. Now i did contemplate working of his list but i had already done a few of them and i couldn’t help but think i had 50 things i had never done.
Earlier in the year i put the list together, a mix of restaurants i have always wanted to try, dishes i was keen on or even just food experiences i had heard of, some were notorious for Sydney, but i had just never done them. I was keen to actually start working through these this year, but of course, as is the case for so many of us in Sydney, before i knew it, it was February and i was already behind. Luckily it was my partner who suggested the idea of working through the list before i turn 30. As soon as he said it though, it was just a resounding “YES” in my head. Of course, that was perfect. Here i was feeling so good about turning 30 but knowing i didn’t want to be one of those people who were all talk, wishing they had done this or that, why not set myself the challenge and aim for that sense of accomplishment for next year?
Well consider it “challenge accepted”. For the next 12 months i am working through my list of 50 things i have always wanted to try around Sydney but just never done. The most exciting part is knowing not only the challenge, but the challenge to fall into a food coma but trying so much foodie goodness...but that is a challenge i am happily accepting!
