Hi friends. Welcome to this, my delicious vanity project that will lead me up to the big 3-0 at the end of August this year. My sincerest apologies for dragging you along for the ride.

In recent years, it seems to have become a bit of a thing to have some kind of goal in sight for your 30^th birthday. I’m not sure why, really. Maybe 30 is the age at which we feel we should have more or less sorted ourselves out – job, house, watching documentaries instead of trashy reality TV, gym membership you actually use etc. Maybe it’s a sense of impending doom – if I don’t do it before I’m 30, my arthritic joints and general distaste for everything that is modern will surely stop me from ever doing it (whatever ‘it’ is). As usual, the Germans have a spectacularly accurate term for that very particular feeling: Torschlusspanik. Literally, panic that the gates are closing. Good old German, hitting the nail ever so precisely on the linguistic head. Again.

With that in mind, and spurred on by valiant endeavours of friends and family in recent years, I thought I’d give it a crack myself. But what to do? Sport seems a popular theme - running painfully long distances, hiking longer than is really necessary, doing sit-ups until your stomach is almost a built-in bullet proof vest– but after a careful 5 seconds of deliberation, I decided against it. Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s flippin’ amazing when people achieve ANYTHING sports-related, but I know I’d tap out pretty early. For me, sports are a means to an end – the end being All. The. Food. And so it was that I decided to do something based on food. Bet you’re surprised at that, eh?

I’m loathe to bore you with the details of how I came up with this master plan, so I’ll give you the highlights:

-       -  26 weeks between the first week in March and the week of my birthday (hence the name ‘March to Thirty’)

-        - 26 letters in the alphabet (take that fun fact to your next pub quiz – bonus points for you!)

-        - Lots of countries in the world that start with those 26 letters!

So, for the next 26 weeks (sorrysorrysorry!) I’ll be going through the alphabet and cooking a dish from one of the countries starting with whichever letter I’m on. I’ll try and give at least a hint of history on each dish, and a little verdict on how delicious/revolting it was. That’s it! Join me at your peril. Oh, and if you want any of the recipes, just shout and I’ll gladly send ‘em over.

A is for Australia

Shunk off, you daggy bogan! Put some shrimp on the barbie, you flamin’ galah! In my mind, this is how all Australians talk. Every last one of them. ‘Neighbours’ certainly has a lot to answer for.

I’ve never been to Australia, but of all the ‘A’ countries, it seemed to be the most pertinent choice, given that I have a bunch of wonderful relatives (or “rellies”, to the Aussies) and friends out there. Any photos of Oz that pop up on the internet never cease to amaze me/make me die a little inside because I’m not there myself, and I do hope to make it there one day. Oz-based friends and fam, take that as your first warning.

Food-wise, ‘Straya is traditionally -at least in British minds - all about the barbie. Images of beautifully tanned and healthy folk firing one up on the beach on Christmas Day are familiar to all Brits. “Oh no no, a hot Christmas? It’s just not right”, we all say. “I’d much rather be revelling in the grey and drizzly splendour of Blighty, thank you very much.”, says absolutely no-one. But for my personal challenge, a barbecue is a little inconvenient, given that it is March in Northern Germany (read: wet and cold).

Australia has some absolutely stonking national foods - pavlova, lamingtons, Anzac biscuits, meat pies, grilled kangaroo – but for my first dish of this challenge, I plumped for damper. Don’t fret, I also hadn’t the first clue what it was until Wiki filled me in. Damper, dear friends, is a traditional Australian soda bread, which was historically prepared by merry bands of travellers across the country. The ingredients are basic – flour, water and a splash of milk, if you’re feeling fancy – and seems to have been used more as a vehicle for anything else that was around, such as dried meat or golden syrup. Cooked in the ashes of a camp fire, damper is a dish for proper wanderers and nomads. The idea of this greatly appealed to me, but I wasn’t so enthralled by the prospect of a baked lump of flour and water. Maybe if I wanted to create some sort of homemade doorstop or take out a few pigeons on my way to work, but I quite like eating, so decided to jazz it up a touch.

 The result? A sweet potato and chive damper. It is delightfully simple, doable for even the most gravely untalented in the kitchen. It is essentially a giant scone, pepped up by a cup of mashed sweet potatoes, chives, parsley and chilli flakes. I munched on a slab for lunch with a dippy egg, salted butter and fresh tomatoes, and was truly happy with the warm, sweet and salty stodge. My kitchen in Braun Town sure as heck ain’t the Outback, but the damper certainly tasted as good as I’m sure it did back then smothered in syrup.

There we have it. It’s started! Feel free to join me for ‘B’ next week, when I’ll either be popping across the border to Belgium or zipping over to Burkina Faso. I know, the excitement is almost too much to bear!