Happy 2 Years of The Wannabe Cook
The end of the ninth month of the year marks a special occasion for us – our anniversary. I can’t believe The Wannabe Cook is 2 years old already! I joined the team last year just before the One Year Celebration. Back then I was the newest member and hadn’t quite simmered myself into things. But after a stir in the pot, and a few burnt breads later it’s been another whole year!
A lot has happened while The Wannabe Cook doubled its age. Last year we celebrated together over a wonderful dinner and plenty of laughter. But now the team has scattered all over the world, with the group chat being our only means of celebrating together.
But no matter how old we get, one thing will always remain true. The Wannabe Cook is the embodiment of your passion and support. It is a community of homecooks who are preparing more than just their next meal. We thank you for being a part of this community and adding your very own flavor and spice into it. The Wannabe Cook would be nowhere without its cooks.
What We’ve Been Cooking The Past Year
We had many plans for our second year, and thanks to the fiery spirit of the whole team we were successful in almost everything we planned out.
In our drive to be a digital publication, we now have over 250 published recipes in total. And with your continued support, over 120 contributor recipes! We want to preserve the cooking traditions from different generations in one spot, so that it never gets lost and anyone from anywhere can access it. The magic of the culinary culture should never be lost and we’re proud of the progress we are making.
We also want to highlight Bengali culinary expressions to the world. To find the hidden gem recipes of Bengal directly from you, we kept organizing recipe contests. And you have never disappointed! We received hundreds of recipes from you that absolutely blew us away! Picking the contest winners has always been our biggest challenge because all of the submissions are just so good!
In our most recent recipe contest, the Chittagong Recipe Contest, the top 3 recipes were Loitta Fish Jhol, Durus Kura, and Chattogram’s Traditional Orsh’s Akhni Biriyani. A huge congratulation to the winners, and a special thanks to everyone who submitted.
Our blog library has also grown. To pay homage and accentuate the specialty of different regions, we made a series of blogs about cuisines of different parts of Bengal.
Alongside our digital library, our community kept growing too. Our Facebook followers reached the 17k mark, while on Instagram we are over 6k strong. And The Wannabe Cook Facebook group has 3.2k cooks in the kitchen now!
On the occasion of our second anniversary, we redirected our efforts towards The Wannabe Cook Newsletter as well. It got lost amongst all the kitchen chaos, but now the newsletter is back with more spice than ever!
Speaking of spice, Bangla cuisines are renowned for all the flavorful spices. And one of our most important goals of the year was to help make the authentic taste of spices more accessible. The Europeans used to go to war just to get their hands on these spices, but now all you have to do is visit our store!
We are launching our Flavor Inception Series of spices and other goodies! You can preorder now to add that tantalizing magic of authentic Bangla cooking.
What’s on The Stove?
We are grateful for everything we have achieved in the 2 years. But we are not stopping here, we have much more cooking on the stove.
In our journey of strengthening the community, we are looking into opportunities for recipe contests in the US. We don’t have anything more to share on that right now, stay tuned for more information.
We want to stick to our commitment of a regular newsletter this year. We’ll be delivering the newsletter to your inbox twice every month, freshly baked with new recipes and knowledge bites. Subscribe now so you don’t miss out on anything
We really want to share the spirit of The Wannabe Cook more with our audience in Canada and the USA. This not only means more contests here, but we also want more people to experience the flavors of Bengali culinary culture.
The launch of our spices is just the beginning of our store. We will start shipping spice box collections soon. Later we will be adding more products with the goal of making your culinary experience as magical as possible.
Lastly, something each one of us Wannabe Cook team members want to focus more on this year is incorporating healthy practices in our cooking. Healthy cooking starts with you and your passion for good food. From meal planning and prepping to even mindful eating, there are countless ways to nourish your body and support your health goals.
And Thank You…
The Wannabe Cook is its community. From humble beginnings to a vibrant community of homecooks, we’ve come a long way. Your passion, support, and delicious creations have been the driving force behind our growth.
Here’s to another year of cooking, connecting, and celebrating the magic of food. Thank you for being a part of The Wannabe Cook family.
