It is so nice to be back after almost a year of silence. No worries, I am still there. And I still love cooking and baking. I’ve just had lots going on in the past year that I had to park Aroma di Cannella offline for a while.
Many things have happened since my last post written at the end of March 2018 from the LAX airport, on the day when I said goodbye to California, my American family in Santa Monica and the friends at UCLA.
For those of you who might have been concerned: I landed in the tulipland safe and sound. And I still live there, same place, same house, same oven.
It might be a coincidence that the other day I found myself thinking about this blog and the fact that I really wanted to go back writing. I even posted a couple of pictures on the Aroma di Cannella Instagram account (you follow it, right?) announcing my return. And what best occasion to do it on the 7th of March 2019, which is the 5th birthday of the blog? In addition, Fat Tuesday was two days ago, exactly like 5 years ago when I wrote the first post of Aroma di Cannella about spending a Fat Tuesday in Sweden.
Okay, maybe I like a bit making things dramatic. Or it just ended up being a very nice coincidence. Anyway, here I am, telling about my second Fat Tuesday in The Netherlands (the first one was 3 years ago). A Fat Tuesday that was absolutely not celebrated as usual: No Carnival related baking. No King’s cake. No M&M’s COOKIE MINI-CAKES. No Castagnole nor Crostoli. Not even the Swedish Semlor. Shame on me!
Well, I think I might have a good excuse for my terrible behavior. Which is not that I am on a diet – although I am watching out a bit on food and, I admit, after having quite some cheating days last week, having a healthy Fat Tuesday was surely a good choice.
But there is indeed a good excuse, which also relates to the first – still not explained – part of the this blog post’s title. Last Friday, I finally (and successfully!) defended my PhD dissertation. My #PhDlife is officially over!
What a journey since I moved to tulipland in May 2015 to start my PhD (remember my cous cous and my first Saturday in The Netherlands with fried fish, Stamppot and the 400th birthday of Grolsch beer?).
I am still recovering from the whole defence thing, which is also the reason why I was so busy in the last year. But I promise that many new recipes will be coming soon. And you can tell that yourself by seeing how much my colleagues and friends want me back too. Just look at all the cookbooks I received as gifts last Friday!
In addition, I also got a new bread machine, which now becomes the little sis of Miss Kenwood and Mr. Slowcooker (which I actually still have to introduce you…but I promise, I will).
Beyond all the promises I am making (and that I hope I will be able to maintain), now I can proudly say: I made it!
Finally, I can have the Dr. title in front of my name. Cool, eh?
So, the same goes for this blog, which has been a culinary, traveling and life diary of the past 5 years of my life. So, let’s cheer to Dr. di Cannella. Perhaps with a bombardino like I did 3 years ago?
Aroma di cannella 
Wow, finalmente sei ritornata! 🥰