The 2024 Annual Report.

Pop quiz hot shot, who started New Year’s Resolution?

Apparently, it went way, way back to the Babylons.

Yes, we have been making false promises to ourselves since the beginning of time.

The word ‘resolution’ originated from the Latin ‘resolvere’, which means to dissolve, or disintegrate.

So, instead of big shiny promises like losing weight, making money, or getting married, we should chip away at our desires and break those aspirations into bite-size pieces. Reduce ice cream consumption instead of counting weight. Instead of big money, how about cutting down to one streaming service? Instead of love, how about amplifying one good thing about yourself? Baby steps.

My resolution? I don’t dwell on a single day of the year.
I’m the one that offers resolutions.

Stop comparing your behind-the-scenes with everybody’s highlight reels.

I don’t know who said it, but it was reposted on everyone’s Facebook, Myspace and MSN when they claimed social media was toxic.

My suggestion: post your behind-the-scenes.

Don’t wait for your best work, post your second-best work.

That way, if people ridicule you, fine, you expected that. Sometimes, what you think is trash, is someone else’s treasure.

What have you got to lose?

My best Japanese meal in 2024 was this unagi and you ain’t hearing nothin’ about this.

The Nasty Bits

1. I shared an abysmal three recipes. Only the pineapple tart was genuine, the other three - mango magic, rendang, tomato rice and dal were copy and pasta from somewhere else. Someone else.

Does it mean I stopped cooking? No, I simply find it hard to believe that people are diligently taking notes when YouTube cooking and recipe books are being released left and right. Like cameras and iPhones, the perfect recipe has been written probably five years ago. Content is dead, context is everything.

2. 48 posts in the last year.

One post a week was my mental goal, but I missed it by 7.69% Apologies to my sugar daddies, I’ve scammed you.

Now, the sugar.

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The Food Critic.

Two big things - providing photographs and words to the Gourmet Traveller Japanese issue, and reviewing restaurants for the Good Food Guide, officially making this a food critic’s newsletter.

It would’ve happened with or without you the readers, but I’d like to think the butterfly effect has something to do with everything.

These are the superficial highlights, the spiritual highlights would be travelling to Adelaide to cover Butter - Diem’s venture. Being able to broker an exchange between Little Cardigan and the girls.

Walking the hipster mile with Lee Tran in Newtown.

Taking three Asian mothers to Benyue to confirm it was the best Cantonese restaurant in Melbourne.

Hanging out alone in a bar in Tokyo.

I did not know why I cried thinking about Shoh’s request to take care of his daughter when she visited Australia in the future. Perhaps I was not ready, not successful enough to be that uncle who hosts the next generation. I still want to be the kid who crashes at people’s places. Somewhere in that hotel room in Kanda, was a shell of my innocence.

The hike to Victoria Peak in Hong Kong was also a therapeutic goodbye to 2006 Harvard.

Ramen

Despite not caring about ramen, I wrote nine posts about noodles and organised a ramen supper club.

Here’s a funny story, Lee Tran was banging on trying to locate a specific issue of Oishinbo the manga based on an Australian chef. And it took me two minutes of google to solve it.

I realised I have a set of special (useless) skills.

Maybe that’s my relationship with ramen.

It’s my ‘behind-the-scenes’.

I took 2200 photos in Japan, and this was my favourite.

Do You Know Who I Am?

I am more confident now approaching restaurants or people to write for the newsletter.

It’s a superpower I obtained in 2024.

I even made a reel to apply for a part-time marketing job.

There are many things I could do.

Say, a new book.

Kickstart my food tour guide. I think I’ll be doing my first on 25th January, PM me if you’re interested, the theme is ‘Japanese’.

Or aggressively advertise my wedding photography.

But what I’m most looking forward to, is learning to spend time with my wife and daughter again.

It has been a weird dream.

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I’ve been writing since March 2021, and this will mark my 180th post on Substack.

2024 is a year I relied on writing to escape.

It has transitioned to something fun, to something I have to do.

I will end with what I started last year:

This newsletter does not exist without its readers.

Thanks for being a good crowd.