The past year has been a special year for us. So much has changed! We had to make a lot of difficult decisions but also had a lot of fun with everything we did. In this blog, we summarize our 2021 so you can look back at the past year together with us.
January
This remains a special month for us. In January we started giving online cooking workshops. We started out with a couple of try-out workshops to see if there was interest and in no time we had more than 50 participants! We were so surprised by the reactions, and at the same time very happy that we could share our passion for the plant-based Indian kitchen with a wider audience.
February
After the successful try-outs, we decided to schedule more cooking workshops. It was so nice to see the growing interest in the delicious plant-based Indian recipes. During this period we also thought of creating more freedom for us to pursue more of what we like, but we didn't exactly know how to. We couldn't just quit our jobs, especially not in uncertain times. Fortunately, we had a lot of fun with our passion during this period and decided to put more in Hey Groentje. We invested in new cameras and tripods. This way participants could have different viewing angles while cooking with us. We remember well that during the first few cooking workshops we used our laptop's webcam and a chair and cardboard box as a tripod. We already had made some progress!
March
In March, we took some real steps towards change. We both had jobs where we weren't happy and now wanted to put all our energy into Hey Groentje as we were enjoying it so much. Amit finally decided to change jobs, as we thought maybe that will change things. After a few interviews, he was hired at another company, but before he started there, we got married first! On March 25, we gave the yes word to each other and took a much-needed 2-week trip, driving around the Netherlands, visiting some beautiful villages and national parks along the way.
April
After a nice tour through the Netherlands, Amit started his new job. However, soon he found out that he was not in the right place here as well. That's why we decided that he better stop during the trial period. This gave us even more motivation to work harder on Hey Groentje. Daniëlle just kept her part-time job and Amit started to focus completely on Hey Groentje. The nice thing was that we could spend so much time together now!
May & June
At the beginning of May, the focus was mainly on financial planning, in order to tackle the situation more realistically. We thought it was especially important to focus on the things we liked to do. We then realized that we didn't really need our home in the Netherlands, as we were planning to travel and spend more time in India. Moreover, it was also a good time to sell a house. In addition to planning for the coming period, we were also busy setting up our Indian cooking platform. We received many requests for specific workshops and days, and to tackle this we thought: why not make it easier for people to attend workshops at their own time and pace? Recording workshops and putting them online would solve this problem. We took a summer break from live cooking workshops, and in that time, before we sold our house and moved, we shot enough videos to go live with our cooking platform!
July
At the beginning of the month, Danielle had her last working day, so that we could prepare for the sale of our house for the rest of the month! This was also the moment that we found out how much stuff we had collected in just 2 years. We made up our minds that we would never ever buy unnecessary stuff anymore & live like minimalists. We sold/gave most of our belongings, including our car, and at the end of July we moved to Daniëlle's parents for a few weeks.
August
On August 2, we finally gave away the keys to our house. On August 11, we left for the interrail trip through Europe by train, which we had been dreaming of for a long time now. We were lucky because Amit was also able to enjoy the youth discount! We really enjoyed the beauty Europe has to offer. The best part was getting away from all the stress we accumulated in the past couple of years. Also, now there was room in our minds to give shape to fun ideas in the tranquility of nature and the mountains. In August we traveled through Northern Germany, Denmark, Sweden (all the way north to Abisko!), Finland, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.
September
While we were traveling at quite some pace in the first month, September was about slowing down and taking our time to cherish the lovely experiences. We liked the train journeys and had nice chats with the people we meet along the way. We enjoyed the sunny weather and swam in the lakes at the foot of the Alps in Austria and Switzerland. Furthermore, we explored Northern Italy (Lake Como) and camped along the sea in southern France, before heading back to the tranquility of the mountains in the Swiss Alps to complete our surreal journey.
October
It took some time to process that we interrailed around Europe for a couple of months! After this great adventure, we decided to implement one of our plans, which was to give a cooking workshop on location. We thought it would be great to have the opportunity to meet our followers in person instead of doing everything online. In October we were able to give two sold-out cooking workshops at the location of Traivegan, which we were very happy and thankful for. After this we could finally finally focus on India! On October 28, we left for India for half a year, to spend time with Amit's family and to learn more about plant-based Indian cuisine.
November & December
The timing couldn't be much better to arrive in India as Diwali celebrations were in full swing! The first two weeks we just enjoyed the delicious Indian food and spent a lot of time with family. On the night of Diwali, we even took to the streets to distribute fruits to the poor, from our Jiven Project.
After Diwali, we planned a week-long trip up north, starting with the Jim Corbett National Park. Unfortunately we didn't see any tigers, but we enjoyed witnessing some exotic wild animals in their natural habitat: langur monkeys, cheetal deer, sambhar deer, king cobra and the majestic Indian elephant! After 3 days we drove further north and spent a few days in the mountains around Nainital (Himalayas).
After our trip, we got back to work and finished our first e-book: Make your own Indian spice mixes, inspired by our visit to the oldest spice market in the world in Old Delhi. Furthermore, we tried many different recipes and learned from the best cook we know- Amit's mother. After learning, cooking, putting on paper, and taking pictures of some recipes, we decided it was time to launch our first real cookbook. The cookbook contains information about Indian cuisine as well as 70 recipes from Amit's family archive.
2022
We don't know yet what we're going to do in the new year, our priority at the moment is mainly on finishing the cookbook and developing Hey Groentje further. As you could read from our story, everything works out well in the end if you focus on what's important to you. Keep an eye on us and we will see what 2022 will look like :)