Cooking Frustrations Can Lead to a Bucket List

This post is the result of Thursday night's thoughts on cooking.

Photo from  http://www.zazzle.com

You see, cooking, next to dancing well, is at the bottom, of my skillset. I have cooked a few dishes in my life but I would rather eat it by myself than share, except for some some occasions when I prepared something more than a bowl of instant noodles for others. 

Yesterday, in an attempt to lessen dining out and make my food intake a little bit healthier, I decided to make a meal plan, cook what's on the plan, and stick to it. Somewhere in my planning I realized it would be really nice to whip up a nice dish and invite friends and family over for food and drinks. I adore my friends who are good in cooking, plus points for friends who magically come up with great dishes while camping. 

And so I thought that this should be added in my bucket list. (Which, by the way, does not exist in an actual written list.. until now.)

Photo from here

1. Master a dish and invite friends and family over. Pick a dish and do it well!
2. Go solo overseas. - DONE! Jan 2013 - present - Assigned in Brunei for work, Sarawak for a deliberate Chinese New Year solo trip
3. Go someplace where it snows and make a snow angel.
4. Board a sleeper train. Or board the Eurail and cross out two items.
5. Step foot in a different continent (Or push it to all continents if I can)
6. Travel solo locally.
7. Skydive. Skydive. Skydive.
8. Learn to converse in a new language. In progress. Catching up with my Spanish lessons on Duolingo.
9. Be published.  - DONE! Aug 2012 - Published in View Travel and Lifestyle Magazine's August 2012 issue!
10. Watch the Olympics live in the flesh.
11. Walk on a desert.
12. Dive. And try to get a license if you can.
13. Jump off to the sea - DONE! Dec 2011 - Jumped off the top of a cave in Sohoton National Park -- Aiming to do it higher next time!
14. Safari experience
15. Go biking in Vietnam - DONE! Nov 2011 - With a scar to prove!
16. Cross a border via land travel - DONE! Feb 2012 - Crossed the border from Brunei to Sarawak
17. See pandas - DONE! April 2011 - Too bad they were in a zoo though.
18. Travel for 6 months (or a year!)
19. Learn HTML, CSS, and create a layout from scratch
20. Attend a huge music festival (SXSW, Coachella) 
21. Swim with dolphins
22. Experience a festival (La Tomatina in Spain, Oktoberfest in Germany, or Masskara in Bacolod)
23. See cherry blossoms in full bloom
24. Visit at least 20 sites in UNESCO's World Heritage List - Count: Nov 2012 - 5
25. Actively support a cause

Plus the crazy long list of the places I want to see in this lifetime which I purposedly took of this one. Mine looks pretty much doable as long as I work on my saving skills.

Putting these things in a list is a great exercise to check where you are and the things you want to do before you kick the bucket (hence the name). People change as well as their dreams so this list can be updated any day of the year. Who knows? Tomorrow I might change my mind on cooking and stay out of it.

How about you? What's on your list?