I’m Annie Tarmann and I am the creator of Globally Flavored.

My first experience of traveling internationally was back in 2010 with the Blue Lake International Exchange Program as a clarinet player. For six weeks, I performed concerts and stayed with host families in France, Germany, Austria, and Belgium. As a young high schooler, I got to try authentic meals from these countries that I had never had before, and I became curious about other cuisines and culinary traditions. These experiences inspired me to start traveling around the world and trying new foods and restaurants at home.

During my time in college at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, I started to heavily assess my nutrition and health when my grandfather John Castiglione underwent a five-bypass open-heart surgery in December 2013. There was a blockage of plaque in his arteries after a lifetime of eating high-cholesterol foods like meat and dairy. I began to read books like How Not to Die and started to experiment with cooking at home with healthy ingredients. My grandfather’s experience shifted my eating habits from eating the standard Wisconsin diet — meat, cheese, ice-cream, and beer — to eating lots of fruits, veggies, beans, and whole grains. I incorporated this mindset into the new international recipes I was trying, and even helped me to enjoy a wider variety of exotic fruits and vegetables native to the country.

Since then, I began to document my culinary creations on Instagram. I started to carefully organize the contents of my pantry and started stockpiling obscure ingredients so I would always have them on hand. I would spend hours scrolling through Pinterest and online food blogs, picking out recipes and getting inspiration on what to make for the next week (maybe even two). I found myself gravitating towards Asian cuisine because it has such a unique flavor profile — the perfect balance between spicy, salty, savory, and sweet, all while incorporating fresh, healthy ingredients. I’d make dishes from Vietnam, Thailand, Laos, China, Japan, Singapore, and more. From there, I decided to create my own food blog, where I would be able to marry both my passions of travel and cooking to share with friends and family!