Life in Dishes

Like the drunk monkey said to Dr. Doolittle, “I give it up!”The monkey had a drinking problem and as he said those words he tossed his miniature flask to the ground. I’ve tossed my shovel to the ground. I too, “give it up!” In the month of March I set out to create this backyard oasis. I was determined to excavate the land, level out the hole with sand and lay pavers creating a beautiful patio. I wanted a platform for my outdoor seating area. Well, I spent weeks clearing the land. It’s about 25′ in diameter. And then, well, um, see, the project kinda, sorta, maybe got out of…

Okay, so I know this seems sudden, but I catered my first event yesterday. In fact, I’m so excited about it I can hardly sleep. It’s actually just a few minutes after midnight. Anywho, I learned during this event that I could really get used to this. I’ll fess up that it wasn’t a paying gig and the client is my mother-in-law, but her bookclub – a complete group of strangers – ate everything. They each deliberately consumed every morsel on their plates. A few even went back for seconds. That felt good. These weren’t friends or family members, these were some women I’d never seen in my life, but…

Something happened to me the other weekend. I took a 3-day culinary basics workshop that has ignited change. For months, I’ve been day dreaming about cooking on a professional level. I do enough of it in my personal life to know I like it and that others like it too. I blog about it, read about it and watch shows about it. Cooking has become my thing. Or maybe it’s been my thing all along but I was too distracted by life to realize it until now. Cooking had become so much a part of the routine that I wasn’t even conscious of the joy, the peace, the excitement it…