Garden

The garden is in full bloom! Well, sort of. Mostly, we're just eating a lot of lettuce. The seedlings didn't do so hot due to it being too cold in the cellar. Lesson learned. So, most of the garden was planted from seed. And once planted, it definitely grew fast! Here are a few of the pictures I have been promising forever, including the first things picked from the garden on the BAD ASS HANDMADE cutting board I got for $45 at the arts festival. In love. Enjoy. 

Parenting. I know, this post sounds ridiculous coming from me. Hear me out.

My mother is a graphic designer, my grandmother is a professional artist. My father is a chemist. You can imagine the difference in parenting styles. I was raised mostly by my mother and grandmother. I'm kind of a hippie. I do not like "the man" and what that whole concept stands for. I don't like large corporations. 

When I graduated high school, I immediately enrolled in college. That is what you do. You go to college. You don't spend a year trying to find yourself (although I really think everyone should.) You don't get a job and work until you figure out what you want to be when you grow up. Nope. You go to college. You start a career. You get married, you start a family. This is the "American Dream" to most Americans. 

Unfortunately I didn't listen when everyone told me that. Sure, I went to college. And skipped classes and racked up a whole lot of unnecessary debt. My mother told me to do what makes me happy. My grandmother was secretly satisfied that I didn't fit into the mold that everyone else did. My dad, not so much. My dad wanted me to go to college. He wanted me to be happy, sure, but this is a man who works out EVERY SINGLE DAY. He is puking his guts out? He sure as fuck still did his sit ups and push ups and stretches. Maybe he skipped the elliptical. He eats at the same two restaurants. He gets up at the same time everyday and goes to bed at the same time and is just a structured, disciplined person. 

I am not. So, when I finally said, enough, I am not going to go back to college AGAIN and do something I think maybe I might like. I am done, I am going to work this job until I figure it all out. And I did. And he was thrilled when I finally graduated from college. The speech he made at my graduation had me in tears. He was so proud of me and I think he learned a lesson from that...I just didn't fit in the same mold as the rest of the family, who all had their college degrees and are working steadily at their white picket fence and 2.5 kids. And, yes, often I am jealous of that. But it just isn't me.

One thing my parents never said to me was that they were disappointed in me. That they didn't love me. They were never anything other than supportive with my choices, even though I think a few times my dad wanted to shake me until I snapped out of it.

Then one day I knew what I wanted to be when I grew up. And I pursued it and I am happy. Did I choose the lowest paying profession? Probably. Is it back breaking, exhausting work? It sure is. And I love it. And my parents are proud of me for doing what I love. 

Someone said to me, on Fathers Day, that they were grateful they were working. They were happy they didn't have to see their father. That his father hated him because he was a loser with no ambition. That he should have just gone to college like everyone else. Made something of his life. I just stood jaw dropped because, what? He does what I do, he's a cook. A chef. Maybe an untrained one, but a good one. He is one of the kindest people I know. I am proud of him. And I told him so. He just laughed. He didn't believe me. Suddenly his personality clicked and I understood all of those times I didn't understand his responses to things I said. And I felt sorry for him. 

I'm not a parent. I get that. Having a dog and a cat is not the same, no matter how many times someone posts a picture of a pitbull on Facebook with the caption "my dogs are my kids." They're not. It's not the same. So, maybe I am saying something untrue here, but I don't understand a parent of a kid who is good and kind and working full time doing something he loves, not being supportive of that. Actually being mean to him, calling him names. I don't understand.

Is it my upbringing? Is it because I had that support? I don't know. I know that when I walk into a coffee shop and see a 45 year old barista, I don't look down on them. I don't know their story. For all I know they are working three jobs to make ends meet. Does that  make a CEO better than them? When did we all become such snobs? When did success start being measured by wealth rather than quality of life? And when did parents stop loving their kids for being good people because they weren't making enough money? 

Frustration.

UGH! That is all I have left in me. Sometimes I feel like I work in a high school full of prepubescent bullshit. I can't deal. I miss the days of my all male staff where there was zero drama. I miss going into work and fighting with people when we disagreed. There was no shit talking, we just duked it out and moved on. I miss it so much. 

I am dealing with passive aggressive. I am dealing with back stabbing. I am dealing with someone who treats the employees like dogs. 

I am making a weeks pay check with ONE private chef event. If I can figure out a way to be doing a couple every weekend, I won't need to work. I will make enough money doing just that. 

The boy, Cupcake and Pocket Pen are helping me to figure out a company name and branding and shit. I got an email with a series of questions today, one of which was adjectives that describe yourself. I responded "I hate this question so much." I am pretty sure that I am the worst client ever. Who pays in food and alcohol. And frustrating indecision. Sometimes I wonder why I have friends.

The more I think about it, the more I feel like this is what I am meant to do. Even though it is WAY harder than restaurant cooking. Especially in random kitchens. It is more fulfilling to me. I enjoy the interaction with the people (who knew?!?!) and I enjoy the aspect of it that is making somebodies night. 

I am in a shitty mood dealing with shitty people and just kind of over it. I hate the feeling of dreading going to work. I don't hate it. I despise it. That feeling is why I got into this industry...because I didn't want to feel it ever again. And here I am. Dreading going to work. Dreading dealing with the ass hole. Dreading it all. 

I hate this feeling. I love what I do. I love food. I love cooking food. I love everything about it. I just wish that love allowed me to surround myself with people who felt the same.

Insomnia

I should know the signs by now. Something major in my life happens. My nerves get the better of me. My mood is angry for no reason at all. I should know it is coming, but yet I never do. I walk through my day feeling as if I am the dumbest person in the world. I make poor decisions. Bad jokes. I feel like I am outside of myself. 

As the day goes on, I wander. Lost. I accomplish the tasks that I need to accomplish. I lack efficiency. I lack focus. I lack the ability to organize my thoughts.

I have been doing this for twenty years. I should know the signs by now.

The day continues and I find myself making excuses for why I am so unfocused. Why my brain refuses to cooperate. I didn't sleep well last night. My B-12 is dangerously low. I take vitamins. I drink smoothies. I stretch, thinking maybe I am just stiff. I read, thinking the anticipation of the end of the series has me side tracked. I put on music that makes me happy. I do everything I can. Everything I can think of to get myself out of the funk that is hovering over me. 

I still don't see it coming.

I had my first catering gig this evening and didn't really do that well. At least not by my standards. I was unhappy with what I served them. I struggled to find it in myself to care. I just wanted to get out of there, to escape to...what? I didn't know. My entire being just wants to escape. I need to be somewhere else. That will help. If I can just be somewhere else.

How did I not see it coming?

Sleeping pills make my skin crawl, like a thousand ants are tickling every inch of me. Pain killers do the same as do all of the various "PM" over the counter solutions. Supplements don't work. Exercise doesn't work. Meditation doesn't work. Twenty years of trying to figure it out. Nothing works.

So, here I sit. Yawning and exhausted. Incapable of sleep. I feel crazy, unhinged. Please let it be just one day. Except I know it won't be. I know it will last for days. By the end, I will want to scream. I will want to claw my own skin off. I will feel like a person outside of my body looking in. 

I wish it didn't make the skin under my eyes burn. I wish my muscles didn't ache. I wish I didn't feel stupid. And crazy. 

I wish, I wish, I wish. 

I wish I could go to sleep.

Published

I know I have been MIA and I know that you all are sick of me promising it will stop and then it not stopping. I am learning an important lesson...it is hard to be a chef and a blogger.

But, I wanted to share some pretty awesome news here. I am being published in a local magazine! The article is on chefs who cook with cast iron at home. And yours truly is going to be featured along with two other chefs in the article. This means several things...one of them being that my picture is going to be in a magazine and we all know that is making me ridiculously uncomfortable. 

It also means my name being out there. In a magazine that has showcased some of the best chefs in our city. The new restaurant will be listed in my credentials. I got the in because C's wife, who we will call K because that just makes sense, is the one writing the article. BUT she legitimately interviewed me and legitimately let me google things on my phone during the interview because I wasn't sure if there were things you COULDN'T cook in cast iron. Are there? The internet failed me. 

Tomorrow a photographer is showing up at my house (!!) and taking my picture (!!) in street clothes (!!) to publish in the magazine. (!!!!) I will probably throw up tomorrow. OK, maybe not. But, maybe.

I am wearing a t-shirt and ripped jeans and flip flops. Because that is what I would wear any other day of the week and that just seems right and makes me comfortable. 

I will think I look fat in the photo no matter what I wear, so I might as well feel comfortable, right?  And, yes, I know that is ridiculous, but it is true. 

I will also have to put on make up? and do my hair? on my day off? 

I seriously want to do a line up sometime of me and 4 homeless people and see if complete strangers can tell the difference. 

And I just started thinking about this photo and all the things it means and feel my brain trying to have a panic attack and then feeling the other part of my brain saying "NOBODY IS GOING TO DIE BECAUSE THIS PICTURE ISN'T PERFECT." 

No doubt I am already on the list for the line up of neurotic people who would rather be hiding in a closet.

Mother's Day...A Day in the Life

Is it weird that when thinking of blog posts, I often start them with "hey, y'all" in my mind? Which is weird mostly because I have never said the phrase y'all in my life..

Hey, y'all. 

We are going to play a game. It is called a day in the life of the small town I work in. Let's go with, oh, you know, today.

I wake up at 8 am (YES I REALIZE THIS IS NOT EARLY TO PEOPLE WITH REAL JOBS, STOP JUDGING ME.)

I drive to a restaurant wholesale store. I realize I forget a case of heavy cream at home. The boy must meet me.

I drive into work. 

The first thing said to me is, "As far as the apocalypse goes, what comes after fire and flood?"

I immediately respond, "locusts," because, duh.

Then my brain catches up and says, wait, WHAT? 

The oven caught on fire. Then they flooded the kitchen. 

We start working. I make 30 manicotti (have I mentioned how much I hate Italian food?)

We get an order for 24 manicotti.

I make 30 more manicotti.

We get an order for 18 manicotti.

I try to stab myself with manicotti. Too limp. They won't let me near the knives.

I make approximately 7 BILLION stuffed mushrooms. 

I eat a sliced cucumber. One slice. We will call this lunch.

The church crowd shows up, sans reservations. We are booked. Very non-church like sentiments are expressed.

We run out of chicken parms. We frantically prep chicken parms.

The oven stops working.

I start cutting the prime rib and eat every scrap. We will call this dinner. 

I become delirious and am banished to salads. For 30 seconds until they all realize delirious me is better than everyone else. 

I am secretly told that my sous chef (!!!) is dating a front of the house supervisor (!!!) and that her ex boyfriend has just entered the building with a loaded gun. 

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And he is pissed.

Authorities called. Situation managed. 

I drive home, having worked 25 hours in 2 days. 

Thursday. I get a day off on Thursday.

Happy Mothers Day to all the mothers....by all definition of the word. Past, present, future, hopeful. 

Oh, and tip your servers. They are so much nicer to the kitchen when they are tipped well.

Can somebody please email me a brief description of what it is like to not live at work? I forget.

1. Do not, under any circumstances put the wine bottle (or box on my current budget) next to your glass and then plop down on the couch. Forcing yourself to get up for a refill is the only thing between you and the bottom of that bottle before you realize what happened.
2. In business, trust actions only. Nothing is true until it happens. Talk is cheap. Various other "life lesson" esque phrases. No this is not about my last post. Yes this is about my last post. Needless to say some of the staffing changes I required in order to take this position are not being met. And I am NOT sharing this role and I am NOT staffing people I don't trust. Erratic backed in a corner becomes bitchy, in case you were wondering. And I am so fucking sick of everyone in this small town being on drugs.
3. My future sous chef makes my day every single time that he works. He walks into the  building with a huge smile on his face, a great attitude and wants nothing more than to sit and talk food with me. It in turn makes me have a huge smile on my face and a great attitude. I miss the people I used to work with so much, but being surrounded by people who are genuinely happy to be there and have a great attitude is amazing.
4. Can we just cancel the voice and have two hours twice a week of Adam Levine talking shit with Blake Shelton? Thanks.
5. We are members of our neighborhood association and the area cyber block watch. We live in the city. There is crime. We hear gunshots from time to time. There is a guy, who the boy claimed shit his pants, walking around the neighborhood asking someone to cash a check for him. Homeless people take all of the metal and aluminum out of our trash and recycling. WE LIVE IN THE CITY. So, when people post to the cyber block watch "window smashed in and laptop stolen" I want to be a troll so bad and just say, "obviously." I don't like leaving beer in my trunk while unloading groceries. However, a very, very famous blogger spent an afternoon in my neighborhood! And I almost posted all of the links to the articles here, but...that seemed like a really dumb idea. So I didn't. Needless to say, the blogger absolutely loved our historic little neighborhood. And they didn't leave their laptop in the car.
6. Pocket Pen and Cupcake got married last weekend! I did all of the desserts and let me just tell you something...if a friend asks you to do the desserts for their wedding, say yes because you are not an asshole. Then call me and listen to the horror stories that go along with making 250 desserts. They were perfect and the wedding was perfect. I can't even begin to explain how it was just amazing down to every single detail. The event coordinator at the venue said she had never in her life seen a more organized couple. If the boy and I ever tie the knot, they will be grilled endlessly. The cake the venue made for them to cut...the only thing that was not amazing. I almost took it and ran into the kitchen to fix it. It was AWFUL. She said it was the first cake they have ever done. And that was obvious.
7. Jess and Nick are the new Ross and Rachel. 
8. I make my own laundry detergent and everyone at work calls me Flower Yoder. A combination of hippie (Flower) and Amish (Yoder.) If you can name ONE laundry detergent that gets kitchen smell out for $15 every six months (or any price...none of them do) I will buy it. If you want the recipe, email me. Your clothes have NEVER been this clean. Trust me.
9. A friend of mine just got a diagnosis of cancer. And HIV. On the same day. Shit. I think even I am praying at this point.
10. I miss you guys. I want to be here more. I can only promise to try. Shit be crazy.