Time and Motherhood and Cheffing

I read something today that said the most important gift we can give our children as their parents is time.

Not time in the sense of minutes. But time in the sense of presence.

Awareness.

That means not being sidetracked when they are demanding attention, and I’m sorry to say, that includes multitasking.

I sat reading the article over and over again. It was resonating with me, but on a level that the writer didn’t intend.

In a kitchen, time is the great equalizer. It doesn’t matter what your abilities are as a chef, if you cant prioritize, multitask, and delegate, you WILL NOT SUCCEED. Period. It won’t happen. You will continue to be a line chef with good days and bad days. But, in any establishment that is worth a good reputation, you won’t advance. There are too many things that need to be done in a day, and not enough time to get all them all done in.

Ill start with- there are a lot of things I didn’t do well as management staff in a kitchen. I was young, often times the only female in a kitchen, and hella competitive. I had something to prove, and enjoyed finding when people weren’t doing things right and rubbing their noses in it. A lot of figuring out how to manage for me included learning how to work with people, and learning how to speak so that they would listen.

Now that we got that heavily shortened list out of the way,

Enter my momentary ego….

Managing time, I could do easily. I knew how long tasks took. I mean down to the minute how long it should take someone to turn a bushel of potatoes into fries, for example. I knew who was working on which days that was capable of which tasks, and i scheduled accordingly.

I remember looking at clocks on walls, POS machines, and screens, more than I looked some of my line cooks in the face in a day.

Time was ingrained in me as an ever precious commodity. Managing it correctly was my recipe to success. And reversely, i found nothing more insulting than someone who wasted my time.

Find me now, 5 years later, with two children who, like all other children, find nothing more entertaining than dilly dallying.

When I tell them its time to get ready for bed, my daughter starts playing like she is a cow and will get down on all fours and pretend to eat our shag rug as if it is a meadow of spring grass. My son will put his underwear on his head and do an Irish Jig while simultaneously asking for dessert, a glass of water, and no less than 5 bedtime stores and 3 songs.

On my good days, I laugh and play along. Ill give the cow a bath and do a whole late night revue.

On my bad days, Ill hurry them along, keep poker faced, and focus on the task at hand.

Attention, as a mother, is something that is constantly being beckoned for.

Mom, watch this.

Mom, can I have this?

Mom, Cecelia has a Lego in her mouth.

Mom, why is money made of metal?

But all of those questions all at once.

And then of course there are the invisible tasks that occupy so much of your mind as a mother. The ones that you don’t say anything about out loud, but take up SO much of your mental load.

Some of mine include:

Is our well conditioning system going to last one more year, or am I going to wake up to brown water some time this winter?

Do we have enough seasoned firewood to burn from October to April?

Should I go back to work?

Am I depressed, exhausted, or more likely some combination of the two?

Have the kids eaten a vegetable in the last 24 hours?

I know every person has their own variation of worries and questions that replay on a loop in their head. I envision mine as one those old light up Simon Says games. A series of rampant thoughts and worries on a fixed track. Brain says Beep, I say Beep. Brain says Beep, Boop, I say Beep Boop, and so on.

The world has invented social media too. So whatever shred of attention we have left to give, its for most people freely given to the metaverse. We are now mining for our dopamine and serotonin with our thumbs as we scroll.

With all these competing thoughts, personalities, tasks, and expectations, how can time not be the ultimate gift?

I, for one, am going to spend a lot more time reprioritizng my life and asking less of myself so that I can enjoy my children and my motherhood more, and I’m assuming that was the point of the somewhat of a guilt trip article I found myself too invested in this morning.

But how about also looking at the time we are given from others as the true gift that it is?

That friend that never has their cell phone out while you are catching up? Or that person that looks you in the eyes while you speak and lets you know deep down in your soul that you’re being heard? Its a gift.

And isn’t that all our children have to give us? Their time.

We as parents are given YEARS worth of time from our children. This thing that will inevitably end up a precious commodity for them at some point. And here they are giving it to us freely. Endless amounts of attention, and interest, that can feel so suffocating and overwhelming at times when its hyper focused on you.

I’m starting to realize that this gift my kids have been blessing me with everyday since the day they were born is fleeting. My son is only shy of 5, and already I feel him starting to take ownership of his time. Slowly but surely he is now doling it out to his interests that took this long for him to manifest.

And what if one day my children are great at giving undivided attention to their loved ones? All because I silenced the noise in my head and accepted the gift they bury me in unselfishly everyday?

Deep down I will always be a clock watching line chef. Its part of my identity and helped me manage my life in many ways.

But do I think its time to give the gift of time back? Yes.

I Miscarried Today, a Note on Being Woman.

I debated writing this. Not because of being ashamed. But because I really don’t want to make it seem like I’m looking for sympathy. So the concession I made to the writer in me that insists every mood, thought, and fart I have make it to paper, is that I will begin with this:

I’m not trying to get sympathy. I am one who councils myself, and digs for understanding of my life, through allowing thoughts to manifest themselves into the physical world by way of words. This is my gym, bro. And this is my blog, so I make the rules.

I knew for 4 days that we were expecting baby #3. We were not planning, or trying, it was a shock.

I was a little late, and had no sign of any physical symptoms of a period. So as I walked passed my bathroom vanity, I wondered if any pregnancy tests lay hidden from when we were trying before (3+ years ago now). I was doing it more for peace of mind and reassurance than worry. There were a few, old and expired, but in the wrapper none the less. So I used one, placed it back on the vanity, and continued to laugh at a TikTok, genuinely unconcerned about what the test would reveal. As I took a side glance at the test mid-laugh, I saw two lines. (for those of you that aren’t familiar, that is a big +, for POSITIVE).

I think I said “Oh, Fuck” no less than 42 times.

I lost it. All thoughts of reality, and what this could mean for me and my family, came crashing through my skull at the same time. All the mom guilt. All at once. Man, I had no idea how much guilt I’ve been carrying around until all of the sudden my faculties were shaken.

I wish I could say I had a better response. A more magical, EPT commercial worthy, response. But I’ve done this before. And its a pandemic. And. Ill stop before listing all the things that are worrisome and suck about the world currently.

So 6 tests later (after a trip to the drug store) confirms it all again. We’re having baby number three.

And over the course of 4 days. We feel all the feelings. The ups and downs, because there are both. Having a two year old, and almost four year old, I’m just about out of baby hood. I’m starring down the barrel of toddler #2, and simultaneously enjoying and soaking up (mostly) uninterrupted sleep and reclaiming my body as my own.

And I’m also remembering how soft my babies hair was. And all of the sudden I’m feeling the tufts, warm, almost hot, under my chin as I sit rocking. And I’m remembering how soundly they slept on my chest. And their baby giggles, hiccups, and sneezes. The magic of the bond. The fire that burned so fiercely from the second the first sound wave of their cry met my eardrum. The late nights wrapped warm in each others embrace.

The little hands.

A sense of all encompassing purpose and direction. What a magical gift.

And just like that, I’m excited for baby number three. Mama Bear taps in.

The next day our family stays in the for the day. My husband and I are wrapping our heads around what the next 9 months should look like, and our kids are blissfully unaware of anything out of the norm. My husband starts asking about names. We decide to not find out the sex. We try to be excited while also being crushed by the surprise and worry.

And the next night, a little blood. But I’m an experienced pro. I’ve done this twice. So it’s probably nothing. Ill call the midwife in the morning.

The next morning. A little more.

Where the hell is my midwifes number? (more worry, but still taping in to the confidence that having two children has given me).

I am now on my way to the gym , kids packed in the car, and I hear back from my midwife early and quickly. (fast jolt of adrenaline that leaves my face flush)

She says: “Any bleeding in early pregnancy is not typical, but may be fine. Take this script, and get blood work to see if pregnancy is viable and progressing. We will go from there. Busy at a labor, will talk soon.”

All of the sudden my smug confidence (that has taken me years to accumulate might I add) has fallen out of my seat and through the floor of my vehicle, and is currently being run over by every other car on Rt 100 right now.

I am crying, trying to figure out the fastest way to Labcorps, all while pretending to my kids that the reason we just sped out of the gym parking lot is because I’m too nervous to workout today. My son is now counseling me saying “Its OK mom, if you get scared Ill be right in the other room you can come get me.” and now I’m REALLY sobbing, for a multitude of reasons.

The next part of the story is an example of how broken and dismal the healthcare system is currently:

I check in at 10:15 (no appointment, obviously). I am seen at 3:15. There is one person working the computer and one person drawing the blood. They take no lunch to accommodate all of the people waiting. From chatting with other people waiting I find out all of the the other Labcorps in the area are closed or only taking appointments due to short staffing.

In this 4 hour wait period, I am scared, trying to sidetrack children, and attempting to stay positive. The entire time I am waiting, I don’t use the bathroom because

A) there is no bathroom

B) I don’t want to face reality.

I consider giving up on multiple occasions, but realize I can’t.

I finally get seen, and am told I need a hard copy of the script, an email isn’t good enough. I inform them I am not leaving without blood getting taken. They magically find the script on their system and agree to take me back.

The woman taking my blood informs me this is her first day (it is unclear to me if she is talking about first day at this location, or at being a phlebotomist in general).

After three jabs and fishing around under my skin for what felt like 5 minutes, my dehydrated veins finally produce enough blood to fill one. tiny. vial.

I am scolded for being so dehydrated.

I leave to go home, all the while dreading using the bathroom when I get there, afraid at what I might find.

I get the kids settled with graham crackers and a strawberry smoothie in front of sesame street (God save Elmo), and take the slow walk up to the bathroom.

A quick glance shows blood. And my heart gives out.

The frustration from the day is released out of me through my tears, and I allow myself to face the reality of the fact that I am probably losing baby number three.

The midwife’s quick email keeps running through my head “no blood in early pregnancy is typical.”

I call my husband, who has been communicating with me all day from work, and admit that there is definite bleeding. I think I’m miscarrying.

The night is a blur. Beyond the emotions and dehydration, I feel flu like symptoms. Stomach ache, fever on and off, and itchy?! I don’t know why the last one, but if I google search enough I’m sure I could find the answer.

I make a point to read to the kids for a long time before they go to sleep, in our bed, deep in the covers with lots of pillows around. They are both exhausted from not napping all day paired with the prolonged boredom they had to endure, so they are willingly lying still and being very cuddly.

I decide to read to the three of them, thinking “If this is the only chance I will get, then I am going to take it”. And I am secretly wiping tears away behind my kids back, and every now and then taking turns hugging my lower belly and the ball of cells I can feel beginning to break free.

I hug my kids tightly and lovingly that night, before I tuck them into bed. And like the hyper receptive all knowing little beings they are, they give me exactly what I need. Long hugs, no words, and understanding. In that moment, I am the most grateful I have ever been for them and the gift of having them in my life.

That night there is no more questioning what is happening. It is happening and there is nothing to do about it.

The next morning I hear back from the midwife early. My bloodwork results explain the bleeding. There is nothing left to do but wait and take care of myself.

It’s back to being just me, again. And the prenatal vitamins are thrown in the far corner of my fridge, with the labels facing backwards so I can’t read them. And the positive pregnancy test sticks are in the bottom of my trash can. And I need to stack wood because we are all out and our house is cold.

And I am nursing the the most violent whiplash wound that my soul has ever experienced.

Yes, I know if I did not have that old crusty test sitting in the back of my medicine cabinet, I might not have even known I was pregnant. And I would have saved myself and my loved ones the roller coaster of emotions we just got to ride. And I would have made it to my workout. But I did test, and we did know. And we had a fleeting time of excitement and expectation and hope that was followed by loss.

So here is a brief (not definitive) list of the things this experience has reminded me to be grateful for, in no particular order:

My Body. It has saved me and worked for me and tried for me despite 33 years of demanding a lot and giving a little.

My Heart. It’s beat has always been driven by the naivety and hope of the forever 8 year old me that fiercely guards it. I am so proud of that little girl keeping vigilant watch over it for all these years, allowing me to still feel and desire to express all encompassing love.

My Children. They are the true good that I have helped bring in to the world. And I cant wait to see what they do and who they choose to be.

My Husband. We have been journeying together for years, adding to our packs and picking up better walking sticks along the way while tossing the ones that no longer work to the side. I am proud of the tenderness we have uncovered for one another through this.

This experience has left me reeling. I have always felt deeply for those who experience any sort of pregnancy or child loss, while simultaneously never allowing myself to believe it would happen to me. Low and behold I find out all the things I have said to others in the past to try and help them ( it is common, your body is working the way it should. Its not indicative of a deeper problem) is just white noise.

Hope for a child is really hope to feel and express potential all encompassing love. And that is everything in life. And it is worth taking a second to address how you feel when you experience losing that hope, if that reality chooses you.

Thanks for reading and sticking along. I promise more food things again and soon.

When Will it Feel Like Home?

They were probably the first great chefs de cuisine in that land, and galling though the fact may be to those Frenchman…they were Italians, every one.

-M.F.K. Fisher, Serve it Forth

People come to me for all things food. Information on it, tips and suggestions, or just ideas of what to cook. Before I made food my career however, I always obsessed over it. I was ever curious, standing behind my mother and grandmother as they threw mysterious items into the pot. I wanted to know what was for dinner on my way to grade school, so I had something to look forward to. In the reverse, if I knew something was being made that I didn’t love, which trust me there wasn’t much in that category, it was enough to ruin my day.

Core memories and even not so important memories are mostly food related for me. I remember being in FIRST GRADE and watching the snow come down from the big bay windows that overlooked the small valley I grew up in. The dusting of snow that so softly covered everything reminded me of the very special cinnamon crumb cake (topped with confectioners sugar) I had packed in my lunch box. My mouth watered and I wondered how much longer I had to wait before I could eat it. With my brain so strained for retention space as it is, why is this a memory it has deemed necessary and important?

All of the children’s books I obsessed over were food related. The cookie in “If You Give a Mouse a Cookie” looked so good. I have been searching for the delicious eclair in “Two Bad Babies” since I was about four (that book isn’t even about food). And “A Chocolate Moose for Dinner”, don’t even get me started on that one. An illustrated book of puns had one page that included a deliciously dripping chocolate moose, and I made my mother read it over and over again. As a high-schooler I remember keeping it on my bookshelf in my room even though the other children’s books were moved downstairs as I aged. It had a place in my young adult library right beside the Harry Potter series.

Chocolate Mousse is now one of my specialties.

As a kid, I would love watching cooking shows. It was an obsession that started back when my grandmother used to play “Two Fat Ladies”, a BBC cooking show that aired from 1996-1999. I was at most ten while watching. Yet I remember loving how silly they were together, and large, and the fact that they rode around on a motorcycle with a sidecar attached as they traveled the English countryside in search of meals to prepare. The most interesting Superhero’s doing the Lord’s work, if you ask me.

I love to say that I am inspired to cook by my family, and I am. It is hard to find a “bad” cook in our midst, and no matter whose house you are at, the table is laden with homemade food that took hours to prepare and a person standing behind it saying “It was nothing, it was simple!”.

But I was also born with an interest. A desire to know food. I was aware that food was something that our family surrounded ourselves with, be it a funeral or a birthday. It was comfort. A craft, that if practiced, meant more than just a full stomach. It could mean a warmer heart. Home on a spoon.

So despite “food” being my career, it also means the same thing to me as it does to most other people. A way to remember. A way to remind myself of who I am, and where I come from. Cooking will always be a method I use to ground myself when things seem strange or uncertain, and I’m grasping at my roots to reassure my soul I’m still me, and I still remember how.

I hate to admit this, but people who know me well will not be surprised. Moving away from home was not an easy adjustment for me. Even now that I have been gone for 12-ish years, and have gotten married, and had two kids, and spent a decade doing the work of making Pennsylvania home, there are times where I am so lost. We are talking a difference of 6 hours from where I grew up, tops. And sometimes I feel like I moved to another country. I would have made a terrible immigrant.

I don’t know why my tie to home is so strong. I look at some more transient friends and co-workers of mine, that are always in a very different spot every 6 months. And happy. And enjoying. And life seems to be such an adventure. And i feel a bit embarrassed. Like I said, were talking ONE STATE AWAY.

Yet there are times when my heart aches for upstate New York. Not for any one person, or thing, or experience necessarily.

But for the way the air hangs heavy with the smell of apples in the fall.

And how dark and fertile the dirt is and how it felt to dig my hands in it.

And how quickly you can feel the change of seasons in the air, specifically between autumn and winter.

There are so many sensory ties I have to that place.

And while I have found a way to surround myself now in Pennsylvania with a creek a stones throw from my house and a garden that I am constantly hovering over. And the first trees I planted on our new property were two small Apple trees, I still wonder…

When will I wake up and feel it? Feel as if this is home? I’m checking all of the boxes in a tireless quest.

And as a book has the tendancy to do, when I found myself pondering that exact thought, a passage spoke to me.

I was reading “Serve it Forth” by M.F.K. FIsher, and in one of the chapters she brushed upon how an arranged marriage between Catherine de Medici (an Italian) to King Henry II brought the art of cuisine to France for the first time. Catherine was so upset to leave her homeland that she insisted on bringing all of her cooks with her. And she had her cooks teach the recipes and methods that reminded her of home to all of her staff, and she unintentionally created a gastronomic revolution that we all still get to take advantage of today.

A woman pulled from her roots. Who recognized it needed to be done, but insisted on having a say in it all.

There is power and strength in remembering where you came from. Its necessary for growth.

So You Want to Be a Chef AND a Mother?

When I decided to become a chef, or rather I should say, when I packed my car full to the brim and drove to the middle of nowhere in upstate New York with the goal of getting my culinary degree- I had absolutely no idea what that meant in terms of my personal life.

There was ONE chef instructor who attempted to shed light on the fact that being successful in the restaurant industry inevitably was going to mean being unsuccessful in every other area of your life. By shed light on I mean he brought it up once, the week we left for winter break. And by brought it up I mean he said something along the lines of:

“ Enjoy your Christmas now, because if any of you make it past these doors, you wont see another Christmas like it for ten years at least.” - His delivery was very Chris Farley in Billy Madison (Ill turn this damn bus around, that’ll end your PRECIOUS little field trip pretty damn quick, huh?)

I remember hearing him, and wondering “Gee, I wonder what he meant by that?” and quickly distracting myself with the excitement of finals, partying with friends, and eventually leaving to go home.

I have since spent the past 12 years fully realizing for myself exactly what he meant, and recognizing the source of the tinge of disdain that he was unable to mask in his delivery.

Its no secret that the restaurant industry is brutal for anyone trying to have some semblance of a “normal life”. When restaurants are full and chefs are in business, the rest of the world is celebrating. That means being on your feet for the 15th hour in a row, all while being supported by kitchen shoes that are soaking wet from either sweat or the puddle that you’ve been dancing over (lowboy hose is no longer centered over the drain and ain’t no one got time to realign it). OK, that’s a hyper specific scenario which yes I have been in.

What I’m trying to say is that to be in the service industry is to be asked to work for and when everyone else in your life that decided to get their Masters and a 9-5 job with benefits and PTO is drinking and eating and enjoying. And you will also probably be physically uncomfortable at the same time. I don’t know why the physically uncomfortable part is a rule, but it is for me. I’m sure its got something to do with a decade of trying to fit in to uniforms that were made for men while also being surrounded by fire and hot grease, and the like.

Cheffing is not for the faint at heart, and for so long that ethos has been the pillar that the back of the house has perched itself upon.

Don’t like it? Quit. Can’t handle it? Go work at a retirement home.

Luckily for me, or the people I worked for rather, I was born with a brain that enjoys being asked too much of. I used to think I must be a masochist, and most of my coworkers fell into that category. However after years of getting to know myself, I now realize my ability to work well under oppressive conditions wasn’t based in some kink of watching myself suffer, but founded in my belief that I deserved the pain.

I will save all of you having to hear what my therapist hears and leave that mouthful there.

I tried, very hard, while actively cheffing, to keep my personal life on the rails as well as my professional life. Of course it didn’t always work. Like most people, when I was doing great at work, my personal life was suffering- I was missing big moments with family, or was spending too much time at work, or was drinking too much to cope with the mental strain of being in charge of a kitchen.

And in the reverse, when things were going well personally, like when I was getting engaged, buying a home, or attempting to make myself more available to my loved ones, I knew that there was a whole shift of surly and disgruntled crew members and bosses needing me and possibly (it still hurts to even type) failing due to my absence.

It was that lose, lose tightrope walk that I have come to realize my chef was attempting to address that day. Its not that Christmas would never happen again, because it would, every year.

Its that we would never experience one like it for a long time. We would never be un-obligated again, sitting happily at a table with friends and loved ones and wine because if you were, you would probably be failing as a chef.

Most of my chef friends I know that are now in their early to mid thirties are attempting to figure out how to have both a happy home life and also realize their goals as working professionals. The added strain of the pandemic has only pressured the fragile restaurant industry even more in to becoming a safe place to work with realistic expectations and good pay and benefits.

I’ve seen chef friends and ex co-workers turn into farmers, educators, cheese makers, and boutique grocery store employees to name a few. Every now and then we will catch up and reminisce. None of us want to go back but still look back, starry eyed and silently wondering if those were the glory days or if the best days are still ahead.

As for myself, shortly after I got married, I found myself pregnant. I knew that I was not going to be able to be the type of mother I wanted to be and the caliber of Chef I wanted to be at the same time. 30 years of becoming very familiar with my work ethic and expectations of myself made that inherently clear. I bounced around from doing my private cheffing augmented by serving or cooking while I prepared to be a mother.

When the baby came, I spent the first three months convincing myself I was fine (like the famous meme of the dog standing next to the dumpster fire, saying “this is fine”). It, and I most certainly were not fine. I had severe post partum depression that manifested itself in the form of agoraphobia and heart pounding anxiety attacks. In the brief moments where my brain forced itself to shut down and sleep, I would wake in a doomsday-esque panic that my son had died, or was stolen while i slept. It took almost 9 months for me to realize that I needed professional help and up to 15 months post partum for me to start to feel like I had a hold on mother hood- however, I was pregnant again already with my daughter and gearing myself up for round two.

I was able to book jobs while my son was an infant- sometimes I was preparing trays to be delivered, and other times I was catering full, on-site events. I was able to make it work with a mix of prepping after my kids were asleep, and asking for help from family members to watch them either for the events, or for the drop offs. But I was always so rushed. Rushed to have someone show up to help with my kids. or rushing to finish a dish, or trying to check my phone for the time while attempting to stay engaged in a conversation with a potential client. I never felt like I was able to do a good job, either with the food prep, or with my children.

I am blessed to have a partner who can cover the finances fully without any help from me. So seeing my family suffer or all of our nerves be spread thin because of my superfluous endeavors was a pill I tried to swallow for too long. By the time the pandemic hit and I got really nervous about liability, I pulled back completely from any sort of on site catering.

So here I have been since. Focusing all my attention on my children, and spouse, and home. A full-fledged stay at home mom. Yes. Me.

I field disappointment from not living up to my professional potential from myself and others regularly. I receive comments from family and friends and ex co-workers that unintentionally cut oh so deep.

“When are you going to go back to work? Your kids are old enough for daycare, right?”

“Have you thought about applying at (fill in the blank)?”

“You are so good at cooking, you should really be doing it!”

-Just a few things I hear on the regular.

How do I say, without slamming the mic down after I’m done:

Motherhood is the hardest job I’ve ever done, this is WORK. Work that never stops, and never sleeps, and demands more of me than I sometimes have. And if you don’t have kids, you don’t understand. And no I don’t care if that makes you feel excluded, or even worse, makes me sound like some ex-professional that has been lost to the anti-feminist dark side. The stakes are so high with this job. I NEED to do it right. I NEED to be here. The thought of letting someone else raise my kids so that society can accept me again as a woman who can do it all is LITERAL.TORTURE.

So here we are. A career on hold for the near future. An idea of what I could have achieved, or what I can still achieve, sitting behind me at all times. The presence of potential, both realized and unrealized, a gentle ghost in my reality. And all the while my identity begging me to include the title of Motherhood as proudly as I hold my other career-driven accolades.

So to my professional website I will now come to write and reconcile who I am now- Both Chef AND a mother.

Doing both sometimes great, sometime poorly. But still fully both.

And writer, and lover, and gardener, and outdoor enthusiast, and wife, and daughter, and sister.

For now I will make a job title for Motherhood- and I hope all the bad ass mothers out there will click “apply now” and accept that this job is relevant and important and worth adding to your resume.

Looking for:

An individual who is undeterred by the gross things in life. You will regularly be asked to clean feces, vomit, blood, and tears off of people, clothing, and furniture, to name a few.

You will be asked to lift and carry 60+ pounds up stairs, in to wagons, strollers, and sometimes up mountains, if the top of a mountain is what you desire to see.

You will regularly be confronted with not only your shortcomings, but your parent’s and grandparents shortcomings, and faced with the realization that indeed you are them. And they are you. You are all intertwined and it will take HARD WORK, ACCOUNTABILITY, ACCEPTANCE, and FORGIVENESS to even attempt to become a better version of yourself. This is necessary for the job.

There will be days where you will see your impulsivity, impatience, or anger mirrored back to you by the ones you hoped would never express it. And you will feel like the most epic failure. And you will be asked to continue on facilitating life. Wallowing in feelings of failure will not be tolerated

You will sometimes be expected to make food only to have it left unconsumed, or thrown. You will be asked to clean it up with patience.

You will have to figure out how to make all necessary travel and errands workable and enjoyable for every party in attendance, or else risk said travel and errands being truly torture.

You will not be allowed quite time unless you pay for it, and even then it will be on borrowed time.

Personal space will become non existent and privacy is a principle not granted to this position.

You must learn how to work under pressure and with constant noise, mess, and confusion.

You must silence society and other once important voices in your life in order to identify personal happiness. There will be no oversight, check ins, progress reports, or outside guidance.

Most importantly, and I stress- You must accept that your heart lives outside of your body now. And your love and contentedness will always be contingent on a small, always moving orb that will constantly be just out of your reach.

And you will not recognize yourself. Because you are not meant to.

In taking on this position, you have leveled up, and are meant to redefine who you are, and what is important to you. And what you simply will no longer stand for.

A Return to What We Know- Bread. Sourdough, Please.

“I cannot count the good people I know who, to my mind, would be even better if they bent their spirits to the study of their own hungers.”

— M.F.K. Fisher, How to Cook a Wolf

Like most people in America right now, I am being “forced” to stay home, cook every single meal for my family, and entertain myself with what is available to me in my immediate surroundings thanks to the Covid-19 threat and social distancing guidelines. This reality is not a far stretch for the average primary care giver to young children, and I must admit it has been a little humorous watching the normally free-to-engage-in-whatever crowd attempt to adapt to this lifestyle.

“You mean I can’t go out when my cbd insused wine supply is dwindling?”

“I have to come prepared to the grocery store with wipes and hand sanitzer and a mask?”

“I am expected to fully engage with my loved ones 24 hours a day??”

For most parents to toddlers, the wine supply is always dwindling and most often is an inconvenience to get more. You can’t leave the kids in the car. Instead you must bear the dirty looks from the other patrons of the spirit store when you come in with your three kids jammed in one of those mini carts, while also toting a book bag that has baby wipes and half-eaten cracker packs bursting from the barely intact zipper seams. Try to convince someone who has seen you in that setting that you’re not an alcoholic- go on, Ill wait.

The grocery store trip is ALWAYS a scheduled, planned activity with kids. # 1-Cart has to be sanitized because yes, the first thing any child under 8 will do is suck on the handle bar. #2- pick the right time of day- there is a perfect sweet spot to find when the food you need will be fully stocked (because hell-to-the-no I am not coming back here this week) and when the store will be least crowded. #3- Load that cart up and plan for the Apocalypse because again, hell-to-the-no I am not coming back here this week.

And finally, the constant expectation of happily and enthusiastically communicating with only a handful (if that) of other people for the near future. Any parent who has had their eyeball forcefully opened by a dirty, grimy, little toddler paw (imagine something with the dexterity of a raccoon as well as the curious smell) can attest to this as probably being the hardest thing. Everyone loves their kids, and their need to always be supervised (MAMA LOOK IT!!!) is actually very endearing. But, sometimes Mama wants to LOOK IT at anything else. Maybe even engage in conversation with someone who doesn’t need to point out every time something or someone farted.

All of us coming to the middle of the road in terms of what our daily experience is like is doing wonders for our sense of community. It seems as if the hamster wheel in our minds of wake up, do what I need to do today, go to sleep, has been interrupted. For the majority of us that have been told “thanks, but no thanks” to being out in the world, we get to actually live in our homes. Now whenever anyone gets that “ my mind is wandering I must go absentmindedly buy things from that fill-in-the-blank box store”, we CAN’T indulge that impulse.

Well, I guess Ill call my grandma and talk about life then…

Does anyone else feel that this is doing a bit of good? No, I am not on the front lines of the hospital watching the horrors of this virus first hand, and no I have not been directly impacted by this outside of annoyance of being told what to do. So I am admitting it is easier for me to see the bright side of all this. But there is a bright side in all of this.

With that said, I have been most struck by the rise of interest in bread making, Online baking websites have become over burdened by visitors and flour of any kind is in the highest demand in grocery stores- competing in scarcity with toilet paper. The toilet paper thing doesn’t make sense to me. But, the bread thing does. I think we all get it.

There is something fundamentally human about baking from scratch, especially bread. And things that are fundamentally human are most appealing to us in times of crisis. Making a fresh loaf of bread is cathartic. It takes work. It most often doesn’t neatly come together, and it takes intuition. The temperature and the humidity inside your house alter even the most fool proof bread recipe. Bread begs you to pay attention to it. And right about now there is a lot of attention to go around.

As the interest in baking has increased, the amount of commercially manufactured instant yeast has decreased . Instant dry yeast that most of us have come accustom to seeing in the dairy aisle of the grocery store in those little foil packets is now extremely hard to find. A few friends of mine working in the grocery stores have said customers are asking for when the shipment of yeast is arriving and and then they are coming back at said date and time. Yeast isn’t even making it to the shelf before it is sold out for the week.

Enter: The Sourdough Starter, Wild Yeast, etc. Craze.

(for those who don’t know- Sourdough Starter at its most basic is a mixture of flour and water left to sit at room temperature for days, creating an hospitable environment for wild yeast to take over and grow in. Free Yeast, yay! This wild yeast can live for many years as long is it is continuously fed and rejuvenated. It has a more pungent sour flavor than commercially produced dry yeast and lends that flavor to anything you make with it. )

I love this fad. I really do. It is not white noise to me in the slightest. I think it is encouraging that people with little to no experience are forcing themselves to try one of the truest and most difficult forms of bread baking. And for all those people out there belittling it by saying “its how EVERYONE used to bake, its only hard because you are over complicating it, wild yeast is readily available and hard to kill!, use your intuition”, and blah, blah, blah, you obviously are too far removed from the level of confidence the average person has in their abilities in the kitchen. There are plenty of food preparation methods that have been around forever and at their core SHOULD be easy to figure out. That doesn’t change the fact that grocery store shelves are loaded with time saving alternatives that have become part of life, or that we are a few generations in now of having these conveniences available to us, and we are slowly losing our grip on cooking anything from scratch.

That is why the sourdough craze gives me faith in humanity. Our resilience is showing in a food related way. Its inspiring and I like it.

I am so inspired that I am going to begin highlighting some of my favorite recipes using off cuts from my starter. I have made a slew of baked goods as well as savory foods. Most of these recipes are born from my inability to “throw away” any of the starter when I go to feed it. I have now come to accept the fact that if I don’t need a loaf of bread baked and it is feeding time, that I must use it for something else. Its a fun creative outlet, and I hope you enjoy following along!

First up: DOUGHNUTS! (mmm, doughnuts)