Chef’s life outside of the restaurant.

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Memorial Day 2018

It’s 2018 and for 49 years, on each and every Memorial Day, I think about a young classmate from Churchill Rd Elementary School in McLean, Virginia.  We were in 5th grade.  He was a friendly young kid, but we weren’t close friends.  He had a plethora of brothers, sisters and cousins in our school and […]

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Not your mama’s Apple Store…

I enjoyed a lovely day off in my garden on Sunday.  Really, I am just moving plants around right now.  Plants I put in last April ended up with the wrong kind of sun later in the year.  I had been listening to a pod cast of All Things Considered with my headphones when my […]

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My Beautiful Daughter.

The first time I brought my daughter to the restaurant she was in a car carrier and I placed her into a steam well in the kitchen while I prepped. She was three weeks old. She slept and I was euphoric that I could roll out pastry dough, bake tarts, cut meat and put soup on […]

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Being the owner. The real perk.

Twenty eight years ago, while in culinary school, I swore I would never open my own restaurant.  This was at the conclusion of the class in which you designed your own restaurant; from the menu, scheduling, dining room design to the profit and loss.  No way I said.  Too much work. Well, a mere nine […]

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Cooking for the family

On one of my recent vacations I headed out of town with a girlfriend and we discussed cooking.  Can you imagine?  But it wasn’t about Berkshire Pork or Maple Leaf Duck or Summerland Farms produce.  It was about how to keep corn dogs out of my freezer at home.  My husband buys them and my […]

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Lettuce Anyone?

I sent my husband to the store the other day and all I asked him to bring me was lettuce.  He came back with a head of iceberg.  I haven’t made an iceberg salad in 18 years.  I was instructed to be a little more specific next time.  

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Even Chefs have Kids

Yesterday my lovely 12 year old was trying to squeeze into last year’s jeans which she had worn the day before without my knowing. Me:”Why aren’t you wearing the ones I just bought you?” 12 year old:”Because they are too baggy in the butt and ride too high, like grandma’s jeans.” Me: “But I asked […]

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Kid’s go Back to school

Drove down to Santa Rosa Beach, FL for 1 and 1/2 days to pick my daughter up from visiting a friend.  Beach was lovely, drive not bad with a book on tape and a Sunday away from the restaurant, priceless. That leaves one week for school supply shopping, clothes, registration for jazz and ballet classes, […]

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