the spiritual and culinary journey of a restaurant owner

On April 2nd I celebrated ten years of owning my restaurant/bakery. It was a momentous day, many people showed up at the cafe to give me hugs, flowers, sing happy birthday, and receive yummy birthday cake from me. It was quite moving and humbling. It is about damn time I am putting this down on, err, paper, so to speak. I have so much to say! What a journey and crazy ride I have been on.

So now it is time to honor all that I have learned and continue to learn and have some fun with it.

Here's the deal . . . I love to make food, I love to grow food, and I love to eat food!

Since I have been obsessed with food my whole life, being raised by my mother and grandmother, two wonderful cooks, it is no wonder that I have made it my business for the past many years. No, I will not tell you how old I am. Suffice it to say that I am on my 3rd marriage, raising two teenage daughters, and still run and cook in the only restaurant I have ever owned. Enough said. What really feeds me, excites me, and fulfills me is cooking for my community, whether it is giving little Fin and Rennie, the neighbor kids, a chocolate dipped shortbread cookie, and relishing the looks on their little faces, or cooking an elegant bistro dinner for a table of 8 on a busy Saturday night, I am living my passion!

I am lucky. No, I am really fortunate and blessed. I live in this small town where I pretty much know at least half of the folks who live here on a first name basis. It is quaint, creative, quiet (come by at 9 at night during the week!), and provencial in a lovely way. I am surrounded by sea and can see two mountain ranges when I stand in the middle of Lawrence St. It is a lovely place to raise daughters and live a more simpler life, even if I often work 60 hours a week. At least I can walk home from work at 11:30 at night, look up and see a million stars and listen to the coyotes. It is not Paris, it is not Chicago (where I grew up), and it is not Lincoln Nebraska. It is a sweet corner of nirvana in the great northwest, turn right and go to the end of the road, and that is where heaven is.