Home Cook to Sous Chef

How did I become a food blogger? Well, not by intention. I’m a small town girl who grew up in a logging town, with a logger father and a stay-at-home mom who raised pretty Arabian horses for show, and she was my chauffer. I was a ballet dancer and stage performer growing up, a creative who loved to draw and write poetry and dreams of doing great things someday. I dreamed of owning a little coffee shop, with custom coffees and mouth watering sandwiches. I was cutting edge, as this was long before there would be a Starbucks on every corner. We had a little shop in the corner of a strip mall called Serendipity and we could get fresh, ground to order, hazelnut flavored coffee beans. It was there that the idea was planted.

Then went away to college, in the big city, to pursue a degree in Kinesiology. I got my confidence in that big town, but after the city lights faded and I got tired of being around angry people, and being stuck in traffic, and couldn’t find a job in my field of study, I moved back home to my little town, which was now a little bigger than when I left. My first job back in town had me doing marketing for a hometown pharmacy, and I scored some company tickets to a fundraiser for our local women’s shelter, out under the twinkling lights by the newly constructed Sundial Bridge. It was a lovely evening in October at that event, titled Cornucopia, featuring wine tastings and foods prepared by local chefs. One chef was even kind of famous. I didn’t know him, but I knew of him. My mom was my date, and remember nudging her and say, “Hey, there’s Chef Cal”. He owned the premier fine dining restaurant in town; the place where birthdays, first dates and anniversaries happened. He was a real chef, with a real chef’s hat, and awards, certifications and accolades to prove it.

And that was my first glimpse of the man I was going to marry two years later.