OK, I searched all over the site and I can’t find an email address anywhere so I shall have to leave it up to you to send me an email. Sorry. I tried.

Amy, my dear friend, I am the poster child for the damage cortisol can do– gigantic gut and all. The only symptom I don’t have is high blood pressure. Let me put it this way: I can easily fit in a pair of size 14 jeans– as long as I don’t try to zip them up. Once I have to accommodate The Blob my jeans size jumps up to a 22 or even a 24 sometimes. It’s pretty hard to find clothes when your waist is six sizes bigger than your hips and four sizes bigger than your bust. I was always a little disproportionate, even as a child, but after the misery of my teen years it got worse. When I got divorced shortly after having my son by cesarean in my early 20s it just exploded. Add in job stress, health worries, financial worries, single parenting issues, relationships doomed to failure and a couple of endoscopic abdominal surgeries, et voila, massive gut. In a society where a woman’s value is set inversely to her waist size, well, you can probably imagine how painful it has been, emotionally as well as physically.

I really found solace in my own kitchen where nobody cared about my waist as long as what went to the table was delicious. I didn’t even mind when my club nickname became “Kitchen Bitch.” I told the managing partner that it was a compliment because it just meant that I was a strong woman who didn’t take any crap, and he agreed. Men are called “demanding,” or it is said that they don’t “gladly suffer fools.” Women get “bitch.” I can live with that, but I might say, “That’s CHEF bitch to you!”

I just wish I could find a really old-school place that wanted a REAL hostess. By “REAL” hostess I mean a mature woman, not some over-dressed, empty-headed high school cheerleader who doesn’t know what you’re talking about when you say “Please show our guests to the four-top.”

I remember the elegant, mature hostesses that all the really nice places had when I was a kid. They always dressed in evening gowns like they were just stopping in on their way to the opera or perhaps the Getty’s cocktail party. I guess they were a sort of female maître d’. They ran those dining rooms with an iron fist in a velvet glove. They never raised their honeyed voices but those servers (male and female) were already in the air (without even asking how high) when those lovely ladies in up-dos whispered “jump.” That is what I’d really like to do now that I’m almost in my dotage. Albeit, with either a slightly more casual work wardrobe or a BIG clothing allowance. I already wear my hair up as a matter of habit. 😉 My classmates in culinary school didn’t call me the Hair Nazi for nothing!

I’d love to get together with you and your new mate sometime. Perhaps a Hog Island oyster feast in the early fall when bay area weather is really nice? Or maybe I’ll just come to you. I’ve never been to the beachy areas south of Daly City and north of San Luis Obispo. I hear there is a resto down there that serves the best cioppino anywhere and a place that makes fabulous artichoke soup, and I’m sure you know those places well. Or, perhaps you guys would like to come up somewhere near me. While I am not a runner, there are many great hiking trails, Table Mountain, the Sutter Buttes, a waterfall, a covered bridge, the best olive oil producer in California and a lot of gorgeous, natural scenery. I only wish I had a guest room to offer, but with four people, (only two of whom share a room,) two cats and three dogs in a small two bedroom house we are stacked in here like cord wood so it’s just not possible.

I don’t do much “Facebooking,” but I will email you my Facebook info and hope to see a friend request soon.

I was wondering why you weren’t still cookin over the fire because I know your heart is in it still and I love your stories. The physical aspect to the job is beyond demanding and it’s hard to explain to people outside the restaurant world unless they’ve actually lived or dated a chef or cook. I’ve had a lot of issues surrounding it. The cuts and burns notwithstanding, the adrenal fatigue is crippling. After the last ten years of pushing, pushing, pushing I’ve got to the point that I almost can’t get out of bed without an adrenaline rush. Sleepless nights from adrenaline coupled with pure exhaustion equals bad relationships, health, and wellbeing. This year I’m focusing on moderation and trying to reverse the poisonous and powerful side effects of cortisol. I’m trying to find the balance. I’m trying to create a new career in which I can do every thing I love to do but also have a life/love outside the kitchen.

It’s not enough to me anymore just to be a chef in the kitchen. I want more. When I teach cooking to young adults it feels like the missing puzzle piece and it makes the career more meaningful to me. My dream is shifting from being a restaurant chef to wanting to be part of a community in a deeper way while still bringing great food to the table…hopefully I’ll have a new story in this line to write about soon ;-))

Much love

I was staring 40 in the eye when I fell in a hole full of chickweed. I thought it was solid ground, but it was a little lower than anticipated and not at all level and I broke my ankle. As an actual working-behind-the-stove chef in a one-woman kitchen, 40 is a hard age to be. It’s very physically demanding, as you know well, and let’s face it, working/cooking chefs have a shelf life. Jet-setting executive chefs, or even executive chefs with an actual CREW, have it pretty easy by comparison– at least physically. Mentally, I’m sure, it’s still a grind.

While I was still on disability I ran into a local restaurateur who offered me the executive chef’s position at a new place he was going to open in a year. It was a block away from my home in a historical building. He wasn’t raised here (it’s a pretty insular community) and he wanted someone who would be a sort of local ambassador, I think. Businesses owned by people who didn’t grow up here tend to close pretty quickly.

After my ankle healed I went back to work at the gun club and gave notice that I wouldn’t be back the next season because of the new situation. However, we were planning to have a private dining room and that I would be more than happy to cook their wild game or poultry if they would like.

In the meantime my limp got worse. The restaurant got stalled, first by code requirements and then by the senior citizen apartments that were slated for the upstairs half of the building. A new location was found and couple of years passed. As I waited I got more and more depressed and just felt myself getting weaker by the day, no matter what I did to try not to lose ground. By the time the place was ready to open I physically couldn’t do the work of opening a new restaurant anymore. That, my friend, is how dreams die.

I’m really glad that you are so physically fit and more, that you actually enjoy it. It will save you my fate. Working out has ALWAYS been something I have had to force.

P.S. I’ll tick the button for notification now that you are back. 😉

I’m sorry about the pain. This is not a profession (as you know all too well) that is easy with any sort of disability. This work takes so much out of the body…

I know! I’m back from my European vacation now and dealing with amazing amounts of spam like never before! Yikes! Just uploaded a new plug-in that should help…

Now, on to one who DID read the essay AND watch the video: This looks like a great program, especially for inner-city kids who don’t really see crops growing around them. Before I became disabled I wanted to start a program for kids here that would have involved creating a garden and then teaching them healthy, flavorful ways to cook the food they grew.

I wanted to use the empty lot where my great-grandfather’s blacksmith’s shop used to be because it is within walking distance of all four of my small town’s schools. It has good morning and afternoon light and the only tree is a huge, old valley oak tree that was there when the shop was there. It would have provided a little shade in the after school hours for all the weeding, hoeing, mulching, vine training and other garden tasks before the evening drip line irrigation. (We would have had to irrigate that way to keep from killing the old oak tree.)

It would have given the kids something to do in the summer when school is out, too, since gardens are most productive then. I could even have offered classes in more involved things like making jelly or canning tomatoes and peaches for the older kids. After all, the high school home ec room is just six mini home-style kitchens sitting there empty all summer.

Ultimately, I was hoping to teach them that there is a unique sort of pride and honor associated with feeding people good, healthy food– from growing it, to harvesting it, to packing it, to cooking and serving it. Up here in farm country many of the kids’ parents work in farming, packing and processing. It would do those kids a lot of good to know that someone out there appreciates the hard work their parents do for very little money in most cases.

But, alas, my body didn’t cooperate, as usual with me. Disability (or the pain associated with it) is a real dream killer.