Chef at last! No more Culinary School Chronicle

Kyndal, my 6 year old granddaughter jumped in at the last minute.

My children call me Chef Mom and could care less if I have a culinary school diploma, but they were all there at my graduation, including my daughter, Helen, who drove all the way from Houston. I had such a great time with all four of the children and my two granddaughters here at the same time. We don't all get together that often now that they are out on their own. The simplicity of waking up every day to your own children in the house is not to be taken for granted. The time passes very quickly and suddenly they are gone (or should be gone--always the boomerang child, Glenn at home.) Having the culinary diploma may not be a big deal to some but I believe it's an accomplishment to have stuck with it despite working full time, having a part time private psychotherapy practice, deployment training, on-call duties, and a home to run. I will start taking on cooking jobs now and actually have a few paying prospects. For one, I have sold a few pounds of my pecan brittle to some of my husband's friends. This vanilla, butter pecan brittle is really unique and I learned to make it from my 80 something neighbor, Dorothy Short.
I have two people who want sushi classes for 6 or 7. At $50.00 a person I will actually earn some money for being a chef! I think that's pretty exciting and I'm looking forward to it.

Before I do anything else, though, I am going to make a LOT of goodies for the Chef's Holiday Pantry fundraiser coming up in a few days. I'll miss the actual event because I'll be flying out to a deployment for two weeks.

I'm going to make pecan brittle, ginger molasses cookies, pumpkins bread and my famous blondies. I'll give some as gifts and send some over the the fundraiser.