birthday

Today is my birthday. I hate birthdays. Today, I begin the potion of life deemed the ’middle age’. Very exciting. It always seems that other people have more fun on the birthdays than I. Well, at least when there are other people around. I have spent many a birthday drudging and toiling away in the kitchen...much as I will be doing today, but E. did give me a wonderful birthday weekend with my first professional massage and spa treatment, a nice stay in a local resort, and a fabulous sushi dinner. Thank you.

But really, birthdays have always been about looking back at all the time wasted in my life; the decisions that would have been made differently, etc. You know a depressing day. But, always upon looking back, those decisions have led me to be who and where and what I am today...so would you really change them? Maybe some of them...but?

I am going back to the Republic in a few weeks to visit the family. I never really fit in there anymore though. I dont have much in common with me parents, and I always think that they disapprove of me a little, and those choices made in my life. And I know they dont get me as a chef. Not that any of my family gets me...Lubbock is a very conservative and unadventurous place food wise. Only one very bad sushi restaurant...chain restaurants dominate...and although it is located smack dab in the middle of one of the Republics main AVAs, the city is dry which means you have to drive outside the city limits to by beer, wine, and liquor. Its a drag perpetuated by the politicos and those people who own th liquor stores who dont want to lose their monopoly. But anyway...my parents are old and it is hard to get them to try new things.

That being said we do always have good food...the stuff prepared at home. Homemade enchiladas and mole, chicken fried steaks, turkey feasts...but there are also those hams that I dont like and tough pot roasts and...well, you know...the food you grew up on. And, needless to say, not stuff I cook now. My parents have never been much into coming to any of the restaurants I have worked at. And this is where I ge the disapproving opinion from them...maybe they do or maybe they dont, but I think that all chefs want to cook for their families and know that there families approve. But the flipside of that is you dont want to cook for them and have them not like it, it can be the harshest criticism you can get. That is why I have never been fond of cooking for them and eating the food that I have made ...after pouring my heart into the food...and not ever being happy personally with the the product, how can I sit there and listen to them, and even take one negative comment...even if it is in a lovingly joking manner. The fact that I cook crunchy green beans because I think that green beans should be crunchy...and my mother cooks them to death...well you get the picutre.

But I am looking forward to time with my daughter and eating out with her...we always have a good time...even if she wants to go to the same restaurant three days in a row for lunch...what do you do...you take her.

So another year older...and now to work.