It's My Anniversary...But I'm Not Drinkin' Champagne...But I Wish I Was!

It has been a full year that I have been writing my blog. I tried to think of some really creative post about my year in retrospect, but I've been there and done that in previous posts. So I am re-posting the original post that started it all. It's actually my favorite post that I have written. Thank you to everyone that has read and continues to read my blog. The next year has alot in store, with a new baby on the way, catering business really picking up, and the seeds that we sowed this past year coming to harvest in the upcoming months. Life is good and getting better. http://mouthfulloffood8.blogspot.com/2009/09/i-got-full-on-this.html

The I Do's and Don'ts

For us at Eight, the fall is the beginning of our wedding season. The weddings that we are catering this season absolutely run the spectrum of style and size. From a traditional big Italian fete to a modern art gallery cocktail party. With my own anniversary this past week, it got me thinking about the things that brides and grooms do right and wrong in the planning of their big day. This will be a short list, but here are my top 3 things that you shouldn't and should do to ensure a memorable and fabulous day.

1. Leave the peanut gallery at home: The average wedding cost between 10K to 30K. That's the cost of a car! It's a big and personal financial commitment. Would you bring your whole family and all your friends to help you buy a house? Then why would you bring them to a cake tasting, dress fitting or food tasting and let them make the decisions? The day is about you and your partner, not about what your best friend, mom, little brother wished they could have at their wedding. PLEEEEEASE couples allow yourselves to make a deep personal decision that is just for you. Not your guest or your family. (Even if they are paying. Because a monetary gift is just that a GIFT! You don't tell people what to do with a gift.)

2. Plan ahead: If you are having a shot gun wedding, more power to you. No really. For those that are not having one, please don't act like you are. Plan, plan, plan. So much goes into planning the big day. Get help and get help early. Find a friend that is in the industry and ask them for advice. They will be able to steer you in a proper, money and time saving direction to help plan out the big day. Friends in the industry will turn you on to insider tips on how to get the most bang for your buck.

3. The entire West Coast doesn't need to be invited: This is the one piece of advice I give out to everybody I know who is getting married. Nobody ever listens and after they get married they always say, "Wow you were right." No shit! Having a rave for a wedding will exhaust you. Unless you are a raver. We had 50 people at our wedding and it felt like a night of 50 unfinished conversations. The guest that you invite took the time to buy you an expensive gift, travel across the country to be there and sit through your ceremony. They deserve more than 30 seconds of, "Thank you for coming." Our rule was if we hadn't had dinner with you in a year, then you weren't invited. Harsh rule, but it kept the numbers low and the cost down. It made it intimate. My sister got married a year ago and she had 500 people at her wedding reception. It was a par-tay, but that many people in a dark warehouse with booming music scared the shit out of my son and after being there for 20 minutes I had to leave. Missing everything about my sister's wedding reception. Very disappointing and not very intimate. Something that she regretted later.

So take the time to figure out what you want and how to get it. Let the conversation be between just the two of you and remember you(hopefully)only get married once. Though you may renew your vows, the next time around some loved ones might not be there to enjoy it, so just do it right the first time.

Ready for a Change of Seasons

So today was a cool 84 degrees in Sacramento, but throughout the day we had a beautifully cool breeze that made it feel like the beginning of Fall. It got me aching for Fall so badly. Fall has always been a time of restart for me. In younger years, I would usually move around this time, start a new job, begin school. Fall has a smell that is so unique and I caught a glimpse of that today. Wood burning pizza ovens, sweet pipe tobacco, pencil shavings and cool air. Going to Apple Hill with Danielle and Clint Hostetler, new leather boots and of course, the Renaissance Fair....YEAH I USED TO GO...I AIN'T EMBARRASSED...AND I USED TO DRESS UP TOO!

As of late food has been a cold, evil mistress for me, so for this post I will be referring to my favorite Fall drink. Chili Pepper Hot Chocolate. Ah Jesus, Mary, Joseph how I love a good cup of spicy hot chocolate. The only way that I drink it is with a dried red chili cooked into the milk. The heat hits you on the back of the throat in such a lovely subtle way. So when the weather gets a little more chilly in a month or so, I highly suggest making a cup and snuggling up on the couch with a good Law and Order marathon. You know I will be.

Spicy Hot Chocolate
2 cups milk
3 0z dark chocolate or 2 tbsp dark cocoa powder
1-2 dried red chili pepper

In a small saucepan heat milk, but do not bring milk to a boil. Slowly stir milk. Crack the dried red chili pepper into milk and continue to warm milk. If using cocoa powder, add to milk and slowly whisk to incorporate ingredients. If using chocolate bars, pre-melt chocolate. Short cut, melt chocolate in the microwave starting at 30 seconds. Remove and stir chocolate, if not fully melted, place in microwave and at 10second intervals continue to heat and stir until melted. Pour melted chocolate into your desired mug and then slowly incorporate the milk, stirring until all ingredients are fully incorporated.

It Ain't Your Snoopy SnoCones...

This week we are catering the California Fish and Game graduation dinner in Chico. When we were trying to come up with an idea for dessert, we wanted to do something cool and refreshing because cake wasn't going to work. Have you ever been to Chico in the summer? It's hotter than a black cow in a field with no trees. Fish grease is cooler. So we decided on sno-cones! Hells yea! (The sound of me patting myself on the back).
So I decided, after being invited by my friend Nanc to go blackberry picking along Lake Natoma, to do a blackberry vanilla syrup as one of the options. I've got about four more syrup combinations to create and my hope is to try some really crazy flavors that people will be like, "What the...?" But when the eat them they'll be like, "Can you put a nipple on that syrup bottle for me and I'll finish drinking the rest!" So I will update you on how that goes, but for now here is the recipe for the blackberry vanilla sno-cone syrup.

Blackberry Vanilla Sno-Cone Syrup

1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1 cup water
2 cups granulated sugar
4 cups blackberries

Take blackberries and place them in a blender with tablespoon of vanilla. Blend the mixture until berries liquefy. Over a bowl, strain the blackberry mixture so that all you have in the bowl is the juice of the berries. Discard the pulp, then set the juice aside. Add 1 cup of water and 2 cups of sugar to a pot and bring the mixture to a boil. Make sure you stir as it comes to a boil, and then boil for a minute. Remove the pan from the stove and allow the water and sugar mixture to cool. Stir in the fruit juice. Pour the blackberry vanilla syrup over your snow cone. If you have any left over, store in the plastic containers with a lid and put it in the refrigerator. It will keep for about a week.

To My Cheerleader

Recently a very good friend of mine, Nanc, asked if I had read the July 2nd post on Orangette. She recommended that I take a read of the post and tell her what I thought. I popped over to the blog and took a read and instantly felt like I was reading pages out of my own diary. Lately I have had a major drain of my mojo and inspiration. Must be contagious because my sister spoke of the same ailment taking her over a couple of weeks ago on her own blog.

This whole journey of trying to open a restaurant and secure funds and having very little support emotionally from those that we really want it from has taken such a major drain on my spirit. The commercial development game is a lot like playing "Sorry" and getting your ass bumped back to the beginning over and over again. To the point that in a highly hormonal moment last week I just cried and said, "I don't want to do this anymore. Fuck this!" After my raging pregnancy hormones quelled, I was quite embarrassed that I had even uttered such nonsense. Even still my mojo tank was on empty and ideas on how to reinvent this process to obtain our dream had me at a loss.
In this life I truly believe that there are people placed into your life that will always feed you what you need, even if you may not realize it at that time. That food might be love, discipline, hard reality or inspiration. And after an hour long phone conversation with Nanc the other day I realized that she is my spiritual personal chef. When I walk through door beat up and ready to quit, she always offers up a hot plate of inspiration and positive energy for me to dig my fork into. She's got a great compass that points me into the right direction to pull ideas and get me off my ass. Not saying that I'm lazy, but making your dreams come to fruition is the hardest thing that you can do in this life, because sometime poeple don't understand nor support your passions.

That said, after reading the Orangette post I realized that I don't have to be a slave to always posting recipes, that sometime a great idea can get too big and that downsizing that great idea is not the loss of the original inspiration. And though officially 11 weeks knocked up, I can handle everything that is put in front of me.

So where do we go from here? Well in the next week I will be posting a link to our "Kickstarter" page. Kickstater is a website that allows entrepreneurs to post their ideas for funding. These projects range from art, films, book publishing and even help with starting a bistro. You can pledge a $1 or $1000. So since the banks won't help and the investors want my kidney and our new baby as part of the deal, we are going grassroots and doing it ourselves.

In closing, I wanted to thank every client that has helped our catering business grow, every friend and family member that said we unquestionably believe in you and know that you will reach your goal and a special thank you to Nanc Brennen, you are my soul sister and an invaluable friend in my life. I just hope that I give you back everything that you give to me.

Dinner for One

Today is Memorial Day and it has been pretty sucky so far. My husband went boating all day and then off to a BBQ, while I stayed home with the boy and cleaned the house with a pending case of bronchitis. Seriously, I feel like Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio from "The Abyss" when she purposely drowned herself and Ed Harris brought her back to life. Lungs full of liquid, burning chest. If that fine ass Ed Harris was here it might make me feel a little better. Lord a Mercy that man was fine! But to digress, with the boys out of the house at the BBQ, I got to do something that I have not done in a long time. I made dinner for myself.

It was fabulous. I made whole wheat rotini with lemon cream sauce, roasted chicken, pancetta and asparagus. Had a big ol' glass of wine (which I'm sure doesn't help the bronchitis) and was able to eat my entire dinner SLOWLY. No getting up five hundred times to get a refill of orange juice, a napkin, a nothin'. It was vanglorious! So I am going to let you enjoy my dinner as well, try it at home and I ask that you sit down by yourself and enjoy dinner for one.

Rotini with Roasted Chicken, Pancetta and Lemon Cream Sauce

• 1 cup heavy whipping cream
• 1 cup grated Parmesan
• 1 tbsp chopped shallots
• 1 tbsp chopped garlic
• 1 tsp lemon zest
• 1 tbsp unsalted butter
• salt and pepper to taste
• 1 chicken breast
• 5 slices pancetta
• 1 tbsp thyme
• 1/4 cup sliced yellow onion
• 1 cup chicken stock
• olive oil
• 2 cups whole wheat rotini

Preheat oven on broil setting. Lay slices of pancetta on a prepared sheet pan. Place pancetta in the oven and cook until crispy. Once crispy, lay pancetta slices on a paper towel and allow them to cool. Once cooled, crumble slices into small pieces and set aside.

Take chicken breast and salt and pepper both sides of the chicken breast. On either a hot pan or cast iron griddle add a little olive oil and sear both sides of the chicken breast. If in a pan add yellow onion, thyme and chicken stock. If on a griddle transfer chicken to a pan and add the previous ingredients. Place a lid on the pan and reduce heat. Roast until chicken is cooked through and then let chicken rest for 5 min before pulling chicken apart. Set shredded chicken aside for later.

Begin boiling water for rotini. Once water comes to a boil add rotini. In a medium sized sauce pan, add olive oil and bring to medium heat. Add shallots and cook until shallots become soft. Add garlic, salt and pepper. Once garlic becomes fragrant add heavy cream and reduce heat to medium/low heat. Slowly incorporate Parmesan and stir until Parmesan is melted into cream. Add butter and zest to sauce. Take a ladle full of pasta water from rotini and add to sauce. This will thicken the sauce.

Drain pasta once al dente and add to sauce along with chicken and asparagus. Cook until the ingredients are coated with sauce. Place in a serving bowl and top with pancetta and more shredded Parmesan.

The Universe Trust Fall

So I again I will start this blog with the usual apologies for staying away so long. Sorry! It has been a very demanding month. To say that recent events don't have me scared out of my mind would be a bold lie. My friends tell me that when you take risk you should be scared. But being scared is very uncomfortable for me and talking about it, puts me in a place of vulnerability that I have never been comfortable being in.
In 10 days we close escrow on a building that will be the home of our first restaurant. It's an amazing two story building that will house "Eight American Bistro" on the bottom floor and live/work lofts on the second. The later phase will be a penthouse on the third floor. The whole project will be a "green" project. Over 40% of the build will be with recycled products and the other 60% sustainable products. Everybody that is working on the project is soooo excited. It stands to be a catalyst for "green" urban infill in Sacramento. There is just one little problem. Though we have heavy investor interest to back the project once we own the building we still have not been able to rally all the funding towards the down payment to buy the building.
We had investors that were interested before we went into escrow to fund the entire project and entered into escrow based on initial meetings, but disagreements on the details of the deal led to a parting of ways.
So now here we are with the building of our dreams, and more than 165K short of making those dreams come to fruition. I'm trying to find a more poetic way of saying, "This fuckin' sucks!" But lack of sleep is depriving me of such eloquence at this time. The thing that scares me the most really is not that we may lose this building, it's everyone that is so excited about working on this project. From project contractors and consultants to future chefs and serving staff. This whole thing is bigger than Ian and I having the restaurant that we always wanted, it's the community that we have the opportunity to build. The new jobs that will be created, the shift in the way we construct buildings, how we responsibly tackle urban infill and how we take control of the food we eat and make, to ensure we live healthier longer lives....I'm scared to lose all that. It's bigger than just a fabulous location, though it is an amazing location, it's a year and a half of wanting something better for my community and fearing that it could all be gone because of 165 thousand stupid dollars. It keeps me up at night, it makes me cry in the shower so that no one can see, it has me praying to a God that I haven't had a relationship with in three years. It has me scared.
An advisor told me two months ago that I need to move forward with everything that I am doing to make this dream come true. That there will be times of uncertainty, but I had to trust in the Universe. That sometimes people hesitate to make moves because they feel they might not have all their ducks in a row. He said, "Make moves like you do have all your ducks in a row and the Universe will catch you."
And so far it has.
But I get more scared as we near this deadline and attempts to acquire the rest of the down payment just keep not working out. Maybe this is the part of the journey were I need to turn around, cross my arms over my chest, close my eyes and just fall.