So far 2008 is proving to be a year of big changes. Some of it is exciting, a place that we’ve been expecting to run into though not quite so soon and not quite so head on. In the first 4 weeks that Mark has been without a job, I’ve felt panic, relief that he’s been home to watch the kids so I can work without all that childcare stress, indifference, nauseated with worry, but ultimately, a sign that this was the time to get our shit in gear and start our own thing.

Many people think that being a chef is a glamorous job. We get the same surprised reaction, followed by “you’re so lucky” and “how cool”, every single time we’re asked what he does for a living. Most people don’t think about what a hard industry it is to be in when you have a family – the weird hours, (he was out the door by 4:45 am every morning) and the lonely weekends and holidays (he hasn’t spent a Thanksgiving or Christmas with us in the last 5 years). The pay isn’t enough to support a family and unless you’re a superstar celebrity chef, there’s a bit of a glass ceiling on where you can go. We’ve reached that point and for a brief moment he’s thought about a career change, a complete shift like real estate (it’s in the family), or going back to school to be some sort of computer geek. But in the end, we thought that this was the time to start our own thing, the business that we’ve been talking about forever. We’re not sure where it’s going to go, or how exactly we’re going to do it, but when we look into the faces of our kids, we know that in our hearts we’ll have to try.