Closing the Kitchen on 2011...

As we close the kitchen door on 2011 -- we're going out to eat this evening -- I want to reassure those of you not following my food photography on Facebook that while I didn't share it here, we didn't exactly spend a year in fasting. The image to the left emerged from the oven for dinner last night, our takeon this Blue Kitchen masterpiece. Bacon and blue cheese... a capital note on which to close the kitchen.

I leave you this evening with a collage of images representing a year's worth of comestibles. As I get back into the groove over the next few weeks, the stories behind some of them will appear on these pages. While 2011 was certainly a year filled with change it was also one of discovery and reaffirmation. Happiness to me is sharing good food with good friends.

• A beer and a burger with my "Sick Sigma" buddies from Sunnyvale.
• A sensational summer afternoon sipping sparkling wine...
• Introducing an old friend to a new trend: pork belly buns off of a food truck...
• An amazing "caught this morning" roasted salmon fillet...
• Portuguese cheese sold from an outbuilding on a Petaluma farm...
• The ultimate farmer's market find: saurkraut "juice" as the ultimate cure for radiation-induced dehydration...
• A last minute reunion with some of the people who inspired my early love of food, over dim sum after Thanksgiving...

Here's to a happy, healthy, peaceful and prosperous 2012!

dusting this thing off...

Three hundred sixty four days ago, I proclaimed 2011 "a new year, a new decade, a blank slate with infinite possibility."

Almost a year later I can say with the twenty-twenty clarity of hindsight that I had NO idea how true that statement would become.

Three months later I found myself unemployed. Neither a surprise nor a disappointment, but certainly an inconvenience. And in the end, a great blessing. Because it forced me to look without filters at who I am, what I want, and where I'll find happiness.

Six months later I accepted the offer for what's turning out to be my dream job. I'm neither a food writer nor a restaurateur (those are fantasy jobs, not dream jobs). I get to use both my God-given talents and my post-university education to make the world a better place -- at least for some people working in human resources in the healthcare industry. It's been a huge shift from high tech, and I've let go of some fun techie toys in the process. But what I do today has a real impact on real people, not just margins and stock prices. And I sleep much better knowing that.

Nine months later I came face-to-face, eye-to-eye with my mortality... and kicked it summarily to the curb. I'm not done with this world (nor it with me) yet. I'll spare the gory details except to say that if you're reading this and you're a woman over 40, go get the mammogram.

There's 2011 in less than 400 words. Bring on 2012!