relaxing with coltrane

My life is a journey.

For some reason, I’ve always really liked that analogy.  Maybe because I love traveling, or maybe because I know it’s necessary to give myself the space and freedom I need to grow and learn (and mess up along the way).

As I’m sitting writing this in my kitchen in Oklahoma City, in a place I never expected to be for any amount of time, much less for  almost a year (for me that’s a long time), I’m thinking about my life: my past, my present, and my future.

The way I eat has also been a journey: I’ve lived on the Standard American Diet, I’ve been a vegetarian, a vegan, and I’ve even eating mostly raw for some time.  My choices have been influenced by the people around me, my family, my environment, my jobs, by the things I crave, by my values, and by how food makes me feel.

Currently I’m the Chef de Cuisine at a little place called 105degrees, a raw restaurant that  Matthew Kenney opened with Dara Prentice in September 2009.  I was hired as a line cook, but I became the pastry chef before we even opened the doors.  I absolutely loved working with raw pastry, and I learned so much.  I remember several months before I began working at 105degrees, I’d tried making a raw crust that had completely crumbled.  Now I know why   As people come and go, as they often do in restaurants, I later took on the responsibility of being the Sous Chef, while still remaining in charge of pastry.  Again, it was a great learning experience for me to understand the workings of raw food.

Since I’ve been working at 105, it’s obviously become a lot easier for me to eat raw.  I have access to some of the best raw food in the world.  That being said, I’m not strictly raw, and I’m not even strictly vegan anymore.  It’s been a struggle for me not to label myself; I’d done it for five years, so not calling myself “vegetarian” or “vegan” has been a challenge.  I guess it’s ok that I’m not really anything.  I’m just a person, who sometimes eats healthfully and sometimes doesn’t; who sometimes eats vegan and sometimes doesn’t; who sometimes eats raw, but will do anything for a hot bowl of soup on a winter day.

One thing that I can say about myself is that I am fascinated by food.  I love taking a scientific approach to creating a recipe and then plating it with the visual appreciation of an artist.  I love learning new techniques, and about new ingredients.  I love learning about nutrition and how my body reacts to foods, and how others’ do, as well.

I’ve been sitting here for nearly an hour now, thinking about what it is that I’m really trying to say (because this is important), and I think it all goes back to one word my friend and coworker has said to me several times since I’ve known her: Grace.  It’s a word I’ve heard my whole life, and it’s meant different things to me at different times.  But right now, when I consider how I can be more full of grace in my life, it makes me think of accepting who I am.  I think of not trying to be anything, but just being.  And at the same time, being understanding of myself, and understanding of others around me.

And grace is the one thing I ask of you as you follow me on this journey.