Fuck March.

Hello Sugarfaces! It has been a minute. A lot has gone on.. I moved! Yep. From Hawthorne to Sellwood. We have a lovely duplex now right next to a park. It is different, but I am loving it so far. Then friends came to town. And then stayed. Too long. But as always I played the loving host. My gramama taught me well. As tough as I like people to think that I am.. I am not. I care even when it breaks me. It often does. I am preparing to leave my home, family, puppies, friends and everything else that I call normal for five months. Working in Alaska is an opportunity of a life time. Many of my close friends and family are outwardly jealous. But this is my life. I am who I am. I could never stop. I want to see so much. And really compaired to a lot of travelers I have met in my travels, I have not been anywhere.  I have learned over time that life is short and god damn it I plan to make the best of it.

I have twelve days. I woke up Sunday morning and had a sudden realization that, holy shit. I am leaving for five fucking months. The last two months of waiting seems until that morning to take forever to get here. Now I keep thinking, whoa this needs to slow down. I know that I am ready but I am starting to second guess myself. I was made for this though. I had more knowledge than have the “good” chefs I know when I was four than they have now. And I have been studying the arts of being the boss for five years now. I think I know exactly how I want it to work out. Hears to it working at least sorta like I want. Haha.

In the last month I have been doing some real soul searching. Not catering that wedding after so long of planning for it, really shook my self esteem and confidance. It made me look inside of myself and kinda spring clean my soul. In doing this I have decided who I am. Who I want to be. And how I am going to get there. I also had to look at the people that I surrounded myself with. Because even though we may not think about it, they alter us. I made some hard choices and drew some lines. I was maybe not very good at communication these things.. but it’s a work in progress and I am still working on how to express feeling toward people without hurting them. I have decided that sometimes you have to let go of people. Even ones you love, if the relationship you have with them is toxic. There are more than one of these types of people in my life. I am choosing to deal with them one at a time. The first one exited my life several months ago. Since then these things have been on my mind. Unfortunatly that one ended bitter and I would like to learn from it and not let my hurt, hurt them. The second one is a work in progress. Life has changed a lot this year for her and I. And we just are in really different places. And her thoughtlessness/ stupidity just cant be near me anymore. I have to let go so that I don’t hate her.

The others.. are deeper. How do you dissotiate yourself from family? And people you love, but just make you into a person you do not want to be. I am not ready to go here with you all yet. Soon I hope.

I want to be wealthy. That may seem shallow, but I want to not have to try so hard to have great things. I want to be successful and be able to support myself and take care of family in emergencies. And I have big plans on getting there. Now to overcome my daily fears of you know living haha..

Oh man. I am not even close to being ready to go. I have a lot of what I need, but I really should make a list.  

Okay. Well thanks for listening. I will try to be less babbly and all over the place and actually fix this page up here soon. I would like to share recipes and stories a bit clearer. I will get there.. when I get out of panic mode. Soon..

Love you lots,

Sarah 

This. and That.

Hello again!
So its been a busy few days since I wrote last.
First off, I was dealing with a wee bought of depression from all the negative things that I left effect my head. I knew when the terrible events were having that I needed to not go into that dark place. However, I dipped my toes against my own best advice. I spent about a week with the blinds drawn, phone off, and emo music blaring. Then I got up and cleaned my kitchen and started to make my plans for the next bit of life.
I was really hurting. I was basically fired from catering my first wedding because the Bride and Groom over spent and I was the easiest thing to cut. However, they were hurtful and make me look bad. Since they were my godmothers daughter and son-in-law, that caused grief that is still playing out too. And their blatant lies were quickly caught, causes me to cry a little more. I learned a lesson though. Never cater weddings. Brides and Grooms suck to deal with.
While this was happening, Parker, my partner for 10 years, was hospitalized in California where he is working for pneumonia. I was unable to do much about it though, because I had just returned from seeing him and we just cant afford it.
On top of all this, I was suppose to be looking for a place to move. Because, we were informed when paying our rent last month, that our month-to-month rental is being given to the owner of the properties son. SO we have until April 30th to get out. This means, we have to find a place and move before Park is home and we are due out the same day I leave for Alaska. Packing for 5 months in Alaska is hard enough work. To pack an entire house and move it on my own? UGH!! Parker's solution is he will just pay someone to help me, but that someone can not do it without my instruction, so the stress is still on me. If he were here he could help me tell helpers the where/what/and how of all our belonging. But he is not, so he needs to have a little bit of respect for the stress that I am going through.
Today was a really good day though. I went out looking at places with my dad. We found one in a family type neighborhood in Sellwood. Its a duplex with the same amount of space and rooms we have now. But its better than where we are now, because it has a backyard and a frontyard for the puppies, its a block from Sellwood park, and it has a washing machine and dryer in it!!! We will hear back in a few days about it, but I am praying we get it. It would be perfect.
I am getting so excited for Alaska, but the fear of leaving and going somewhere new is scary too!
Well, I have run out of words.. When I have more pacients and time I am going to make some tabs and make this thing pretty.. I will get there..


My love,
            Sarah

Falling into Spring

Beannachti na Feile Padraig!! Or Happy St. Patty's Day if you don't know Gaelic..Which I will guess, most of you don't. It being a dead language and all haha.

So much is going on.

I graduated Oregon Culinary School this month. Got myself a degree. Pretty impressed with myself. To celebrate I went to Sacramento and Ashland. It was fantastic. Visited Rouge Valley Creamery. Dude. I could eat blue cheese samples all day long. It is a bit pricey.. 43.75/lb for this seasons award winners.. but. TOTALLY worth every penny. I ate it on crackers, in salads and even made smoked blue cheese California BLT's.(recipe at bottom).

The entire trip was amazing. Until about two days before I left. When I called to get my landlords address and he informs me that, the owner of my house is not resigning my lease and I have tell April 30th to get out.

WHAT THE FUCK.

I do not deal with change well. And after living in this place for almost three years, my felt like I had been thrown in a blender. Oh and the fact that I am leaving Portland for 4 1/2 months on the SAME day as we are kicked out. UGH.

So I come home stressed out, but I have a job to do so I try to meditate and yoga it up alot to keep my head cool. When I first returned home from working in Montana last summer, my godmothers daughter emailed me. She was engaged and wanted me to cater her wedding. I spent months menu planning and costing everything out. Not a easy task when the bride and groom are wishy washy on how many people you are serving, where you are serving, what they want to serve, and how they want it served. But I finally had gotten a menu they were happy with. I had them over to my house to taste test and gave them a quote. They felt it was too high. SO with the couple (them being family friends since before i was born) I went through my costs and cut menu items and costs as much as possible. Before I left for California I sat down with them and said this is as far as I can cut, if you want to have your families do this instead, I understand. The costs of a wedding are high. They both said no we will work it out, go ahead.

So, taking "family" at its word, the moment I landed back in Portland I began wedding mode. I tried to contact them the whole week before the wedding to get some money.. can not buy food without money haha..

finally.. 6 days before the wedding.. the groom calls me. tells me I am jerking them around and not doing my job correctly. I listen to him tell me how much I suck for about 3 minutes. Before cutting him off and telling him that I told them that I would do this job for the price I told them. They both told me to go ahead. He says, but you know we were uncomfortable.. Yes But you told me to go ahead. I told him he can either pay me to do the job, or go to costco and go the veggie tray route. He said well that what we are going to have to do. I said Okay, well I would like to be paid for the 20 hours of time I spent on this, he said he would talk to the bride. And we said goodbye.

From there things got worse.

My mother had been helping me cook beef brisket sliders.. She had already purchased the beef. She had been sitting with me as I dealt with the couple so she saw how unfairly they had been to me. So when my godmother called and said how sorry she was that it didnt work out.. my mom was a bit pist.

My godmother told her that the bride had told her that I quit and hung up on them. Lies.

After this happened..

I got a bit depressed.

I closed my blinds, turned on some emo music and didnt answer my phone. This job was suppost to be the beginning of my career. I felt as if I had done something wrong. But the only thing that I did wrong was not get a contract signed before I got my check.

On Wednesday, I got up and went to my folks for a few hours. While there, my week got worse.

I had not heard from Parker in two days. I finally got a call saying that he was in the hospital in CA with pneumonia. he had finally worked himself to death. And

as im talking to him and his mother.. my mom gets a phone call.

the car i have been bothering since mine died last month, my sister had just crashed.

LOVELY.

It took me the rest of the weekend to pull out of my greyness.

By St. Patty's Day I was feeling bad to normal. However, a migraine at 6pm put me to bed instead of out and abooot. But I did do a bit of cooking this week. I did cornbeef 3 times. Okay.. once I got a bit stoned and fell asleep and let the water boil out and burned the shit out of it. But, whatever. I made a horrible looking, amazing tasting rum cake (i dont have a bundt cake pan..) and I am thinking a lasagna tonight is in my future.

 I hope life it less bumpy for you, than it has been to me until next time..

<3 Sarah

My mantra for this week is: De reir a cheile a thogtar na caisleain. It takes time to build castles.

Recipes:

Smoked Blue California BLT

Loaf of your favorite toasting bread

1 avacado

1 tomato

1 lb thick deli bacon

4 oz Rouge Valley Creamery Smoked Blue Cheese

lettuce of your choice (we used a variety of garden grown "scary lettuces")

Special mayo!

  

special mayo:

1/2 cup mayo

2 TB dijon mustard

1 TB worcestershire sauce

S & P to taste

Build as you would any BLT! <3 So good!

Rum cake!!

I took this recipe from allrecipe.com.. I changed it slightly by adding a second glaze and adding another 1/2 cup of nuts. Make this as it says.. then after it is all cooled, mix 2 cups powdered sugar, 3 TB milk, 2 TB cinnamon 1/4 ts nutmeg and 2 TB vanilla.. add more milk or sugar to change consistency, which should like syrup. Pour over cake and let stand one hour to stiffen. The key to this cake is the longer is sits the better it gets. Store in the fridge.

Ingredients

1 cup chopped walnuts

1 (18.25 ounce) package yellow cake mix

1/2 cup dark rum

4 eggs

1/2 cup water

1/2 cup vegetable oil

1 (3.5 ounce) package instant vanilla pudding mix

1/4 cup butter

1/2 cup white sugar

1/8 cup water

1/4 cup dark rum

Directions

Preheat oven to 325 degrees F (165 degrees C). Grease and flour one 10 inch tube or Bundt pan. Sprinkle walnuts over the bottom of the pan.

Mix together the yellow cake mix, 1/2 cup dark rum, eggs, 1/2 cup cold water, cooking oil and instant vanilla pudding. Pour batter over nuts.

Bake at 325 degrees F (165 degrees C) for 1 hour. Cool, invert on a serving plate and prick the top.

To Make Glaze: Melt the butter in a saucepan. Stir in 1/8 cup water and sugar. Boil for 5 minutes, stirring constantly. Remove mixture from heat and stir in rum. Drizzle and smooth glaze evenly over the top and sides of cake. Enjoy!

Oh Bobarah

Hello!
 Well since this is the beginning, a bit about me and why we are all here.. I was born and raised in Portland, Oregon. I try to run away often, but always find myself back here. People that I meet, they tell me I am very typical "Portland". What the hell does that mean? Some say its the way I dress and the liberal views I have. I don't know what they mean, but its irratating.

Yeah. I'm not your average lady I guess. I am 27 and a Leo. I come from a loving family. I took a detour before finishing high school. Did the party thing to death. I got into Politics. Then I got into growing medical marijuana. Now Im a chef. I aspire to be a restaurant owner. My dreams are within reach.

Man, that sounds sugar coated.

I grew up with some amazing adults raising me. My grandparents loved me and taught me all that they knew. My parents worked hard to give me the best, but we struggled until my late teens. I was a good kid. I was a very bad young adult. I stole, lied, had sex, drank and did drugs, any drug you would give me for that matter. I was in rehab three times before I was 17. I spent most of my teenage years locked up in one sense or the other. Those are stories for another day...

It took me nine years to regain my senses.

So, what is a hippie chick from Portland, Oregon with a questionable history to do with herself? Yep. Get into food. Food gives me the ability to release my artistic talents and share my love and leadership with others.

Portland is a foodie heaven. I grew up learning everything I know from visiting farmers markets and specialty markets with my parents and grandparents. It is a passion that is transforming itself into a promising career.

Im going to use this space to blog about food and my life.

It might get interesting. It probably will be informative. Im not your average bear, that is for sure, so it will be something.

Until next time,

Sarah <3