Figure out your thing to celebrate, and “DING” loudly, even if nobody else hears.

In Hillsborough where I live, there was a well-loved restaurant, Lu-E-g’s, which was a community gathering place, a center for art and music and good food.

"Order Here ” is one of the beautifully hand-lettered signs that were all over the building. This one hung over the cash register: “Order Here”. It’s where you stood to order your turkey melt or bowl of soup or ice cream. We’ve all seen this invitation/direction hundreds of times, we look for it so we know what to do to get what we came for! 

One of the worst mortal sins chefs commit is the often-shitty way we feed our bodies. It’s feast or famine, really. One minute you’re enjoying a meal so good nobody would believe it (looking at you, Johnny Depp, in Once Upon A Time In Mexico with your puerco pibil : ) But the next, we’re eating tuna out of a can like a damn street cat, or licking the sauce out of yogurt containers while we’re washing 1,000 dishes because the dishwasher didn’t show and there’s no telling when the night will be over. Rarely do we make time to sit and consider food for ourselves, the way we expect and hope the people we feed will.

How did over a quarter of a million people prepare for what was next? Were they better prepared because they were forced to wait for freedom? As soon as they could, most people went as fast as they could to find their brothers and sisters, their children and lovers and parents. First, to connect with the relative safety of family, and then to the work ahead.

But we have that strength and energy and will among us, good people. We have them among us. Connect, lift each other up, be lifted when you need it, keep your eyes and your hearts open, even when it hurts.

It's been almost fifteen years since our family closed the door on a grand and expensive experiment in owning a restaurant (and in the closing threw some awesome people out of work at a really bad time). This time of year reminds me of that experience, and I take note of the water under that particular bridge. 

Someday I'll think it's funny that a food safety geek like me has been knocked out of service on the weekend of New Year's Eve by what appears, to all observation, to be norovirus. My bruised ribs won't let me laugh just yet. 

What I do get to do, though, is spend hours upon hours in my favorite room, in my cozy couch fort, something that never happens IRL. Too busy, too tired, too crowded. But now, in a silent house, there is time to look at the pictures, pick up the books, snuggle in.

Last weekend my local running club hosted the second Hillsborough Half Marathon and 5K.  I love running, but more than that, I love runners, in all their variety. As a volunteer, my favorite thing is the Very Important Job of course marshal, which involves standing at weird bends on a course so runners don't get lost or bang into each other, especially by mile 10 when they start to get punchy.  It also offers an opportunity to experience a tiny piece of every single runner's race.

Quintessential summertime fruit, peaches are zipper-fruits! Sweet or savory, centerpiece or topping, cocktail or frappe, fresh peaches are an endless delight and inspiration.

Food safety and sanitation (have I lost you yet?) is, in my opinion, the most important thing restaurants, caterers and food trucks do behind the scenes. Foodborne illness really is a thing. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates that 48 million instances of foodborne illnesses occur annually in the U.S., resulting in 128,000 hospitalizations and 3,000 deaths. But as often as we eat out, we pretty rarely get sick. That’s because we have a strong system of inspections, training and education for foodservice professionals.

As an adopted daughter of Hillsborough, smack-dab in the middle of North Carolina, I cannot be relied upon to be unbiased about writing or food. Everything I tell you will be glittered by the fact that I can walk a mile from my house and greet neighbors who contributed to this collection. And that I could carry home with me for dinner any number of fresh meats, some of the finest cheeses in the world from cows and goats I could pet if I wanted to, collard greens, berries and medicinal herbs, handmade chocolates of astounding artistry. On my morning run I pass beer brewing, bread baking and barbecue smoking.

The thing to do is imagine your Big Important Things as rocks or stones, in a jar big enough to hold them. Now imagine that jar even half filled with sand, and you can see how the rocks would never fit in if you don’t put them in first. It’s not hard to see that when you allow all the little tiny things to call your attention or use your energy, they can fill up your hour or your day, and eventually fill up your life.

“We don't go on because we're ready; we go on because it's 11:30.” 

Remember: disaster is not failure, nor is failure necessarily disaster. When the crew around you is looking to you for leadership, hold your head up, keep your game face on, and breathe deeply.

The show does go on.

There are so many quotes because it’s our human nature to take the downward path, once we’ve started down it. Where are all the songs about the high road? Nope. It’s all about falling off the narrow and virtuous path because it’s what we do.

But we don’t have to stay in the ditch, acting as if it was our original destination.

How do you snap back your brain, grab a lifeline, re-focus your energy and attention?

In my years of working as a chef in eating disorder treatment, I witnessed what dietitians do in a most direct and inspiring way. They challenged me and many others to use all our culinary skills, as well as gardening, field trips, food education, and many other creative endeavors. Just as eating disorders aren’t caused by food, dietitians are not just about the food, especially in this complicated clinical setting. The best of them have a deep understanding of the incredibly complex ways that food, nutrition, medicine and psychology intertwine (and can sometimes tangle) in our lives.

1. This is awesome.

2. This is tricky.

3. This is shit.

4. I am shit.

5. This might be ok.

6. This is awesome.

The other morning I met some new and old friends for coffee, where we lamented the polarizing situations people find themselves in these days. The news (and maybe your facebook feed?) has the tone of a bad reality show: a whole lot of yelling, and not much forward progress. The consensus of the coffee conference was that common ground is desperately needed.

“The biggest communication problem is we listen to reply, instead of listening to understand.” 

There are upheavals all around us, and it might seem sometimes trouble is everywhere. And there ARE things wrong in the world, BAD wrong. But sometimes we look through the lens of negative expectations, and then that’s all we can see.

Many years ago in a hotel where I worked, I learned some important lessons from a wise man named Jock Gearhart. He was my boss’s boss, a hotel management executive and I’ve had many occasions to be grateful for him. He believed in the concept of “proprietary interest”. It’s more often used as a legal term, but he used it to mean that he wanted every person at each of his hotels, from housekeeper to GM, from bartender to CFO, to act like they owned the place when it came to providing gracious service, keeping things nice, and taking care of business in general. The idea is that if you feel like it is your own business, you will provide the best hospitality you can, and make smart business decisions.