I’ve been neglecting my blogging here on the Nomad Chef site. I’m not exactly sure why. But I’m back here, at least for the moment. With no dinner scheduled in January I’ve had time to really miss cooking! Oh, I’ve cooked, but it has mostly been for me and my boyfriend sous chef. He is happy to have a little break, but I miss the big dinners.

We had such a lovely Christmas Eve dinner here. Three days of cooking to prepare 25 dishes! I do not think that will become a Nomad Chef tradition, but I loved it. There were 12 dishes for dinner and 13 desserts! The 13 desserts are a South of France Christmas tradition, and since I spent 5 years there (where I met the sous chef boyfriend), I thought it would provide great inspiration for Christmas Eve dinner. It was a riot of flavors, and way too much food, but loads of beautiful new people and a few familiar ones too. My favorite dish was the Indo-Italian raviolis (leave me a comment if you are curious about these!). We had fois gras, Thai soup, salmon tartare, smoked oysters, cote de boeuf (28 days aged) and loads more. It is all a big blur. My favorite dessert (of the 13) was something chocolate, but I’ve already forgotten what it was. But of course, the best part of Christmas Eve were the people. I cook for people as a way of giving and receiving love. We were all surrounded by it that night.

The holidays are hard for me since I lost my son.  I need to stay super busy to get through them. The days after Christmas can seem so empty. I think that is true for a lot of us. So, what do we do? More people! I organized a kind of impromptu New Year’s Eve dinner! Beautiful people, both kids and adults. And as always, we ended up dancing! More love!

And while I am on the subject of love, we are having a Valentine’s Dinner here on the 14th of February. But this special dinner of love is only for Singles! They deserve a little special attention from time to time. And our singles dinners are a blast – spicy in every sense of the word!

Valentine’s Day has a special meaning for me because it is the day we launched the Nomad Chef. It will be our 3 year anniversary! Hard to believe it! The secret restaurant I started in honor of my son has given me a new family and a whole new lease on life. If you can’t be with the one you love, then you love the one(s) you’re with. That is what I do every time I open the house to strangers who are yet to become my friends.

2013 is going to be my year of love.  If you have a chance to come to one of our dinners I’ll feed you loads of love. That is all we need. (Soon I’ll be posting a load of dinners… stay tuned!)