Have you?

Have You?

Have you ever had one of those perfect days? Mine certainly didn’t start out that way, in fact, quite the opposite. I’m struggling to get my life in order, well my cookbook life to be specific. Yesterday was kinda like the breaking point. Our website for our cookbooks seemed to be stalled and not moving along like I wanted it to. Of course, if I paid the big bucks for it then it should move along but I don’t have big bucks. It sucks living on a pension but it is what it is. A lesson for you young uns, save your money for when you get old.

To be clear, I don’t suffer for anything, I’m just used to having more than an adequate bank account. Being old doesn’t stop me from living an exciting and vibrant life, in fact, I now have oodles of time for excitement and vibrancy. The thing is, my priorities have changed and my excitement now is bringing my own WooHoo (vodka, peach schnapps, and cranberry juice) to golfing once a week and going to bed early is now my choice. The vibrancy part is only in my head, which is okay because my body can only handle so much vibrating, sorry/not sorry lol.

Interestingly enough though, my brain won’t shut off.  It continues to fill my head with wild ideas, things to explore, inventions, and yes even men. I’m still living in the single lane, fortunately, or unfortunately depending on your view, but hell, I’m not dead yet.

This past year I have teamed up with a couple of girlfriends who are much younger than myself, we clicked at a Catersource conference years ago and became fast friends. Being in the food business in my second life I made many foodie friends. We three decided to team up for an experimental cookbook that I feel is way overdue in today’s world.

Being a caterer in my second life, I would sooner cook for 100 people than cook for myself. Being retired has brought that home to me in spades. Cooking for myself doesn’t excite me.. but I like to eat, and therein lies the problem. I also like to eat well and not just frosted flakes for supper in front of my favorite tv show. Well, I do add blueberries and it is a big bowl. I also switch it up once in a while to frosted mini-wheats, so there’s that. Making a full meal feels like a waste of my time and effort. I have priorities and cooking for myself is not one of them.

A full thanksgiving meal with Turkey, mashed potatoes, and stuffing with gravy, is my favorite, omg kill me now! It was then that a lightbulb went off in my head and the ‘Too Lazy to Cook-Book’ was conceived, and without a man, imagine that : ) Meals in minutes or heat and eat, but the reality was that I was just too lazy to cook and I like to say it as I see it. Finding food ready to serve and putting together delicious meals in minutes has given me new life and is feeding not only my body but my soul as well. I worked my whole life and know how hard it is to hold down a full-time job while running a house/business and feeding a hungry family. We had our share of take-outs, and that gets tedious as hell.

So here I am putting together readymade meals in a lazy cookbook, complete with pictures of the food and how to arrange it on a plate. People eat with their eyes first and I love a beautiful plate of food that looks appealing.  We certainly have a plethora of options today including Hello Fresh and Door Dash. Skip the Dishes was conceived in my own hometown of Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, and now here I am with my Too Lazy to Cook-Books.  I think this bodes well for us, don’t you?

Back to my day starting out shitty. The first cookbook was already in the bag and a test of my and my girlfriend, Chef Nettie’s talents. We then went on to our second cookbook and decided, with another dear friend, Retro-rad Chef Emily Ellyn from Florida, coming on board with us.. to do a Tribute to Ukraine Cookbook. And so it was conceived and born as a labour of love and we decided we wanted to give all the money raised, by donation only, to the people of Ukraine. This cookbook is special, particularly for me, I am Ukrainian and my baba was born in Ukraine. It’s crucial for our website to be able to take donations for the charity we hand-picked to get the most money we can for the people of Ukraine. No small feat.  This cookbook has taken all of my energy and time and has stretched my patience to the limit.

Long story short… I sent yet another email to my website guy and to The Ukrainian Patriot charity to fine-tune the site to my expectations. I was actually despairing about it ever coming together in time for me to come back home. I’m in the States where I have had this cookbook along with our first one, published. I’ve been working way more than I ever envisioned, to get all the moving parts organized. Our website is key and it is my last bug to get fixed so we can get our Ukrainian cookbook out to the masses. We have physical copies and digital ones as well. Make no mistake though, I didn’t do it all by myself. I have great people helping me (thank you Stephanie and Ryan) pulling it all together though, made me want to tear my hair out, I’m not gonna lie.

Putting out a desperate last-minute email early morning to my web guy and the charity, I was at my lowest point and wondering if this was ever going to happen. TWO hours later and my web guy shot me an email saying done! and charity same thing! I was attending a ladies’ luncheon at noon and had my golfing party windup to go to later.  Omg, ‘everything came together, all at once’ and I even had a date with an amazing man that same day.

Have you ever had a day that came together so perfectly that you were happy to just be alive and the joy that comes with that? I wish for all of you to have those days and please… savour them when you do…

copyright March 16th, 2023

An interesting note here: I sandwiched in a movie that won the best picture oscar a few days earlier with the same name mentioned in my comments, second last paragraph. btw about that movie, save your money.. just saying. (my opinion only)

footnote: it won best actress as well (shows you what I know)