New Beginnings or a Fresh Box of Baking Powder

How does one become a recovering pastry chef?  Better yet, how do you become a pastry chef that needs to be recovered? 

My tale is pretty similar to others you may have heard.  I've been a pastry chef since graduating from culinary school in 1990.  I was hired eight days into my internship at a gourmet shop in the Hamptons, out on Long Island's South Shore.  

I've baked for the rich and famous.  I've catered parties where the paparazzi climbed trees and scaled crumbling bluffs along the Peconic Bay to take photographs of party guests, and I've created lovely cakes and pastries for wonderfully romantic weddings in vineyards.  And as glamorous as it may sound, it's hard work.  Truly.  

I owned my own pastry business, supplying caterers and I've run a high end catering business.  I did this for nineteen years.  Then the economy dropped out.  It had been obvious all the summer leading up to the October market crash, that something was brewing.  Our usually big spending Manhattan clients no longer wanted huge, lavish parties with fun, imaginative endings--they were looking at small dinners for six.  And worse, they weren't calling a caterer when a restaurant could fit the bill.  I found myself working for no pay and when that happens, it's time to find something new. 

My husband I traveled, something that had been hard for us before because when your business is dependent upon the summer and holiday seasons, that's when you work.  But then our lives took another turn when early in 2010, my wonderful husband was diagnosed with a spinal cord tumor.  Surgery and his recovery and well being become my focus.  And that has been my job for the last two and a half years.  We have been so very blessed in that my husband's surgery was successful and his treatment is completed with a very promising outcome.  He now has a disability in that he walks with canes and is unable to drive normally.  I've been the chief chauffeur and family problem solver during his recovery.  But now with the neurosurgeon's blessing, hubby has taken a driving class, has been cleared and when our car is outfitted, he'll be able to drive using his left foot and I'll be looking at time on my hands.  Real hang up the wristwatch free time.

That's how a pastry chef finds herself needing recovery!

So as our life greets yet another new beginning--my husband by grabbing the wheel of a car and finding his freedom in mobility, I'm picking up a new box of baking powder.  Because every pastry chef knows that when you want a good result, you start with fresh ingredients. 

I plan to bake my way back.  I want to pull out my favorite recipes and I want to tweak them and then I want to share them.  I'm hoping you'd like to join me.  Feel free to follow and post your thoughts.