Relationships Are Like Beurre Blanc...

I am leaving in one hour for our trip to Ireland, and I haven’t packed or showered yet or anything. Don’t freak out for me, it’s fine. It never takes me that long and this is a short trip, just eight days compared to our last one which was twenty-one days in total with traveling so the packing will be quick and light. I’ve gotten very good at it.

I am excited about going there, the last time I was in Ireland it was the same year as the last time I had to make beurre blanc with any regularity, in 1997. I remember that it was while I was still daytime sous chef at Arcadia, a long-gone NYC fancy-pants restaurant which was the last place I worked before jumping that ship for teaching. It broke me. All that whisking and all those precarious emulsions. Lotta stress.

I went to Ireland and visited a friend in Dublin and we drove around the country a bit too, and I think I also took a short overnight trip to Cork without him. I loved it, but 1997 was a very long time ago, and I’m happy to be going back there to see and taste everything that the Irish culinary scene has produced! Stay tuned for updates.

The reason I am frantically writing this today, as opposed to say yesterday, or last night, is that I have been frantically texting with many old friends and co-workers as the news rolls in about a certain celebrity chef who was found dead this week in her apartment at the very young age of 55. I’m sure you all know who, but I am not naming her here, so that the search bots and algorithms don’t connect me with her, as some of my old friends and co-workers have been getting phone calls from reporters, looking for more info and/or dirt. Let’s just say this celebrity chef had a history of living large. She had a big personality and a lot of…”energy”