a mixture of one liquid with another with which it cannot normally combine smoothly (like oil and water); an atypical combination of two things
After a year of blogging on EmulsifiedFamily.com, I have come to love the name “Emulsified Family” and feel it’s the perfect way to describe our family (and probably many of yours.)
Why?
I’m so glad you asked!
Let’s start off by looking at it from a culinary perspective. Emulsifying is a delicate process. It needs to be carefully prepared. It requires ideal conditions (temperature, balance, interaction, etc). It won’t hold together forever unless it’s cared for, but can be repaired if it breaks.
Have you ever tried to make mayonnaise? If you just throw all the ingredients into the blender it’s not going to work. (Maybe it would work with a Vitamix. But in my Oster blender . . . no way!!) But if you take your time and carefully follow the correct procedure, you’ll get something that is far better than what you started with. All the ingredients on their own are fine. But together, they can be AMAZING.
Do you see what a perfect term this is to describe the family of a chef?
Why is it that I always have these great big cooking ideas on days my chef/husband is working?
Oh, right, he works a lot. How could I forget? If I waited until he was off, I might never do it.
A few months ago I purchased 25 lbs. of rainbow carrots. I decided to can them because there was no way we would ever be able to eat them all before they went bad.
As I started to cut them, I began to get frustrated with myself.
Why in the world was I doing this on a day my chef/husband was at work?
While I have some basic knife skills, I’m not very fast.
. . . you ask for an elegant Hollywood dinner party for your 10th birthday.
For our 10 year old’s birthday party, she wanted to have a Hollywood party, complete with the red carpet entry, time to film a “movie”, an awards ceremony and an elegant dinner party.
For the menu, she chose caesar salad, steak, baby carrots (which were vetoed by my chef/husband who chose rainbow carrots instead), mashed potatoes, sparkling cider (in our expensive wine glasses – AHHHHH!!) and then sherbet cake for dessert.
As I helped with dinner in the kitchen, (and by help I mean stand and talk to my chef/husband while he was cooking) I overhead our 10 year old say, “My Dad’s a chef, you know.” Adorable!!
As I think about our Emulsified Family, I often forget that our children are figuring out how to combine restaurant and family life just as much as we are.
They deal with the long hours of a chef and a tired chef/daddy on his days off. But they also get to enjoy the perks of having a father who is a chef.
An elegant dinner party for a birthday was one of those perks. (more…)
It’s not often we make it into the restaurant where my husband works. It’s over an hour in the car (and our kids are horrible car riders) and there’s the fear of them being disruptive in a quiet, fine dining restaurant or yelling, “Daddy,” when they see him.
The girls ask to eat there all time time, especially on his days off. But what chef wants to go eat at his work (and make that long commute again) on his day off?
I just love to watch him teach. I love that when he talks to groups, he just teaches a technique or method of how to do something and then talks about all the ways you can adapt it for the different seasons. (more…)
I would love to know how many chefs and their families get invited over to other people’s houses for dinner.
Anyone?
Anyone?
Neither do we.
I will admit that there is a chance that we don’t get invited over for dinner because no one wants to hang out with us. That could be the case. Maybe we are truly obnoxious and no one wants to be around us and everyone is just too nice to tell us they can’t stand us.
I will also admit that with my chef/husband’s crazy and ever changing hours, it could be difficult to find a time to have us over. However, if someone really, really, REALLY wanted to, we could make it work. Sure we might have to reschedule a few times, and they would have to listen to me apologize a million times about rescheduling, but eventually it would happen.
However, I think it’s far more likely that people are TOTALLY FREAKED OUT AND SCARED to cook for a chef. (At least that’s what I’m told by others.)
Is that really true? Is my chef/husband really that scary and intimidating? (more…)
Why?
