My name is Jennifer and I have been married to a chef for 25 years.

I blog about my life as a chef wife and how we combine restaurant and family life each day.

If you are new to my site, start here.

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Happy Day After Thanksgiving

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{This post contains affiliate links.}

While many people are out shopping the Black Friday sales, we are staying in today to celebrate Thanksgiving as a family.

1,000 guests have been served.

Too much food has been eaten.

The piano has been played.

Executive Chef Tom Small playing the piano for our guests. Happy Thanksgiving!

A video posted by Palisade Restaurant (@palisadesea) on Nov 11, 2014 at 1:08pm PST

(Look at this video the restaurant posted on Instagram of my chef/husband playing the piano HIGH UP IN THE AIR on Thanksgiving!! That is crazy!!) read more…

Prepping Thanksgiving in a Restaurant

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Preparing for Thanksgiving can be overwhelming.

It’s a big meal, full or recipes that we only make one time of year.

There’s pressure to have it all taste good (obviously) and to have it all warm and on the table at the same time.

Somehow, we all manage to pull it off and live to tell about it year after year.

But have you ever stopped to think about what it’s like at the restaurant your chef/husband or significant other is working at?

Sure they tell us how insane it is and we see them physically exhausted before and after. But have you ever seen what the back of the restaurant looks like the days leading up to Thanksgiving?

It’s like nothing I could have ever imagined!

My husband’s restaurant will be serving 1,000 guests on Thanksgiving.

1,000!

I can’t even being to fathom how you would do that.

Let’s look for a minute at what prepping Thanksgiving looks like in a restaurant . .. no fancy photography, just snapshots with my chef/husband’s phone. I’ll only share a few since you probably don’t care about seeing all 15 of them. read more…

9 Reasons I’m Thankful for my Chef/Husband

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As we get ready to celebrate Thanksgiving this week here in the United States, I have been reflecting on all the things I have to be thankful for. While I could write for hours about this, I thought I’d just share today why I’m thankful for my chef/husband of 19 years.

I am thankful for my chef/husband because . . .

. . . he cooks well. Just getting the obvious out of the way here. But really, I am thankful for this. If he didn’t cook well, who would cook my 5 course dinner every night. Haha!
. . . he loves the Lord and has a passion for the truth. I am thankful that he stands up for what he believes, no matter what others think or say.
. . . he provides for us financially. There are many days he gets up, more exhausted than he went to bed. Yet he gets up with a good attitude, and heads off to work to provide for us.
. . . of his strong work ethic. Every day he sets an example for the girls and I and all those around him at work by showing what it means to work hard and always try your best.
. . . he is wise (not to be confused with being smart – which he is as well.) My chef/husband is able to look at a situation and have wisdom in it. He is able to leave emotion out of it and truly give good advice and make good decisions based on his past experience and just good common sense. I truly value what he has to say and have been amazed by his wisdom many times this past year as we talk and make decisions together.
. . . he is a good listener. He is always willing to let me talk, even when I ramble on and on about our day.
. . . he is level headed. He is able to stay calm and rational when things get crazy.
. . . he is artistic. Not only has this helped him in his career as a chef, but our house looks nice because he’s able to decorate well. (I am not artistic at all.)
. . . he is a wonderful father. The love and compassion he shows our children is amazing. I love watching them together.

12 Days of Encouragement for the Chef’s Family – Coming Soon

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Coming December 1st – 12th – daily posts of encouragement to help us get through the holidays as the family of a chef!

The holidays are tough for a chef’s family! You won’t want to miss this!

If you don’t already receive my new posts in your inbox, you can sign up here. (I guarantee Emulsified Family is not always showing up in your Facebook newsfeed and I really don’t want you to miss this!)

What is an Emulsified Family?

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Emulsion

[ih-MUHL-shuhn]

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.