Seeing your kids sick is no fun. We’ve been fortunate to never have all 3 sick at the same time. (Although now that I write that sentence, they will probably all wake up sick sometime soon, right?) There have been times (like right now) they have “shared” their sickness with each other and just as one is starting to get better, another one gets hit with it.
There are a lot of things I enjoy about being married to a chef . . . great food (when he’s home to cook), help with meal planning, having someone who can fix my mistakes in the kitchen (over the phone or via text), free samples that appear in our home from vendors, menu tastings at his restaurant, his creativity . . . the list could go on and on. A lot of the sterotypes we hear about being married to a chef ARE true, sometimes. Not as often as people think, but yes, occasionally they are true.
But just like everything, with the good comes the bad. Being married to a chef isn’t about enjoying 5 course meals every night. (And if you think it is, please stop reading this post and read this first.) In the 19 1/2 years we have been married, there have been a lot of things I have really struggled with as a result of my husband’s career.
Now don’t get me wrong, I love that he is a chef and know it’s the perfect job for him. But that doesn’t make it easy for either of us. We’ve had many discussions over the years of how hard it is to be a successful chef, husband and father all at the same time. He runs himself ragged doing just that and I am blessed to be married to him. (more…)
I always knew the day would come when I would write about this (or make a video about it).
This is by far the hardest post and most personal topic I’ve ever blogged about.
You see, our home was a pretty miserable place to be for a few years. My chef/husband and I had many conversations about it, but never really knew the exact problem and because of that, didn’t know how to fix it.
Then one day I figured it out. It was of course during one of the hardest weeks I’ve ever had as a parent. But sometimes it takes a really difficult situation to get me to wake up and figure things out.
I wish there was a way to go back in time and tell my younger self what I learned. I would have been a different parent early on.
I feel like I’ve been talking a lot lately about things that I struggle with, being married to a chef. So in case I’m coming across as a complainer, let’s talk today about some of the positives of being married to a chef. There are a lot of them, but here are my favorites!
I LOVE that my chef/husband can make something out of “nothing.” I look in the refrigerator and see that we have nothing to eat and think we need to go to the grocery store. My chef looks in the same refrigerator and manages to create a yummy dinner for our family of 5. I have no idea how he does it, and really wish I could.
I LOVE that he can just look at a recipe and tell if it’s going to turn out. This comes in very handy when I’m looking at a recipe I found on Pinterest. So many recipes online don’t turn out (it’s like the writers never even tried it after they wrote it????). It’s nice to be able to run one past him before he goes to work and get some feedback on it before I try it. (And often he tells me he has a recipe for that (big surprise) and pulls it up on the computer for me. I then of course have to convert it so I don’t have 5,000 cookies . . .)
Tonight, we’ve come to the end of the series, A Chef, a Wife and a Child. Thank you for all the emails and comments as you’ve shared with me and my readers your joys and struggles about raising a family with a chef.
Tonight, it’s my turn to answer the 5 questions. . .
Tell me a little about yourself and your spouse.
My name is Jennifer and I’ve been married to my chef/husband for 19 years. My husband started working in a professional kitchen about 6 months after we got married. He is now an Executive Chef/Culinary Directory for a restaurant group in Seattle and I stay home full time with our girls. I do a little website development and blogging from home as I have the time.
Tell me a little about yourself and your spouse.
