{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.
(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!!) (more…)
{This post contains affiliate links.}
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.
. . . 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!!
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…)
Look! There’s Daddy!
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?
Today we had the chance to watch him cook as a guest chef at the Christmas in Seattle Goumet Food and Gift Show. I took the girls out of school early and we headed up to Seattle to watch his demo.
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’m curious what comes to your mind when you hear that word.
Do you think turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, time with family, etc?
Or do you think, another holiday by myself, can’t wait ’til January so I can see my chef/husband, etc.
All of those things above come to my mind as the wife of a chef.
Thanksgiving is actually one of our favorite holidays. God has blessed us with so much and we love talking about that with our girls.
We also love food! (Big surprise.) Brown butter mashed potatoes, maple roasted root vegetables, green bean casserole, cornbread stuffing, vanilla bean whipped potatoes, pumpkin cheesecake, rice imperative . . . and turkey (my least favorite part). Technically I’m making roasted heirloom turkey, according to my husband’s recipe, but even with the fancy title, I would be just fine if we left that out and just enjoyed all the sides and desserts.
I also like the weeks leading up to Thanksgiving as there is so much “food talk” with friends. We tend to get a lot of food questions from family and friends (thus the reason for this Preparing for Thanksgiving page from my chef/husband), but I love it! I love hearing about everyone’s favorite recipes. I LOVE hearing one of my friends tell everyone about how she broke down her turkey and how AMAZING it turned out last year. I love all the Thanksgiving crafts the girls bring home from school telling what they are thankful for. Maybe I should say I just love November. However, the Thursday that the majority of the United States celebrates Thanksgiving is not the highlight of my month. (more…)
Chef Wife, Mother of 3 and the Blogger behind EmulsifiedFamily.com.
