My husband is an amazing chef. I love to learn from him and enjoy all the food he makes, but I really dislike washing chef coats. And when I say dislike, I really mean hate.
I really have nothing nice to say about chef coats. They are big and bulky and stains stick to them like super glue.
With each restaurant change (and there have been quite a few as my husband has moved up in his career), come new chef coats and the task of finding what cleaning treatment will work the best for that specific coat.
If you are like me, you have googled, “How to clean a chef coat” on numerous occasions as you struggle to get out those stains that somehow made it past the apron.
Below are some suggestions on how to clean a chef coat, compiled by myself and other chefs and their wives/significant others. (Thanks for the help guys!)
I wrote the post below back in July, but never published it. Tonight I’m sitting on the bed, wishing my husband was home with us. It’s Cinco de Mayo – the busiest night of the year for his restaurants. We haven’t seen him all week and we miss him. I’m tired. The kids have been arguing while making Mother’s Day cards. (Really?????? I don’t want have to discipline for that!! Ugh!! I really wish he were here to deal with the Mother’s Day card arguing…)
Have you ever referred to yourself as a single parent because of your husband’s career as a chef?
They work a ton of hours. They are gone the majority if not all of the hours the kids are awake. Because of this, the parenting on the days they work (and sometimes even on their days off) falls on us.
It’s hard.
I get it.
I’m living it.
There are many days our girls do not see my husband because he leaves before or just as they are getting up and gets home just after they are in bed. Having a 1 hour + commute on top of the long hours of a chef is tough. My husband would have to leave work at 5 pm (and then sit in the car for 2 hours because of traffic) to be home to see them for an hour before they go to bed (which is not their best time of day). The mornings, it’s the same. If he doesn’t leave before 6 am, the commute can be almost 2 hours long. There’s really no option for a change of hours, so we find way to work with the schedule the best we can.
So you made it through pregnancy. All your fears of your chef/husband not being able to make it to the hospital for the baby’s delivery were unnecessary as he was there in plenty of time. 🙂
But now you have this sweet little baby and your chef/husband is back to work, working a billion hours a week (OK, not that many, but it sure seems like it). You’re exhausted, overwhelmed, lonely and some days really, really, really, wish you had another adult to talk to. Raising a family with a chef isn’t easy.
How in the world do you schedule a Dr. appointment or an appointment to leave your car for 6 hours, when your husband is a chef and you have kids?
Not easily!
Now maybe it’s just me, but as a chef wife, I struggle with this.
Let’s be honest. There are some Dr. appointments I REALLY don’t want to go to with 3 kids. And these types of appointments can only be scheduled M-F and usually need to be scheduled weeks in advance. (more…)
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?
