Raising a Family with a Chef – The Infant Phase

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.

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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.)

Emulsified FamilyWhy?

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?

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Surviving on the One Income of a Chef

Surviving on the one income of a chefA family of 5 living on one income, the income of a chef . . . I would guess you’re either thinking, “How in the world do you do that?  You must be crazy!”  Or ,“We’re doing that too and I know you’re crazy!”  (Or I guess you could be thinking, “Wow!  Her chef/husband must be a Food Network star.”  He’s not.)

I say that jokingly, but really, I do feel like we are a bit crazy.

In the series, A Chef, a Wife and a Child, one of the questions I asked was, “What has been the hardest part for you and your chef/husband with the addition of a little one to your family?”

The #1 thing for us, without a doubt, was adjusting to living on one income.  This is by far too big of an issue to get buried in another post.  So here we are! (more…)

Meet Jennifer – A Chef, a Wife and a Child

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. . .

Emulsified FamilyTell 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.

How many children do you have?

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