Be Careful What You Ask For

Hello Food Friends. It's been awhile! Again. 

I've missed you and this spot that exists to talk about food and the way it connects us together. Although I haven't been active here, I have been spinning many other plates - literally and figuratively. 

If I were to choose a word for the last couple of years it would, without a doubt be: Reinvention. 

At first I didn't truly realize this was an option for me, I didn't even have a relationship with the word. But now we're close. 

Reinvention comes, much like invention, from necessity, but also from a place of freshness and possibility.

I like what Miriam-Webster has to say on the subject:

re.in.vent

1: to make as if for the first time something already invented

2: to remake or redo completely

3: to bring into use again

And so, the story is about this girl, who grew up around gatherings of family and friends and food, with parents who had a restaurant, and food constantly on her brain.

She was a weird kid who, while most kids were making an after school snack of instant ramen, she was making lamb chops and sauteed mushrooms.   

She eventually tapped into her creativity in the form of photography and the written word. While photographing children and families paid the bills, photographing and writing about food became an exciting outlet. 

She became good at cooking because she was really just very good at eating. 

She always laughed off the comments of friends that she "really should open a restaurant" because she grew up in one and knew how much work it really is.

And then reinvention started to gain momentum. 

When her life changed around her and she began questioning the kind of work that really made her happy, A New Years Eve conversation happened where she said to a chef friend, "maybe I should just get a job in a kitchen". To which he said, "Well the money is actually in waiting tables, if you want to get into the restaurant business." 

But no, she said, that isn't it. "I want to cook. I want to chop stuff in the kitchen".

Fast forward two years to a conversation with a friend who had a little cafe in a residential condo building. She was hired to design his new restaurant and during the process he offered her his Cafe. He would remain involved, but gives it to her to change the menu, the decor, the name, she is free to reinvent it and herself in the process. Just like that. It wasn't something she could say no to.  

At first this seemed like it was out of left field and materialized out of nowhere. I mean, who has this kind of stuff happen to them? She does. Then she remembered her New Year's conversation, her childhood, and her new found appreciation of reinvention, and it all made sense. 

It's like she's making for the first time a restaurant girl that already existed. Although she is being remade and redone completely, she's really just bringing into use again all those skills from before. It is reinvention, for sure. But is also a coming home. 

And so here I am. 

A girl with a cafe. 

People actually pay to eat my food. 

And they like it!

And they keep coming back!!

And most importantly, I'm really having fun. 

 My Menu is basically the kind of food I cook at home. 

Healthy, Hearty, Homemade, Real Food. 

I serve pizzas, sandwiches, salads, coffee, smoothies and weekly specials.

My children are my wonderful staff and my customers are awesome. 

And now, I will have lots more food stuff to share with you!

Who says you can't have it all! 1/2 bbq chicken with tomatoes and carmelized onions, 1/2 Brie and grape with green pea pesto

Monster Brownies

Chicken Enchilada Special

Tomato Soup with Grilled Cheese Croutons

Whose afraid of a green smoothie? Mango, pineapple, papaya,  banana, kale, fresh grated ginger and a squeeze of lime

Yellow Chicken Curry Special

Rib Eye Steak Sandwich Special 

Lilikoi Cheesecake

Stuffed Baked Potato Special

Chicken Tacos Special with Tomato, Cucumber, Quinoa Salad

Chicken Parmesan Sandwich Special

For all the Cookie Monsters out there...

 So now, during my break when I'm eating food, reading a book about food, while a cooking show plays on TV and food cooks in the oven it's not so strange. Right?

 Cheers to reinvention!


Quote of the Day:

“I believe that one defines oneself by reinvention. To not be like your parents. To not be like your friends. To be yourself. To cut yourself out of stone.”

Henry Rollins