The Prodigal Blogger

I know. It's been a while.

I'd love to tell you that I've been traveling the world, sampling exotic and fascinating foods off the beaten track and away from an internet connection, but that would be a big pork pie.
The truth is, I lost my bloggy mojo for a bit there and to be honest, the longer I left it, the harder it got to come back.

It has been an eventful and sometimes stressful couple of months filled with self-doubt and neuroses (but nothing that a little Prozac can't handle) and I have spent a lot of time evaluating my life and where it is going. Maybe because I'm only a few weeks away from my 35th birthday and am very much aware of the spectre of my approaching middle age.
I've spent too many years doing jobs that I'm not passionate about and have come to the stark realization that I'm not a person who can work for themselves, especially when I'm doing something that doesn't make me bound out of bed every morning with anticipation the way cooking does.

So.

I have decided to go to culinary school and make the most of my passion. My best friend Alli was who gave me the final push and the confidence to say "Bring on the student loans! Bring on the sweat and sore back!"
Encouraged as always by my ever-supportive husband and proud parents and step-mum, I took the big step of enrolling in Tante Marie's Intensive Cordon Bleu diploma course, beginning in January. I am counting the days!

Of course my love of cookery has been just as intense while I' haven't been writing and I have been concentrating a lot more on practicing my baking and trying my hand at cake decorating.

My very good childhood friend Lillah's baby daughter Daisy will be one year old in two weeks and Lillah has asked me to make her cake, which I am ridiculously excited about and honoured by. I have ordered Wilton cake tins, boxes, boards, dowels, fondant, coloured dusts, flower and leaf plungers, all kinds of specialty equipment and have taken over much of what has been husband's office to store all my new goodies. Now that he's no longer working from home, I have my sights set firmly on turning this space into a cake decorating and sewing room, as the dining table it taking a bit of a beating.

So that's my news. I'm sorry for neglecting you and being so far away from the bloggiverse. I miss my fellow bloggers and I miss writing daily, and I promise I will be back regularly. Maybe not on the daily basis that I was blogging before, but definitely frequently.

I have my stepmother's birthday dinner this weekend, so I will post the roast duck breasts with locally picked black berries and the chocolate celebration cake I'm making. I promise to post all about the Daisy cake, no matter how it turns out. (I have only rolled out fondant ONCE, so be kind!)

I imagine too that chef school will provide me with plenty of blog fodder, if for no other reason than I will surely meet Gordon Ramsey, who is now a part-owner in the old school and lectures there regularly. And yes, Alli, if I DO get to meet him, I will ask him to call you from my mobile, so keep your ringer turned up when you go to bed, because Lord knows it will be the middle of the night your time.

Thank you all for your patience. I love you.