Confession Booth

Forgive me reader… for I have slacked

I put this blog down for like a SECOND I swear! And when I come back it’s 2024?? How did that happen? Oops.

Alright I know it wasn’t a second, but I have my reasons! I am not perfect! And also I have the brain of a goldfish. So after that last post in June 2020, I went to visit my family in California because the pan-demilovado really got to me- your girl did her best, but the stir craziness was making me twitchy and Facetime just wasn’t cutting it. The week I spent there turned into 3 when I didn’t purchase a returning plane ticket (what was there to come home to, really?) and when I got back, work still hadn’t called us back into the kitchen. I decided to email a store at Pike Place Market called DeLaurenti Food and Wine that I had always kinda wanted to work at. I just sent a email with my resume attached and a message saying that I’ve always wanted to work for them and if they would give me a job I would happily mop their floors or wash their dishes or any kind of bitch job just to work there. So they made me a cheese monger. And I never loved a job more. I worked their cheese counter for a few months, but soon made my way up to their cafe’s kitchen where I really basked in the glory of the food world. I was cooking instead of baking and it was amazing, I’d never thought I would leave baking as a job but it was AWESOME.

This would have been the perfect job to have to write about for this blog! I was working at a MAJOR TOURIST DESTINATION! I was getting all the groceries for work AND myself from the vendors of the market! I was making delicious things I hadn’t made before! …Except I kinda forgot I had a blog until about 6 months in. And as I’ve stated in a previous post, I do not handle my own failures well. So then I actively chose not to think about it. Yet I still paid to have my domain renewed every year. The bored-out-of-her-mind girl from late March 2020 wasn’t going to let me give up yet.

So fast forward through working and romanticizing my life at Pike Place, starting a new relationship, moving apartments, getting a cat(!!!), leaving the job at Pike Place, leaving the relationship, starting two new jobs, leaving one, trying my hand at landscaping, leaving that, ultimately accepting feeling burnt out from working the industry and taking a summer not to (my job was a server, somehow I really enjoyed it), to getting a job as a barista at a college, leaving the serving job to now. Phew that was a lot.

I did get burnt out with cooking. I loved what I was doing at DeLaurenti, but I hit a ceiling with them. I wanted to run the kitchen, but there was no possibility of that happening. And I left to gain more experiences in the culinary side of things at a cafe. But it didn’t take long for the more nitty gritty side of the culinary world to show its face. And I just sorta… stopped cooking for myself. I would cook here and there, but its been a lot of take out and leftovers. Sometimes a spurt of energy would happen and I’d have a new starter bubbling away (like riding a bike), or an old friend would visit and want to do a project together (love a chicken pot pie) or maybe wanting to impress a love interest. But never for myself.

Depression is a bitch. And the truth is I haven’t found anything that brings me the same kind of joy that cooking always did. I miss it so much. I miss shopping, scheming, experimenting, assembling, plating, sharing, and eating. All of it. And yet it’s been such a struggle to simply walk into the kitchen and JUST DO IT.

So now here I am. A barista at a community college working with their culinary program watching young students just stepping foot into the passions of cooking professionally. And it is something special, I tell you. I just make the coffee and our pastry case fills with beautiful creations from eclairs, to cakes, croissants, Paris breast, opera cakes, BAGELS, ciabatta, flatbread, sourdough, and just so so much more. I love it here and I don’t foresee leaving anytime soon. But I’m also noticing a growing twinge of longing.

So that leads me to here and now. I’ve had my own apartment now for about 2 years and it has a beautiful kitchen with a view of downtown, I have the most perfect chatty little kitty who gives her opinions freely, my plant collection has just about tripled, my job is awesome and for once I have both time and energy after work (after a quick nap of course). I think I’m ready to jump back on this horse! Just need that next paycheck. And probably should clean out the takeout graveyard my fridge has turned into.

Wish me luck 🙂

-Rieu