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MyPlate...Not The Government's Version

I'd really like to be able to post today about some amazing food thing I've done or learned recently.

But alas, I won't be able to today.

In typical vaudeville-esque fashion, I am trying to keep the spinning plates aloft in the air.

Plate #1 - The Educational Plate: I finish the last of my two six-week classes TODAY.  I will be giving a presentation on the business I have developed.  This project has consumed quite a bit of time and energy, as the instructor wants specifics regarding what kind of equipment we need, food inventory, floor plan, employee job descriptions, and the like.  I also sat for a comprehensive Culinary Exam on Tuesday...which required a little studying and preparing for as well.

Plate #1.a (or #2) - The Internship Plate: After today, Plate #1 will no longer be part of the act, but it will be replaced by #1.a or #2...Getting Ready for Internship.  I leave in less than a month for the shores of Lake Huron.  I will be gone for six months.  Important questions include:  What books should I bring?  How many tubes of toothpaste?  Who's bringing the plasma-screen TV: me or the roomie?  How am I going to adjust to sharing a living space with someone that is not my husband?  These are the things I lose sleep over.

Plate #3 - The New Job Plate: My winery job ended in early March, and I started another restaurant job the week after that.  While I greatly value my time at the winery, I am learning about line cooking at the new place...which I'm sure I'll need in Michigan.  I'm also discovering that nobody cares if I'm a la-di-da Culinary Student...they just want to know if I can work and if I can work fast.  It's been humbling to say the least.

Plate #4 - The Parenting Plate: I have a very intelligent 14-year-old living in my house who, all of a sudden, has been beset by a bout of un-ambition and laziness, especially when it comes to grades.  In fact, he has recently been quoted as saying, "Work is stupid.  I want to have fun."  And while I'm sure he didn't mean it quite as strongly as that, and just chose his words very poorly, the sentiment behind the words is the disturbing thing.  We can't quite ascertain if this is really how he is feeling or if this is some teenage-angst-dilemma we are dealing with.  Teenagers are aliens, people.  I believe this is the why we have found no other life-forms out there in the universe...they're here, living amongst us in the forms of teenagers.

Plate #5 - The Self-Educated Plate: I am trying to read.  Read for fun, read for education, just READ!  I'm current at work on this piece of fictionalized biography (correct word for genre unknown at the time of typing) Under The Wide and Starry Sky...the narrative that tells the story of the romance between Robert Louis Stevenson (author of Treasure Island, Kidnapped, etc.) and American Fanny Osbourne.  But I'm also scouring this cookbook, Beef and Other Bovine Matters...and now, I just really want to try carpaccio sometime!

Plate #6 - The Philosophical Plate: Still trying to answer those big life questions: What am I supposed to be doing?  What's my passion?  Where do I want to go with this life?  What next?  These answers need to come to me before I come back home in October.

And that's it, readers.  No gems of kitchen wisdom or hilarity today.  Just real life attempting to smack me in my face.  Repeatedly.

But, like Max Ehrmann says, the universe is unfolding.  Things are happening.  It is good.

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