I like to shake it up a bit. Maybe even spell things wrong, ha ha! But I want to welcome our newest members! Have you looked at the numbers? We are at 98! Two beautiful souls away from 100, and I'm excited! Let's give our best warm welcome to @Jacqulynn Tamanini @Katinka van Kan @Keith Berg and @Taras Mokrytskyi ! As always, I thoroughly enjoy the multiculturalness of this community. We have people from all over Goma, and it's that unique culture that everyone brings that makes this community special. I invite all our new friends to introduce themselves in a new post, and I want to invite everybody to post or comment with your very favorite meal or recipe. (Bonus points if you share the recipe! ) Let's get 98 recipes posted... If anyone can do it, this amazing community can! Thank you to the new members for joining our crowd, thank you to the existing members for being here always! Someone once asked me if I had to describe what My community would be like if it was a place, like a physical place, what would it look like. I gave a wonderful long description, and I chose this picture. Feel free to join me by the pool, enjoy the warmth in the sun, and spend a little time getting to know each other in this community.

Hey everyone! I've been quiet lately. I had a busy weekend visiting my daughter in Toronto to celebrate her graduation. It was a little bit of diplomacy, fun, celebration, everything all in one. Spending the weekend with her and my son was great, spending it also with my ex-husband and his girlfriend added another layer to it. But since I have worked hard to cultivate a civil relationship with him, we all had a great time together and it was fun. Plus, I got to spend time with my brother and his wife, which was amazing because I see them so seldom. It was a great family weekend... but I missed having Billy. But then there was the cat. Those of you who know me know that I'm not a cat person, but I also have two cats. And I've come to like the two little buggers. They're quite special to me. Even though I would rather they would wag their tail and bark, ha ha. Herman, my rather large and super personable cat, with an incredible personality, became ill on Thursday, and we had to put him down on Friday. I was in Toronto, celebrating the graduation while Billy was home by himself dealing with this. He's the cat guy, so of course he was devastated, but I was heartbroken as well. He was only four years old. Sometimes I called him Turd. He was my buddy, and I'm so sad he's gone. So talk about a range of emotions, right? Is it any surprise that I wasn't popping in here to give you my latest chitty-chatty update? Probably not, but I just did miss being in my community and engaging with all of you guys! We have a couple new members today, which is exciting! I'll create a new post for them so that they're not forever tied to the cat post. I want to keep growing this community and making it a special place. If you have any friends who want to join in, tell them all about us! Pull up a chair, pour a glass of wine, and let's talk. Or milk, or apple juice, or water even... The sparkling kind with a dash of lemon and lime? Oh, so nice! Ha! So I'm back, and excited to see where we're going, because I know that we are going to amazing places!

So today was supposed to go one way… and it went another. Heading to Toronto to honour my middle child (you know - the difficult one!! ) because she’s graduating from the University of Toronto. It’s my dad’s alma mater. He’s not here to see it, but he would be so incredibly proud of her. But stressed because of a lot of different things going on. Spending the weekend with my ex and his girlfriend and his family… a celebration hosted by their family. It takes me out of my comfort zone because I like to be the host, especially for something that honors my daughter. I get along with these people so well, I’ve known them for 40 years, but still… But grateful to have Billy by my side. We make everything fun! I had everything ready to bake - a ton of things for these celebration events, we were driving up, and I wanted to contribute. I was organized within an inch of my life. I even made sub buns to pack a lunch for our drive to Toronto. Then when we woke up… The cat was sick again. He literally did not move for five hours. We’re in crisis mode thinking what are we gonna do? Do we bring him with us? Do we leave him with a 17-year-old boy who’s our cat sitter? Like what do we do? If the end is nigh, should we leave him? Soooooo Billy uses his credit card points to buy me a ticket to Toronto, and off I go for the whirlwind weekend to celebrate my daughter, solo. Not at all what we had envisioned. And I sit at the airport waiting feeling completely defeated. You see, my daughter has lots of family around her dad is there. I’m there, and Billy - well he’s kind of peripheral. But I love that. He’s excited to be there. He’s the only one who hasn’t seen her apartment in Toronto, and he was really looking forward to that. That type of thing just makes me feel warm and fuzzy. But the truth of the matter is this isn’t about me. This is about my daughter, Paris. Her accomplishment from one of the top universities in the world. It’s been a rough four years for her. She had lots of ups and downs; things I don’t even wanna mention. So it’s an accomplishment that she made this far. And I have to put my personal feelings aside to remember that this is about her and not me.

Part of my philosophy behind helping couples connect through food, is really that we need to have fun in our lives. There’s so much going on, businesses to create, connections to be made, products to sell. But we have to have fun as well. Furthermore… We have to have fun with our partner and our families. I know a lot of you will say well my job is fun or my business is fun and I get that. But what message does it send your partner when all the fun you’re having is doing something without them? Cooking together should be fun, it should be light and engaging. You should be stepping into the kitchen with the intention of connection, but fun connection. So often cooking is a chore, but we need to make it more than that. It has a power to be something more, so let’s take advantage of it. Let’s make every moment count and have fun.

Brand new video… Cooking en famille ❤️ This is the first introductory lesson in my “Takeout to Real Meals in 30 Days” program! https://drive.google.com/file/d/1cG8ESjJkqeWIhz36n1DrSly_tXEUaF7D/view?usp=drivesdk