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.

I often ask myself if the younger generations are learning to cook, and I feel like they aren't. Not the way I cooked or my parents cooked, it just seems to be a lot of fast and efficient cooking, maybe take out maybe processed food. My kids know how to cook, obviously, because I've taught them, but I know that there are a lot of parents my age or a bit younger who don't cook that much and who don't teach their kids the art of preparing food. And of course that's why I created Take Out To Real Meals In 30 Days. We all appreciate food, and we create our own meals, but I hear so many young people say, "I don't know how to cook. I need to learn how to cook." I think there's a real need for some basic cooking skills in the younger generations. Today I will record the first/intro video for Take Out To Real Meals In 30 Days. I'm going to teach my daughter, Riley, how to roast a chicken. Absolutely simple process, can be prepped in under 10 minutes, and create a delicious meal with leftovers that can be repurposed into many things. Of course I wanted to do it with my son, but it's like trying to grasp smoke... He said he'd do it, but tying him down is next to impossible! So today we have the Olympian! As always, when I complete the video, I'll pop it in here so you can see what we're up to. While I'm sure most of you know how to roast a chicken, sometimes it's fun to see how other people do things. What's your favorite simple comfort food meal? Something you can create without a recipe that's always satisfying?

Who has a picture they want to share of yourself as a child?! I’ll go first - I think this was around 8 yrs old!

Today I made us a pizza for dinner - here’s the good, the bad, and the ugly!! 1. Homemade pizza dough - 1 c flour, 1tsp yeast, 1/2 c water, 1tsp salt etc 2. Plain old canned tomato sauce with two cloves garlic, a lot of Tabasco, some brown sugar, some hot honey 3. 4 slices of bacon chopped up, sautéed with 1/2 a good sized onion. Drained after cooking. 4. Shredded pizza mozzarella in a bag, and a hand full of mini bocconcini Flattened the dough out to about 12-14 inch pizza. Spread the sauce on thickly while hot and this may have been my downfall. Spread the bacon and onions all over. Topped with a layer of mozzarella, not too thick. Then bocconcini. Then a full layer of pepperoni entirely covering the pizza! Heated my pizza stone in a 550° convection oven. It was great but the dough didn’t really cook much on the bottom. The top was crispy and beautiful but the bottom was not great. The combo of the sautéed bacon/onion mixture, the sweet and spicy sauce and the cheese and pep - probably the best pizza I have ever made (if the crust had cooked properly)!! Billy loved it, he agreed the flavour was exceptional!! Good thing it was a thin crust! And didn’t take a picture!!

Went to open the camper / cottage for the summer. Minimal planning, minimal hassle. It was a nice sunny day, a little chilly but still shorts weather. We lit a fire a roasted hot dogs!! It was lovely!! What are you up to today?