Howdy everybody! It’s been a while, so how about an update?! Ready? Okay!
Berkeley was amazing, relaxing, gorgeous, fun, and everything we were hoping for it to be (plus more!). Our bed and breakfast was super cute and cozy (we highly recommend The Brick Path B&B if you are thinking of vacationing in Berkeley ever!). We ate lots of tasty vegan food, explored until there were blisters on our feet, and we even ran into our friends Mark and Colby at Cafe Gratitude! Unfortunately we neglected to let our camera out to play, but hey, it’s alright. I’ve got a million memory-photos floating around in my head. : )
After vacation land, I hit a rough spot, an internal crises. I woke up one day and decided that I needed to take a break from cooking, blogging, and pretty much everything else that I had been doing. I quit my personal chef job. I abandoned the blog. I hardly cooked at all. I slept a lot. I hid away from my friends, like a hermit.
But the good news is that I survived (!!!) and now I am in recovery mode. During my downtime, I came to the conclusion that I needed to divorce/separate myself from cooking for a while. It seems that once I took steps toward making cooking into a career (by being a personal chef and blogging hardcore) the joy of cooking slowly dissipated inside of me. I am so grateful for this experience, because through it I discovered that although I enjoy cooking as a hobby, it is not something that I want to force myself to do for money.
We are human beings, not human doings. I have to keep reminding myself of this, since it’s pretty rough to be back at the “I don’t know what I want to be when I grow up” head space. Especially since I am twenty five and this isn’t the first time (or third…) that I have found myself here. My fear is that I will never figure it out, that I will never discover my true purpose for being here on this earth. And that I will just rot away, withered from a lack of fulfillment.
But hey, the sun still shines! I’ve found that the best way to deal right now is to do the things that bring me joy; like yoga, reading, and spending time with loved ones, and to make endless gratitude lists! Also, altering my definition of success to equal happiness seems to help a lot as well. : )
So The Bear and The Blackberry will continue on… but as an inspired hobby blog, instead of a step towards career success blog.
Anywho, enough personal stuff, on with the food!
What is this gourmet mess, you ask? Well, the official title is a mouthful, sooooo… we could just call it potato nachos for funsies! To make this delicious dish, Jef and I roasted the potatoes in olive oil with some rosemary sprigs and seasonings, and placed those hot taters on a bed of peppery arugula. Then came the delicious cheesy-garlicy-herby cashew cream sauce! Devourification Heaven!
I wondered where you’d gone! Oh wow…major, heavy stuff. Seems like you’re on the other side of it all (with lots of work ahead), though – so – yay! Welcome back, in whatever form The B and the B takes.
Thank you! : ) We shall see….
Welcome back! And thanks for sharing about your journey too. While I’ve never pursued cooking professionally, I was getting burned out just posting on my blog on a daily basis. I started to resent it! So I took a deep breath, reassessed and am now happily posting about once a week. This dish is gorgeous as are all your dishes and glad to hear you had a great vacation out here in the Bay Area. Glad you got to experience Cafe Gratitude! : )
Thank you very much! : )
Yeah I think that it is important not to allow ourselves to burn out on the things that we love, or let them start to feel like homework! Although it has been hard to realize that I don’t want to pursue cooking professionally anymore, I’m glad I realized it now and stopped in my tracks before I really started to resent it! Thank you for your support, as well as inspiring blog! : )
: )
Powerful stuff! But way to follow your gut. I’m sure you’ll find your way through it figure out exactly what it is that you want to do. Best of luck. Oh and the potato nachos look incredible!
Thank you very much! : )
Reblogged this on freedomveg.