I am still recovering from this and I just haven’t had any time, energy, or brain juice to post this week.   But…if you feel like hanging out live & in person I will be rocking out tonight @ Bar Cento for the Female Rockers Rock & Roll Wine Project.  So come out and see your favorite WIDOW!!!

For you visual enjoyment:

My Catcher man in all his T ball glory

The Chef somehow finds time to coach

*******UPDATED BELOW*******

This weekend was a rager.  It kicked off with a fun little after hours @ Cento after working all night.  We were there till 6am.  We were celebrating something totally AWESOME, however you’ll have to wait a few more weeks to find out what.  Saturday morning, ca 9am, the kiddies came home and I was grumpy.  Chef’s Widow + No Sleep = Jerkface.  The chef headed into work early because he would later be leaving to accompany me to the Iron Chef’s house to party with some bad ass famous women chefs in town for the SOS dinner.  The kids & I had a princess party to attend.

I packed up the car and headed to the BFF’s house.  It was 90 freaking degrees and I wasn’t sweating out all the Cantillon I had been drinking just a few hours before.  Mom of the year award coming soon.

Party time w/ the widow kids

Catcher had a blast, in fact Lou had a blast too.  She was sampling all sorts of pasta salads and grass and she couldn’t be more content.  By the time we had to leave Catcher had met some older ladies who decided that his nails would look better painted pink.  And you know what?  They did.

I dropped the kids off at the in laws and headed downtown to pick up the chef.  I was running late, big surprise, and I almost missed eating the delicious food catered at Symon’s.  Luckily I’ve got an in and chef hooked me up with some pork & beans.   Our plan was stay until 12, head back to the restaurant, close, and head home.  Needless to say that did not happen.  We walked into a house full of super bad ass chick chefs that my chef has looked up to ever since he started in the industry.   He was in heaven.  Then things got even better when the Iron Chef asked my chef to host the after hours of the SOS Dinner at Bar Cento.  We closed up shop around 2am, headed home around 3am, and woke up at 9am to prepare for T-ball, family anniversary dinner party, and the big after hours for a bunch of fantastic female chefs.

Sunday was awesome.  It made my year.  It may have made the chef’s life.  We took the kids to Catcher’s T-ball game.  I think.  At that point sleep deprivation started to kick in.  Then we took the entire family down to Cento to celebrate the anniversary of the chef’s parents.  I had to work for the after hours but was able to sit down and eat some super yummy buckwheat pasta and clams with the fam.

Louisiana the Beautiful & Catcher the Great

By 4, the kids were loaded into the in laws car and the chef and I got ready for the big night.  We had no idea what we were in for.

By 10pm, 8 of the most accomplished women chefs in the country were sitting at the Chef’s bar eating his delicious food.

SOS Dinner After Party @ Bar Cento

By 11pm, three of the women became Cento’s newest dj’s, spinning awesome vinyl for the duration of the night.

April Bloomfield, Celina Tio, Anita Lo, & the Chef’s Arm

By 12am, the Chef & the Iron Chef were having a competition.  Celina Tio taught them how to saber a bottle of bubbly with a giant knife.  She perfected it.

Symon got it (for the most part), ******UPDATE*****  Mike Symon just called to let me know that he DID in fact saber the bottle 100% perfectly and my Chef, well not so much:

Chef’s Neckless Bottle

By 2am, Mr. and Mrs. Symon decided to call it a night.  By 2.01am, the lady chef’s decided that even though they all had early flights they were going to stay and kick it.  The Chef was freaking ecstatic.  By 3am, Anita, Celina, & Karen had taken over the kitchen to make pizza.  It was pretty fucking cool.  I thought the chef was going to pass out.

April Bloomfield, Jonathon Sawyer, & Karen DeMasco

Seriously though, how many people go into a career and ever get to meet, let alone hang out with the people they admire, the people that inspire them.  Very few.  Especially in this industry.  I could NOT have been happier for the Chef.  Seeing these awesome women (in an industry full of men) come up on top and then having them be a part of the Chef and his restaurant was overwhelming.  Awe inspiring.

In the kitchen with Jonathon Sawyer, Karen DeMasco, Anita Lo, Celina Tio, & Skippy

By 4am kisses and hugs and business cards and chef love was spreading like wildfire.  Cabs were called, the chefs were squeezed into tiny cars, and my Chef was on cloud nine.  By 5am the Chef and I were at home.  I laid in bed and the chef came in.  I told him to get into bed and he told me he needed time to think about the night.  He sat on our porch for a half hour, drank a glass of red, came back into our room, woke me up (begrudgingly I did), and told me this:

” The best day of my life was when I married you.  The second best days of my life were the kids being born.  Tonight was the third.”

By 8am, I was wide awake thinking about his words, thinking about the night and how it would forever change his (and our) life.

By 10am, the kids were home and life was perfect.

And….

I almost forgot.  In the midst of all the famous people I got to meet Grady Sizemore.  And I never really thought he was that cute on TV.  But in real life…..WHOA, he’s a looker.

Celebrating something I can’t yet speak of…..

I jumped on the corporate bandwagon and bought myself an iPhone.  I had been waiting to get a new phone since my contract with the Devil ended last winter.  I just wasn’t sure what to get and who to go with.  But that all changed when word of the 3g was released.  My buddy Kyle had the first one and was convinced that I needed the phone so I could live blog, keep the chef’s schedule, and have Internet access at ALL times.

I am now a zombie.  I check my email on my phone when my computer is 2′ away.  It’s hella silly but I freaking love it.  I don’t even care that big brother has access to my location at ALL times.  The first time I realized this was when my phone asked me if I wanted to mark down the location of a picture I was taking.  I had no idea wtf that meant so I said yes and soon enough the exact address of my location was displayed.  Scary.  The feds got their eye on all of us now.

But besides the whole invasion of privacy thing the iPhone has really helped me out.  Granted I still have no idea how to blog from it but….the map application can really help a girl out when she’s lost in East Cleveland.  It’s a tricky place that eastside.

Lou may be a sickie but she still knows how to hang like one of the boys

Biggie Smalls & CatcherCrazyFace attempt to play with a balloon while fighting the sickness.

My poor kids.  Both have fevers and poor Lou is so sad.  My heart is breaking (as well as my back as I fell down the CMA steps yesterday).  The chef & I pulled an all nighter.  Biggie won’t eat, won’t sleep, won’t smile.  Damn you influenza!  Damn you!

*****UPDATE*****

After a grueling day of no sleep and very loud crying Lou has finally gone to sleep.  It is now 10pm and she had been awake for over 24 hrs.  The docor told us that not only is she cutting 2 more teeth, she also has a superbad ear infection.  I am now drinking a very LARGE glass of red wine (w/ ice…don’t tell the chef).

In the past few weeks I have had such an outpouring of support regarding this blog that I simply must let you all know how awesome it feels and how grateful I am for such a kick ass group of readers.

After this post, I received the most comments ever and I would have to say that 99% of them were positive.  Which is always nice.  Lord knows I have had my share of bleach blond nitwits who never have a nice (or intelligent) thing to say.  You guys were articulate and passionate about a city that has so much potential and so much talent.  I have something in the works regarding the lack of intelligent coverage of our food community.  More details to come soon.

Within moments of writing this I received countless emails regarding their own experiences with such an evil drug.  The letters were kind, thoughtful, and inspiring.  They brought me out of the funk I was deeply in.  It always helps one’s soul to know that there are normal people just like yourself going through (and getting through) something so devastating and heartbreaking.  Plus hearing all of the positive outcomes of being clean & sober really brings me hope.  And I need hope.  Cause all I have right now is hate.  And that is just unacceptable.

And the coolest thing ever.  Meeting some of my super rad readers at this chef studded event and out and about in Cleveland (Hey Joan, Nancy, and Natalie!).  I must say that meeting my readers is sometimes daunting to me.  I get nervous and second guess absolutely EVERY word I write.  But putting real human faces to people who support me, the chef, and this blog is superbad.  {As is awesome}

I am a lucky chiquita.  Sometimes I am a stressball.  And sometimes I say the f word.  But that’s ok because the support system I have from all my peeps makes it all worth it.  Thanks for rocking my world.

Impossibly awesome…not to mention badass (see above pic for proof).

Check out Mike & friends on Food Network tonight @ 11pm for the premier of Dinner Impossible (the show that my chef happens to appear on a few times).  Cheers!

“The Summer looks out from her brazen tower, Through the flashing bars of July”