So I spend my days in a kitchen now, a pretty big and busy kitchen! I work with a very large and diverse staff from countries and cultures all over the world and its fabulous. Well, mostly it is. Many various languages are spoken in our kitchen and English is definately only one of them. Coming from a long line of English speaking family, indigenous to Salt Lake City, Utah, with only my 6 years of Junior High and High school French, I am at a distinguished disadvantage when it comes to clear communication at work.
As Chefs working together, good communication is essential in the kitchen. In fact, now that I think about it, good communication is essential in all aspects of life. But currently, for the sake of my career, I am saving up for the Rosetta Stone. All I have to do is decide which to learn first, Spanish, Bosnian or Vietnamese! Any of them would be a good start.
Today was a little slower day than most Saturdays in my kitchen, but it is amazing how ‘not speaking the same language’ can put a snag in an otherwise smooth service. There were just three of us on my station today. Mama Than is my supervisor, a tiny little bit of a person that carries a big…knife. She is Vietnamese and 71 years old, she speaks, and understands, almost no English. Luisa is from Argentina, she speaks Spanish and Portuguese. Luisa speaks a little more English than Mama, but understands about the same. So my chances of misunderstanding them and vice versa, are huge. Also, at 5’4″ I am probably a foot taller than Mama and a good 4 inches talker than Luisa. I am like the jolly green giant of Garde Manger with them. So as the newest member of the group, I am often feeling like the big, obnoxious, American. Like I said, fabulous.
Anyhoo, here is todays riddle, how many little chefs does it take to find the horseradish? Mama asks Luisa to make creamy horseradish, but Luisa comes back and says she can’t find any raw horseradish. Mama misunderstands and again, tells Luisa that is why she needs to make the horseradish. I am watching and listening to them go back and forth, round and round, and it reminds me of the old ‘whose on first?’ routine. I am understanding the disconnect here. I jump in to try to clarify. Luisa is nodding furiously at Mama as I try to explain her problem. But Mama doesnt understand me either. So she throws up her hands and walks off saying something in Vietnamese, with Luisa trailing behind her, speaking in a very fast Spanish. I go back to what I was doing. Then Luisa reappears, calling my name. After a minute I get that she wants me to come help her out with Mama and the horseradish. I walk back to the cooler with her to find Mama climbing the shelves looking for horseradish. Suddenly they are both talking to me loudly, in their respective languages. I say, in my best American, “geez Louise! Its like the United Nations back here. How many chefs does it take to find the horseradish!” With that, they are both quiet, looking at me. And then, Luisa says in her cute little Argentinian voice, “Dee, what geezy leweezy?” I begin to laugh. Soon we are all laughing. I find the horseradish and we all go back to work.  Crisis averted.
It seems that laughter is the language we all understand. Thank goodness and…Bon Appétit! (…there’s that French!)

Yes, I will seriously date myself with this post, but here I go anyway.  In the last few months I have been concerned primarily with completely re-starting my personal career.  The need to do this was predicated by the traumatic loss of my previous career of 27 years with Wells Fargo Bank in 2015.

The loss of my job and my livelihood was unexpected and complicated and unfair.  I spent an entire year struggling to keep a career I had built over my entire adult life and that provided the income needed to take care my family.  It has been an
unfortunate roller coaster ride that crippled me and my family financially and emotionally. 
Many friends and loved ones sent their good wishes and words of encouragement to me during the year and they were greatly appreciated.  One of the messages I received repeatedly was “One day you will look back on this experience and laugh because it was all for the best.”    Okay, so currently, I  am about halfway there.  I am laughing at the situation because #1, it feels better than the alternative and B, it makes me feel stronger and braver as I move ahead into new territory.  Make no mistake, the loss of my job and all that came with it in 2015, broke me into irreparable pieces emotionally.  Pieces too small to put back together in the end, so I had to build something new to be able to walk away.  But also, in the end, I have always been able to find the humor in most everything that happens to me.  I refuse to let that part of me be lost too.

So yes, I am old enough to say I watched The Brady Bunch on TV when they were not reruns.  If you don’t know anything about the Brady Bunch, I am sorry for you and you will have to Google it.  For everyone else, remember the one where the boys were told, “Don’t play ball in the house” and they did anyway?   And then what happened? Yep, they broke the lamp in the living room.  That is me!  I am the broken lamp!  See, if they had done the right thing in the first place, the way they had been trained to do, it never would have happened.  But instead they did exactly what they wanted to and CRASH!  Broken lamp, broken me! 
I was as broken as that damn lamp when I lost my job.  I did not see it coming and was stunned when it did because everyone knows that Mom always says, “Don’t play ball in the house!”  Because I knew the rules and I followed them.  But then, do you remember what those boys did after they broke the lamp?  Did they come clean and tell the truth?  NO!  They tried to glue the freaking lamp back together so no one would know and put it right back where it was and acted like nothing happened. 
Like I said before, that is exactly what happened to me!  There I was broken to pieces, and suddenly I had to put myself back together and go right back to where I was at Wells Fargo and act like nothing had happened.  But no one came clean, and no one told the truth…except me.  And just like me the Brady Bunch lamp ended up telling the truth, because in the end, the covered up, and glued together version gave way and fell apart.  Now here is where I was different than the lamp, I held up, I was strong…until I was hit again.  More ball in the house!  And this time, I was smashed into pieces that could not be put together again.
But I fell apart where no one could see.  So at Wells Fargo, they are still playing ball, in the house no less.  It took several weeks to realize that I was the Brady Bunch lamp.  But where those boys had to come clean and tell the truth, Wells Fargo and those that played a part, still refuse to do so. But Karma is a constant watch man and as I have been told many times, “the truth will always out and you will reap as you sow.”  Take it from the Brady Bunch Lamp.

That said, I had to rebuild and create a new life for myself and my kids. Because just like that stupid lamp, they look to me to light the way.  As their mother, I want to be an example of strength, integrity and resiliency for them.  I want them to know that we can weather any storm, especially when we take the high road.  It starts with changing your mind and letting go of the past to start over again.  So I did.

It is the hardest work I have ever done both physically and emotionally.  I see a therapist for both.  The good news is that I find myself happy and under so much less stress than before.  My health has improved as well.  The bad news is that financially, progress is slow.  When you start over you start at the bottom and work your way up.  Trust me, I have done it before and I pray I can do it again now. 
The fact is I am not 22 or even 32 this time around.  I am 50 next month and believe me, I feel every single minute of my age.  I am putting in 9 to 15 hour days on my feet in the kitchens. Training to become a chef, and actually being a chef are two very different things.  I come home and flop into bed with the jimmy legs and already half asleep.  I wake up  the next morning with nothing short of rigor mortis setting in.  I crack and limp my way around like the Tin Man from the Wizard of Oz.  But this is the path ahead.  I am committed to see it through.

Life rolls on, you see.  It is full of unexpected joys and sorrows.  Your current situation can change in a moment.  You have be willing, if not ready, to roll with it or you will be left broken on the side of the road. Don’t let anyone put your light out, be brave and take the high road…and please, don’t play ball in the house. 

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