So it’s confession time. I suppose it’s a confession or maybe an admission of my faults. As you can see from the blog posts, I haven’t done much here in months. Moving from one part of the world to the other isn’t an excuse, though finding time to set up camera equipment and work over recipes until they’re spot on while filming is a pain. Especially while moving from airbnb to hotel and back.

We’re finally settled into our new home in jolly Ol’ England and I’m readjusting again. Settling into a new kitchen and pantry, finding the markets, and discovering new restaurants. Whole sections of supermarkets are cordoned off with tons of products so they’re easy to find in one spot and you don’t have to search every single aisle for that one thing you can eat that won’t cause a literal pain in the ass later. Dairy free sections, wheat/gluten free sections, cold/freezer sections, bread and biscuits (cookies to us Yanks), you name it! Very happy living in a country where I don’t have use Google Translate or simple guessing to determine if something I’m eating has an ingredient that will come back to haunt me later. Plus, there’s the added luxury of seeing every ingredient in a product with the usual allergens listed in bold letters. Even restaurants are super accommodating and there are Free From festivals all over the UK! (Ahem, US of A: get your shit together!)

But I digress. The reason for this post is because I admit to being scared. We’ve relied on my husband’s military career for income and now that he’s retired but working as a civilian contractor, things have changed. If my youngest wants to attend school on base next year, it’s no longer free. It will cost the equivalent of a college tuition and we’ll already have one son attending college at the same time. There’s the option of the UK schools, though the curriculum is quite different. So it’s back to work for me. However, I really, really want to make this blog work out. I’ve loads of ideas for videos and pics and my recipe list is growing pretty much daily. My fear is that I’ll be uselessly talking into the void. That I don’t know what I’m doing. That I need more training (obviously, I do). I’m not a trained chef nor a nutrition expert, so who’s going to listen to me? Even with all the research I’m doing and daily tweaking of recipes to make sure substitutions are working, it’s never enough. It may never BE enough as there are new options for allergen free cooking every day.

I just want to help someone else so that they don’t have to go thru the headaches I did to find things to eat. I have more friends every day asking, “What the fuck can I eat?!” after a visit to the doctor reveals limitations. Or when they have a child newly diagnosed with an allergy the rest of their family doesn’t have and all of a sudden, life turns upside down. It’s disheartening to learn to cook all over again. I get that. But it can also be rewarding and a fun challenge.

Yesterday, I started watching a show on Netflix called “Cook Your Ass Off!”, a short-lived reality show which consisted of nutrition chefs competing to win a contract with individuals who need to change their eating habits. It wasn’t rated very well, but I learned a few things in how these chefs worked and it’s given me new hope that I CAN do this too. But I’m scared out of my flipping mind!

Making this finally work will mean more discipline on my part and getting over myself. Like I need to know that even if I fail, I can offer a hilarious view of that failure. Some recipes work and others don’t but I just need to document them. This is all supposed to be a journey (how trite does that sound??). I need to be authentically me: someone who enjoys the hell out of food and food science but is limited to loving some of it from behind a glass barrier. Showing others that I’m basically a dog licking a window and that I have very real foibles. That’s why you all love me in the first place, right? 😉

For now, I AM crying out into the void, looking for confidence, and maybe just needing a hug to know I’m on the right path. Plus pointers on online nutrition programs. And window cleaners…

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