Cooking demo at William Sanoma with Barbee Farms

To help spread the word about local farms and supporting area farmers markets, I invited Brent Barbee from Barbee Farms in Concord, NC to join me during a cooking demo. If you've been following along, you will remember that I've done a few cooking demos at William Sanoma. It's been a great platform for self promotion and to meet some great people.

This morning, Brent picked some seasonal produce from their 25 acre farm and met me at the "WS". He explained his family's farm, what they offer and where they sell their goods. I can only hope that everyone will take advantage of being able to buy some of his great produce before the season is done!

Check out a few pictures:

Update...garden and moving on...

So, as you can see below, the garden is doing extremely well. The jersey cows in Marshville where I buy the best duck eggs and goats milk are happy as can be eating their spring grasses.

Although I'll see the cows again, I won't be seeing the garden I planted unless my old sous chef takes pictures and sends them to my phone, lol.

Since writing my last blog, I took an amazing new job for a management group that runs a successful business. My immediate boss [actually] supports his manager(s) directly and puts in an honest days work. So, for instance, if I have to work 60+ hours, he'll be their at least that much, and not hitting the door to leave me hanging. Kinda cool, if you ask me. Its my opinion that you should work together as a management team. This is the secret to a long and happy career for you and your fellows. For the ones that like to work half days or 20 hours a week less than every other salaried manager, I feel sorry for those kinda people because those kind of people live a charade that will eventually catch up to them (one would hope).

A friend said to me recently that life is all about the journey. Lord knows I've been enjoying an amazing journey. Since those early days of washing dishes in a little diner to feeding 1500 kids twice a day to multi-course fine dining to changing lives of a few red-necks with my famous meatloaf, life continues to be just awesome and amazing every day I am blessed to wake up!

If someone stresses you out, just smile and wave. If you cant imagine working one more minute longer because your hips, back and joints are killing you, just remember that you are doing this because you love it and this is what you signed up for! Besides, you can sleep in when you meet your maker, right?

Hard to believe I am moving on to a new chapter in my career novel. Those of us that stuck it out, we accomplished a lot and I will miss (most) those that walked the chapter with me. Good luck sous chef! I've SO MUCH enjoyed working with you, you've been a rock and I wish you well.

Peace to the good ones.