My mind is swirling with the possibilities and logistics of all the different things I could do with this. There's the straight-up personal chef gig (I cook for you in your kitchen), but there are also little tangents that I'm contemplating. One being the potluck dish option: give me 24 hours notice and I'll make you a delectable dish to take to your next gathering. I could have a whole menu available for people to choose from including appetizers, side dishes, main dishes, desserts, brunch, etc. That would be incredibly easy.

I could also offer a soup service. Again, beyond easy. There's a soup service with bike delivery that is fairly popular here. They post three different kinds of soup each week on their website and you can order it directly there. They then deliver your soup with bread and a salad. It's $19 for a quart of soup and $32 for two quarts of soup. Um, that seems kind of pricey for soup - one of the cheapest things to make. But the ease of having it delivered and not having to think about it is what people pay for. Why not add a soup delivery to my offerings? I keep thinking of little things like that. I don't want to spread myself too thin, but soup is crazy easy and delicious.

The groceries I buy are mostly organic and the meats/fish are all from New Seasons, our local version of Whole Foods. The proteins are all labeled as to where they came from, if they were grass-fed, wild-caught, etc. I don't always buy organic if the option isn't readily available to me, though, so Dude suggested I say that my food is morganic - mostly organic. Yes or no? Cute or dumb?

So this week I made chicken wings and steamed broccoli and a surprisingly good rice-grain salad with dried fruit and hazelnuts for my clients. I had told them at our first meeting that I make excellent buffalo wings (my dad's special recipe). They finally asked for them, but it was the mom and the two kids who were discussing it with me and the one kid said, "Can you make them not barbecue, though? I'm tired of barbecue. Can you do something with lime?" Well, little pain in my ass, then they're not my excellent buffalo wings, are they? They're something else that I will have never made before, but if you want me to experiment on you, sure. I'd be happy to make something else. With lime. For your 11-year-old picky palate. He suggested I go to this wings restaurant that he likes and buy some sauce. I bit my tongue, but wanted to suggest that he could just go eat at that restaurant if that's what he really wanted. I know, I know - these are the clients and I cook for them. But why does the kid get to make "helpful" suggestions like that and the mom just sits and smiles? Ack.

Anyway, I made a marinade with lime juice, soy sauce, apricot jam, and a couple other things and they came out pretty good. They weren't MY wings, but they were good. And apparently, they loved them. The grain salad was my favorite part of the dinner. I used this harvest grain blend from Trader Joe's, added dried cranberries, dried apricots, crushed hazelnuts, parsley, and a dijon-balsamic vinaigrette. Dang it was good. Unfortunately, I forgot to take pictures when everything was ready and pretty. So, um, here. Here's my plate when all was said and done....

I don't think I'll be using that picture for my marketing materials.