Nomad Chef Secret Restaurant

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I can’t believe exactly a month has gone by since my last post! I think I have been having too much fun, or else I’ve been very busy cooking – same thing really. Today is Thanksgiving, a special day for foodies and a particularly special day for me. My son and I spent some of our happiest days together on Thanksgivings as it was one of the only holidays that came without any baggage. It is a day all about food, our favorite shared passion. This it the 3rd Thanksgiving I will have had without him in this world. And that makes me sad. But I had a funny experience today where I thought I’d lost something in the kitchen and it turned up unexpectedly – I kind of figure he invisibly put it in my path. I’m not really sure what I believe in, but I like to think that if ever something would call him back to this earth from wherever he is it would be food. So I’m imagining him hovering and breathing in the wonderful aromas in my house, the house he never visited. He would be here now if he could be. So he must be, somewhere.

It is traditional to think of things that make us feel grateful on Thanksgiving. While growing up we used to each say something we were grateful for as we were sitting at the dinner table. I did the same thing with my son at our Thanksgiving dinners. So, I might try it tonight with the Nomad Chef dinner guests. I think there are only a couple of Americans coming tonight, it will mostly be Brits including some of my son’s friends and some of my new friends, people I’ve met since starting the Nomad Chef. I’m serving my family’s traditional oyster pie as the starter. I love serving it to people and seeing their surprised, wary regard for it. Not sure why so many people don’t like oysters. Everyone eventually tries it though, and then it is a rush to get seconds of which there aren’t any! I’m happy to have these things from my childhood that I can share with my new friends. It’s especially important to me since I don’t have my son to carry these things forward. Others will do it in his place.

I was hard pressed to think of anything to be thankful for in the other Thanksgivings I had as a newly childless mother. But this time it is different. Maybe it’s the reason I haven’t been writing here as often. I’ve been very busy with my new life. My trip to New York a couple of weeks ago, for example (my post of a month ago was in anticipation of that trip). It was the Nomad Chef’s first pop-up in Manhattan. It was truly fab.  A lot of work shopping in a city Ive never cooked in before, and doing two dinners back to back while jet lagged, 1 1/2 hours apart, one day after another. And cooking all of it in a lovely little apartment in Tribeca with a counter of about 1 1/2 feet square! Thankful for the little coffee table that we used to prep (a lovely young woman I met at one of my dinners in London accompanied me and helped me cook). Thankful that the kitchen was super clean as it had never been used before! Thankful that we did the Chelsea dinner in an amazing space. Our hosts were lovely and shared their kitchen with complete strangers. The only challenge was that it was 7 floors up in this elegant apartment building, so serving was a little more interesting than usual. And then the exact opposite, as we cooked for 35 or so in New Jersey, in an American mega kitchen that only people in the suburbs (or mega rich) possess. Thankful for the strangers who made all this possible. And this is what I am most thankful for today – since doing my secret restaurant I have met a whole new set of friends, including many of the musicians who have come to play at our dinners. Two of my favorites were both in New York and New Jersey and came to sing at those two dinners. I am truly grateful to have them in my life. You will see why if you listen to them sing here at the dinner in Manhattan. Three years into this journey of loss, I’m finally at the point where I can start seeing some of the gains. I am thankful for that. And I wish you all, Americans anyway, a happy day with those you love. I hope you can find something to be thankful for today, and everyday.

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My temporary mission in life is to travel as much as I can. But because I don’t love traveling, or at least I don’t love being a tourist or taking vacations, I must have objectives, things to accomplish in different places. Moving makes the time pass, and going to new places allows me to grow my family of strangers – my next new friends.

A couple of weeks ago a nomad from New York passing through London on a European vacation came to dinner here. She rented a room for a few nights in what she thought was London, but was really about an hour and a half from here. So when it was time to leave our dinner, “Road Trip Diaries,” it was too late to go home. What a lucky encounter! Christina slept in our guest room so we got to spend the next morning talking. The outcome was strange but wonderful.

I did a couple of Nomad Chef dinners in Beverly Hills a few weeks ago while we were on the run from our house that was overtaken by construction. Beverly Hills because there is a lovely little apartment for rent behind the glamorous house I rented last spring to do a couple of Nomad Chef dinners AND because the owner, once a stranger, has become my friend. So I told Christina, my new friend and fellow nomad, that I’d love to do some dinners in New York (the construction here is nearly finished, but not quite, so more moving) she promptly offered up her parents’ home (well, with their permission, of course).  They live in New Jersey and have a bunch of friends who would be up for a Nomad Chef food and musical evening. Part 1 of new road tour organized!

I needed to do at least one more dinner, one in New York City, in order to feel like I’d really accomplished something. This was the hard part. I don’t really know many people in New York, least of all people in this expensive city with dining rooms that would fit 25 to 30 people. Hmm… well, that is what social networks are for. I went to one of the more exclusive social networks that I belong to and sent 10 emails to 10 complete strangers, the only criteria being that they had offered their couches up to members from other places coming through town. Aha, open friendly people. I offered to cook, hostess, clean up and have amazing music and all they had to do is be the king or queen of their roost. Not bad, eh? I got 4 responses and one of them was stunning!

My new friend, still only a virtual one, wrote back that his mom always did big dinner parties so he has grown up with them and loves them too. He loved the idea of the roving Nomad Chef and took it upon himself to find a friend with enough room for our magical evening this Thursday, October 27th. He found an amazing venue in Chelsea, perfect for Alex Berger and Chrissie Poland to perform, and plenty of room for the perfect mix of strangers. And now I have yet another new, generous friend – his friend who has opened her home for our pop-up to me, a complete stranger! But it didn’t stop there. The new friend invited his parents who have also become my new friends, by virtue of some lovely email exchanges. We seem to have a strange connection with jazz and Alaska. Part 2 of new road trip organized!

Tomorrow I am off to New York, never having had so much stranger love and looking forward to meeting my new friends. In this new strange world in which I have been living the last few years, strangers have been my best friends. So very pleased to meet you! Part 3… stay tuned…

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When things are hard and life seems so unstable and I have run as fast as I can and have still not outrun my problems or my life, I go back to what works. I cook. I felt flat today, totally exhausted. I came back from a 10 day holiday in Amsterdam, Florence and then several days on Lake Como (yes, that is where the handsome George Clooney owns a home – I think he was elsewhere when I was there, maybe Venice?). The lake was incredible but the mountains that surrounded it are what called attention to it, are what made it special.

But I came home to chaos. I’m not good at traveling though I should be an expert having done it for business (and sometimes pleasure) for most of my life. It is still hard for me. I am a Taurus and like my home and what is familiar. This trip was not planned… it was a way to get away from the construction going on in my home. While I was gone the builders tore out the walls in my bedroom and the bathroom that used to hold the bathtub. These two rooms, for now, no longer exist. I came home from the airport at 10 last night to an inch of dust on the floor and walls of the entry and main hallway. Worse was the loss of my comfort, my bedroom and bathroom. My living room, kitchen and dining room are all as they were when I left them, sealed off as they were by layers of plastic sheeting and tape. But what good is a kitchen when there is no bedroom (for now)?

After spending the day cleaning up the dust so I can welcome a hen party here at the Nomad Chef for dinner tomorrow (hoping they will understand the wall of brick that was only a week ago covered with plaster and paint) and after traveling when I didn’t really feel like leaving my home in the month of the 3 year anniversary of the death of my son, the original Nomad Chef, I was running on empty.

And then I started planning the menu for the dinner. What can I cook for the starter? And what combination of cuisines do I feel like for tomorrow night’s mashup? Hmmm…. Mexican, Japanese, Singaporian and American (from the comfort food center of the southern states) feel right. I surfed cookbooks, my notes, and websites for the perfect recipes that would give me back my center. And within minutes I’d filled my tank. I was no longer running on fumes, deplete of energy by my struggle to juggle and handle and get through things – just the thought of food and the preparation of it had filled me right up. Thinking of food is almost as good as cooking it and eating it. I was off and running. Tonight I will sleep easier on my temporary bed, the couch, and tomorrow I’ll fill my tank by cooking and serving food that I love. I’ll offer that love up to a group of complete strangers. The challenges I have and the mountains I have to climb have somehow turned my half empty building site of a home into a calm clear lake next to which I can repose myself – the comfort of food.

I’m traveling again soon. There are only so many days one can go without a shower. But I’ll be home again soon and the Nomad Chef will be open for business (and for comfort). Come fill your tank on the 8^th of October when our dinner menu will be inspired by my road trip diaries.

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Last night was my last night in a week of travel in France – 3 days in Paris and 5 in La Rochelle. La Rochelle smells and feels a bit like home, Palo Alto. The air is always fresh; the wind comes straight from the Atlantic, and the temperatures are mild even in the summer. The sun seems to shine a little even on the cloudiest days. And there are little ports weaving in and out of the old town. It is a beautiful place to spend a week in a conference, even though I didn’t spend a lot of time outdoors.

But on my last night I needed dark chocolate, dark chocolate hot cocoa. Traveling alone is not easy. I don’t like walking into restaurants with only a big fat novel as my travel companion. My hotel was not in town as I was led to believe by the hotel website. It was 15 minutes away by taxi. So I was even less tempted to take the long ride into town only to talk to myself. Each night I ordered room service and ate in my room. The large windows of this renovated castle were open and the gentle breeze rustled the leaves in the trees outside. Last night, the second time in a week, I was told by the receptionist that room service wasn’t available. Come on, I said, there is a card sitting next to the bed which reads “room service menu!” I ordered in the room last night! Why offer room service if it isn’t really available? Oui, madame… but tonight the restaurant is fully booked. I wasn’t asking to eat in the restaurant. But madame, the chef is too busy. It took arguments with three different people to get something sent up to my room, and in the end it was a simple omelette with no seasoning and no accompaniments. What a pitiful dinner in country known for its cuisine. This what triggered my little depression. And my need for chocolate.

I was doing something very hard for me to do this week, challenging myself. So I needed comfort. And food is what I look for whenever things are hard. Yet, in a week here I didn’t have one amazing meal. And I really tried. Even in Paris! Well, there was one exception – my favorite Italian restaurant in the Marais, l’Enoteca. Italian food is pure comfort. France is kind of my second home after London. I spent years living here so I shouldn’t be so surprised. My feelings are just hurt. I feel like a jilted lover. I’ve been down this road before, and should have known better, but I’d been so hopeful.

If I’m honest, the food on this trip wasn’t all bad. I loved my bread, butter and jam each morning. And, of course, the hot chocolate, something I’d never have ordered unless I’d been truly desperate. But the next time I come to France I think I’ll rent an apartment and bring a separate little suitcase filled my spices and things I can’t live without. Life is hard enough without being challenged by unexceptional food, especially when you’re trying to earn your bread and butter. Next time I take the Nomad Chef on the road again with me.

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I’ve been home a few weeks now, but somehow it took until now to really feel like I’m home. Last night we hosted our first dinner concert at the Nomad Chef. We often have live music and have even done a house concert where we served canapés. But this one was special. It was a magical evening, one that inspired me in so many ways. We were packed, 24 guests, sold out days before the evening.  There were three musicians. Two of the artists came from the US to do a 10 day tour with the friend who organized it, a friend they knew from New York. It was day 2 of their tour.

HERE IS A CLIP OF THE CONCERT!

A Gig with Alex Berger, Chrissi Poland and Caleb Hawley @ Nomad Chef Music from kozue nagano on Vimeo.

The menu worked well, or so say the guests, a typical fusion of multiple cultures. We started with guacamole and chips served with Dirty Soho Mojitos, what I may start thinking of as our signature cocktail (Soho Lychee liqueur, Zacapa dark rum, lime juice, mint, sugar and sparkling water). And then we started the meal with clams with spicy black bean sauce (Chinese). I tried to get razor clams, and in fact called all over London for them. Sadly there were none. I think that those nameless people who normally dig for clams were too busy enjoying the sun on the weekend to bother with the digging. My loss… their gain. Anyway, even though the little clams weren’t exactly what I wanted, I’m sure my guests didn’t notice they were missing those elegant, long tubes that look so lovely on the plate. Next was another Mexican component, a vegetarian enchilada casserole with our signature salad dressing (grated garlic and ginger, fig balsamic vinegar, soy sauce, lemon juice and olive oil). And then a lamb Mrouzi that simmered for hours with no less than 15 freshly ground spices and tons of onions and raisins, among other typical Moroccan ingredients. And last, but not least, the pudding – crepes made with some of the lovely (and very expensive) Zacapa rum, with a hot toffee sauce and chantilly (otherwise known as whipped cream) served with the same rum, but this time served as it should be, neat.  Yummm…. You heard it here first!

Tonight was day 3 for the “US and Brit” tour, which included the same incredible musicians that graced the Nomad Chef dinner: Alex Berger, Chrissi Poland and Caleb Hawley. I’m not sure if the “US” is meant to mean the United States or just simply “us” as in “us or them” but it kind of sums up my own identity. I’m an American girl living here in the UK, a kind of honorary Brit – US and Brit. Tonight was a kind of reunion for me with them, a 24 hours later reunion where this time I got to sit and listen and watch without thinking about the food I was either cooking, plating or serving. And musically their gig tonight was a fusion of culture and genres. The little red headed wonder white girl, Chrissi Poland, sings soul music as if she has lived the pain of all of my African American ancestors. Alex Berger sings something that is pretty cross-genre but in some way reminds me of the kind of music that only legends like Barbra Streisand can pull off, and he does just that but with his own original sound and style. Then Caleb Hawley plays the frets off his guitar with one hand that seems like 2 (or more) and a voice that matches the wizardry of his instrument (the wooden one). The music tonight was a lovely dessert for me. I took a few friends and some others met me there. Though English, Alex Berger somehow feels like an American to me. He gives the best hugs of anyone I know in this country, something I imagine him learning during his 6 years in New York. So when his two friends, Chrissi and Caleb arrived and gave me a hug I felt transported into the arms of my birth country, California, where hugging is as instinctual as breathing… not so in my adopted country.

And this is where it gets a little emotional for me. There are advantages to being the busy chef and hostess when this kind of music is being sung in my beautiful conservatory, when I can hear it but don’t have the time to react. Tonight I was fully present to the words and the music. I cried a lot. Chrissi sang, “Trying to hold your heart in your hands and all it does is bleed,” and I felt she was speaking the words I feel so much of the time, “Angel Weep For Me.” My own heart is bleeding from the surgical removal of my son from this life, from my life, and there is no one who can hold the blood that pours out of my wounded heart, least of all me.  “So you call on the angels….. And you say, ‘angels wait for me,’” and that is me… asking my son the angel that he is now to wait for me. I heard this song last night, but saved the feeling and crying for tonight when I heard it for the second time.

And then, Caleb sang these words in Other Side of It, “Ever since the world began, when people go down they get right back up again.” I’m not sure that it’s true for me. I always used to get back up but I haven’t gotten right back up again from my latest and biggest blow ever, but I am sincerely trying. Maybe ‘right back up’ isn’t meant to be taken literally… maybe a space of a few years still counts as getting back up again, or maybe going out and being in the world counts too, even if it is not always completely standing. And, “I know that it’s hard to imagine, But it’s gonna happen – and I’ll see on the other side of the all.” It is hard for me to imagine getting beyond my loss, but I’m going to trust this lovely young man’s faith because I’ve lost my own.

I grew up around a lot of musicians and there were often jam sessions in my house. So it is kind of a full circle kind of thing that I now have a house where there are lots of musicians coming to play and eat; like mother, like daughter. While I was listening to the music tonight I realized that I once had a family of two, that was zeroed out when my son died. 2-1 does not equal 1. He was the whole that was greater than the sum of the parts and I was left with zero. Yet I feel the tiny little green shoots of a new family. I saw them tonight. I’ve adopted Alex into my new family and through him some of his friends. I saw many of them tonight at the North London Tavern. I need this new family. It’s one of the reasons I opened the Nomad Chef – to meet the strangers who have yet to become my friends. There will never be a replacement for my irreplaceable, beautiful, bright, creative son. But I felt his arms around me tonight, a big, tight, California hug.  The music embraced me. I cried but felt something or someone holding me.

Caleb sang another song, a Randy Newman cover, with what I could almost imagine singing myself:

A window breaks down a long dark street
And a siren wails in the night
But I’m alright cause I have you here with me
And I can almost see through the dark there is light…

Feels like I’m all the way back home where I come from

And the evening ended with the three beautiful musicians singing James Taylor’s, You Got a Friend…“You just call out my name and I’ll be there.”  I wondered who was really singing to me tonight? Was it my very own little angel, my son, who wanted me to know that he’s always here with me even when I can’t feel him? Sometimes I have to listen to the music to hear him between the notes. For a little while tonight it felt like I was all the way back home where I came from and that he was here with me.

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I’m home from about a month away – back from the Nomad Chef road trip. I guess I’m no good at doing more than one thing at once. Can’t walk and chew gum. Can’t travel and write. Well, I’m a bit of a disappointment to myself in that regard. I should have been writing and posting little vignettes the whole time. But I was too busy traveling, cooking and eating….er, umm… and drinking too. But I’m back! And I’ve got a whole new perspective.

The Nomad Chef: Mouths Wide Shut (dinner) was a revelation. Two days before the dinner only 7 people had reserved seats, probably 6 of them my son’s friends and the 7^th perhaps a friend of one of my co-chefs. But by the end of the flight (yes, Virgin America has internet and powerpoints!), a 5 hour flight, the number climbed to 22! I rushed to turn off the ticket registration function. Sold out! Wow, what a difference a few hours and the anticipation of failure can make! As I was driving from the airport to the beautiful house I rented for our week in Beverly Hills, I made a few calls (of course, on my hands free!) and somehow managed to organize the rental of more tables and chairs. I love how things work in California (or at least in LaLa land) – last minute incredible service. And I reopened the ticketing function on our website. In hours we were up to 35 people. Who were all of these people? No doubt, friends… of friends, and strangers who had yet to become my friends. In the end we had about 40 people! And I personally knew less than 10 of them! Now I know them all!

The house was truly amazing. An old school Beverly Hills home set on tree lined Rodeo Drive. It was purchased by the current owner’s father in 1941, from Joseph Kennedy (yep, JFK’s dad!). And I doubt anything has changed since then. Beautiful paintings on the wall are the only ones who can still remember the titillating conversations that must have been had there in the 30s and 40s among icons that included Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, Frank Sinatra and John Kennedy. We felt like film stars and famous producers ourselves in this magical home. And the owners were on hand to lend their hands for every step of our new, if temporary, life in LA.

Lovely appetizers were prepared by a beautiful actress and co-chef; European influences to complement the mostly Asian fusion repas. Then raw oysters and oyster pie were the first course of this erotic dinner. (Side note: Earlier in the week I was forced to wonder at some of the reactions of would-be dinner guests. Apparently a few had asked the friend’s of friends who’d invited them about what to expect with a theme that was clearly a nod to Kubrick. “It’s just a dinner party where girls get to wear high heels,” I responded a little too forcefully (due to shock). Were they really expecting me to invite my son’s friends to some kind of fettish party? Hmmm… There are certainly some differences between Beverly Hills and London.) I’d carefully prepared and frozen the Nomad Chef special green curry paste which I used for the 2^nd course (Thai green curry with shitake mushrooms); not exactly erotic but one of our standards that I wanted to share with my new friends. Next was either steak au poivre or tofu with a peanut mole sauce and assorted side dishes. But the crowning glory was prepared by one of my co-chefs: a chocolate trio of dark truffles with sea salt, home made chocolate ice cream with chipotle peppers and a chocolate cookie. These provided a truly orgasmic end to a dinner that lasted into the wee hours of the night.

So, I’m home again, jiggity jig. And happy to be here. It is only by leaving that we often appreciate even more what we’ve left behind. In true Nomad fashion I will look forward to future road trips. The next one will include Napa Valley. Although I came home to a house that is still empty of my son’s physical presence, I felt him in all of his old haunts. While struggling in LA as an actor he had even cooked for someone who lived right around the corner from the house I rented in Beverly Hills. I felt his presence everywhere. Now that I’m home again I will be conjuring his spirit in all of the Nomad Chef dinners here. I’m sure his spirit is as nomadic as he was, just as I am. We were both happy on the road and happy at home.

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The Nomad Chef road show, road movie prep continues. On Tuesday I flew with a cameraman and all of his beautiful equipment, to capture some footage of Susana, my beautiful fellow traveler on this journey. Tools are a very important part of the trade – whether cooking or shooting a film. In a screenplay, this part of the film is called the set up. It is where we see the characters in the world where the story takes place. It is how we, the audience, get to know the characters. And for the first 10 minutes of a film we get an idea of what the theme of the film is about. Sometimes there is a slow start. Life is in balance. But we know that something is coming. The rug is pulled out from under the protagonist. That’s me. Not even a week into filming and a rug was pulled out.

Some films start with a big action scene, like in James Bond movies. But how dramatic can a documentary about two women of a certain age trying to re-invent themselves on a road trip be? We’re not talking about Thelma and Louise here. Susana is rebounding from a relationship where she put her singing career on hold for 5 years, and I’m trying to find a way to fill the hole that was created with the loss of my son. I thought I’d document our journey to New York, Los Angeles and Silicon Valley – the destinations providing wonderful backdrops for what is really an inner journey that sometimes for one, and often for the other, is a bleak and lonely trek. The trip is supposed to be fun, a reward for having survived difficult things. We’ve gathered a few minor characters into the mix, a couple of people who heard about the adventure and wanted to visit these iconic locations. I am, by default, the tour guide.

After Berlin, where Susana is hoping to live at least half time and where she has found a new manager, our plan was to meet again in Madrid, her birth home. I’ve never been there and neither had the cameraman. Susana was our host. Day 1 of the 3 of us being together. The first day of a 2 ½ day trip – simple prep (in food speak, but translate to flim speak, i.e., cutaway shots)… a little background. Two hours after we’d arrived and had eaten at a little restaurant on a beautiful square where I was assured that I could find something vegetarian (a much bigger challenge in Spain than in most other southern European countries), we jumped into the cab. Next stop, Susana’s recording studio.

The cameraman leaps out of the cab to run into a little shop for batteries for the microphones. Susana pays the taxi driver and she and I leisurely get out. Just as it was driving away the cameraman shouts, “Hey, where’s my equipment?” We thought he had it with him. He assumed we were guarding it. The taxi thinks (perhaps) he might have found a hidden treasure in the trunk of his car. Cut to CHASE SCENE: The cameraman runs down the street screaming after a white taxi (they are all white in Madrid). Susana jumps into another taxi to take chase. And I am left standing on a street corner in a city I’ve never even visited before.

Two days later, after a visit to the police station, 50 calls to taxi companies and the lost objects number, there is still no sign of the equipment. It is all insured, but not likely to be replaced by Monday when leg two of our journey begins. I have a plan B and a plan C, but no one likes to lose their stuff even when it is insured. We lost about 24 hours of what was meant to be a lovely tour of Madrid, good restaurants and a chance to see how well we hang out together. I know about loss. There is no insurance for what I’ve lost. But that doesn’t make anyone else feel any better.

The only short-term solution I can think of to lighten the mood is a good meal. It always works for me. Food is love and comfort. I needed both. We ate at ESTADO PURO, “pure state” where  Paco Roncero is the chef. He is a former student and business partner of the famed El Bulli’s Ferran Adria. Great food is my secret remedy. These nuevas tapas (nouvelle cuisine in tapas) righted for me most of what was wrong. My cameraman was still feeling the loss of his stuff, but even he laughed and smiled while we ate. I’m sure it helped a ton that we sat at the bar next to a beautiful young French actress sitting all by herself. She’d just finished a day of shooting for a TV commercial. We lost some tools but found new friends – nuevos amigos. And she wants to find a house in Paris for the traveling Nomad Chef to do one of our traveling dinners. It is true that some losses are irreplaceable. But there are others that are not as serious and can lead to surprising encounters and lovely new friends. All good films, like lives, include losses. We just started having them at the very beginning of the journey. I guess it is all about how we tell our stories that is important, how we find something to hold onto. Maybe the rug was pulled out from under us, but we’re on a magic carpet ride and… we’re flying.

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Perhaps I should start at the beginning of the end of the last blog post? So much has happened since then I can hardly catch my breath. The Nomad Chef celebrated its one year birthday on the 14^th of February. But instead of having a dinner on Valentine’s Day as we did for our very first dinner as the Nomad Chef, I organized the celebration dinner around 2 friends who flew into town for the weekend from California. They deserved a great party, and that is exactly what we had! The Nomad Chef: no-Mad Men (and crazy women) themed dinner was amazing. Everyone came dressed in their beautiful 60s personas. Beautiful women and gorgeous men sipped whiskey sours and raspberry Soho Mojitos. I’m told the highlight of the evening was the steak au poivre (incredible marbled filet mignon from Jack O’Shea’s butcher at Selfridges), that we nearly burned down the house with as we ignited the brandy! The evening ended at around 1 am, when those of us remaining shot over to Camden where we danced into the wee hours of the night. February 14^th was also Alex Berger’s (our wonderful entertainment for the night) album’s (Snow Globe) 1 year birthday as well. What a great night of celebrating both of our birthdays!

We had our Chinese New Year’s dinner on the 2^nd of February. At the dinner I met Daniel Bucher. I had no idea he was a professional chef, a molecular chef no less! Glad he didn’t tell me until after the dinner, at which point he mentioned that he was having a pop up dinner in Berlin on the 25^th of February. Would I like to come? Hell yeah I wanted to come. A complete stranger invites me to a dinner in an unknown location in Berlin… that epitomizes the fun and spirit of this secret dining experience. Lucky for me a Spanish friend of mine was moving to Berlin 2 days before, so I’d have someone to go with. I got the date wrong and ended up flying in just in time for the dinner… or so that was the plan. But in my excitement I left my passport at home and my boyfriend had to drive it to me in my Smart car, a little putt putt that didn’t putt nearly fast enough for me to catch my plane. So I took a 2 hour train ride to another airport, and finally arrived at the dinner at 10 pm. Perfect timing – the only thing I’d missed were the meat appetizers, and everything after that point was vegetarian. Perfect timing!

I love Berlin. It represents so many things, only some of which are visible whenever you see that amazing wall. Old world and modern fuse so seamlessly in this city brimming with creativity but minus all of the noise and traffic of London. Daniel’s pop up was difficult to find. After a few false starts, I found it through a courtyard on a street filled with galleries and up a glass lift. There was sign whatsoever of what I might be walking into. Daniel took the modern open plan office to a whole other level by building a movie studio like set filled with bistro tables and self made lamps, making this incredibly modern space feel cozy and intimate for the 40 of us who were there. The food is impossible to describe but mouth wateringly delicious. According to the chef, “The emphasis is not on the menus, but on the guests.” The guests were great and the experience was wonderful. I have now dubbed Berlin the California of Germany. There were so many hugs, and I was astonished to learn that Daniel had told people the Nomad Chef was coming all the way from London to dinner. I felt like a celebrity, but the honor was 100% all mine! He is a freelance chef and has very big plans for Pangram’s Kitchen. What is a pangram, you might ask? I had to look it up myself: it is a piece of text which uses every letter of the alphabet, usually in one sentence. Like this one: “Pack my box with five dozen liquor jugs.” Daniel is my new friend, as are so many I have met in my Nomad Chef adventures.

Another adventure began in Berlin as well. I will tell you more about it as it unfolds. But here is the teaser – the Nomad Chef is on the road. I will be cooking Madrid, Los Angeles and New York. I am traveling with my friend Susana as I attempt to re-invent my life. Again. The Nomad Chef was the first step. The next will include a documentary I am making about how I survive the most difficult challenge in my life, my new life without my son, and how others bounce back from difficulty and achieve their dreams.Cooking has been my great escape and at the same time a healing potion.  My son had a similar, but maybe even more intense relationship with food. And we both had travel in our blood. So what could be better than combining food and travel? On my trip I will be retracing some of the adventures of the original Nomad Chef, my son, while creating some of my own. And in so doing, I am sure my little buddy will be whispering recipes and encouragement in my ear. The Nomad Chef, my life and travels and this documentary are my hommage to him.

I look forward to posting little video clips here so you can follow our adventure. Next stop – Madrid. My road trip, road movie has begun. If you are in LA on the 26^th of March, then join us!

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Last week I cooked for our Nomad Chef: Sensuous, Sexy, South Beach dinner… drawing on my old Latin lovers … Cuban, Mexican and a new one, brought along by a new friend (Jaime, a Peruvian, who came with a dish that had a Portuguese and Brazilian twist). It was hot, hot, hot and spicy… and very warm – these strangers who are my new friends.

And the next day the Nomad Chef catered for 200 people who attended the book launch of a woman who I met for the first time two months after my son died. Looking for something that would really feed my actor/writer/chef’s creativity (though at the time he was disguised temporarily as an internet evangelist working for my company), I found a 2 week writing workshop in Croatia and gave him that for his birthday present. His last birthday.  He was thrilled at the chance to travel to Eastern Europe again, where he was convinced lived the prettiest girls in all of Europe. I wanted to support  his talent… It was a chance for him to re-ignite his writing passion. Anne Aylor was the writing coach for this two-week sojourn. I remember hearing she and her husband tell me about how he turned up at the boat that would ferry the writers to their little island tranquility at the very moment the boat was about to pull away. He’d fallen asleep on the beach. They told me stories about how he was the highlight (I think they used a word like sunshine) of the writing group that was dominated by women of a certain age and a couple of misfits like my tall, gorgeous son and a young man just a little more than half his age. I didn’t know his bonds with these strangers were so strong – not until they reached me at my office 2 months after he’d died. He hadn’t answered their email. How could he? He was gone by then.

So I adopted this lovely couple that were much closer to my own age. They came to visit me in my empty office, filled with 20 or so beings – but missing the sunlight of my son – bearing poetry and tears. What do you call the borrowing of the almost friends of someone who is already gone? Adoption doesn’t quite capture it. Maybe a better word is “appropriated.” Yes. I took them as I did a few of my son’s other artifacts: his ipod and iphone and box of writings, along with the hat he left on the coat rack when he last left the house. This couple were now mine, part of my inheritance. I slowly got to know them, inviting them to big and small dinners. They remind me of the self I am working on, the inner, hidden creative. And they remind me of how great and loved my son was. I’m the writer now in my family of one. Did I inherit that too? Or did I give it to him only to have it given back to me? Anyway… Anne and her husband wanted the Nomad Chef (moi!) to cater for Ann’s book launch. And I did it with so much pleasure, realizing that I had succeeded in working my way into their lives as my son had done, although he had done it instantly with his sunny smile and warm heart. It was a family affair. I felt him there with me in the menu planning, the two days of cooking and then the 5 hours of serving.  I follow in his footsteps even though my path is in a different world.

One of the things I cooked for both of the dinners last week included cinnamon. I didn’t even think to check whether I had enough of it. Ground cinnamon was one of 17 spices that were to go into the stuff I rubbed on the chicken before grilling it on skewers; 250 skewers. But the jar was almost empty. This was a jar, one of many, that I’d inherited from my son’s spice cabinet. I count on these spices to help me feel connected to him when I cook. His fingers have touched these spices. But the jar of memory had run out. It was a little death, a jolt. I couldn’t face going to the spice shop on Portobello Road to replace something so full of memory, something that, when missing, had nearly emptied me out. It was then he came to me. Yes, “he.” I’m sure of it now. I’d purchased some cinnamon sticks a few weeks before. And it suddenly hit me that I could take them and grind them into powder. Relief.  Though there were little bits of imperfection in my freshly ground cinnamon powder, it blended perfectly with its new friends – just as I try to do with the strangers who are becoming my new friends. Unrefined ingredients are somehow so much more intense. And maybe a little difficult. Yet they can leave a strong and lasting impression… like my son. I may be a pale reflection of him as the second Nomad Chef, but he has passed on his legacy to me in the form of spices. And I pass them on, like a Nomad who finds great stuff and passes it on.

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