People keep asking me when I’m going back to work. I’ve been asking myself that same question. My lawyers have been asking the French government that question too. But now it seems that there is a ray of sunshine. It will take one month and then I’m back cooking away. This is great news for me, except that the restaurant will be closed for July and August so I have a little more waiting to do.

However, I’ve become accustomed to not working. I take hour long runs through the Bois de Boulougne everyday. I sip coffee after my runs at the lake in the park and chat with other runners. I stare out and ponder what I might blog about – it’s a perpetual daydream!

I’m constantly thinking up new recipes and seeking out the freshest ingredients in the farmer’s markets to try out my latest obsession. Sometimes they work and sometimes they don’t, but just having the time to try them out is a rarity. Cooking in a restaurant seldom provides the time to think about personal style and recipes. Most of the time I find I’m so focused on getting prepared and then cooking that I don’t have time to discover my own style. Just for fun this week I’ve bought an ice cream maker, a pasta mill, and a deep fryer so I can experiment with things I’m not so familiar with.

Aside from my newfound creativiy, my fingernails have grown extra long and I take the time to polish them. The scars on my hands have started to blend in and I don’t have dark circles under my eyes anymore. I’ve lost weight from running – or at least the beefy arms and thighs that come from lifting heavy pots and pan and running up several slights of stairs throughout the day. Lookin’ good!!!

Really, I’m living this fantasy right now and all I want to do is be back in the kitchen slaving away, over a hot stove for next to no money, with people that yell and criticize, in work conditions that only insane people would enjoy.

Well, that’s it. I must be insane.

Sometimes I only have these revelations when I’m writing. Hence the need to continue my blog therapy program.

I did not get the Top Chef spot, but I did make it on the casting director’s radar and received personal email from her. She was very supportive which surprised me – I guess I figured she’d be more appathetic. It looks like they’ve taken the sous chef, Hung, from the Guy Savoy Las Vegas restaurant instead of me. The Top Chef film crew came to test him in the kitchen a week before I arrived in Las Vegas to cook, so I missed my chances. However, she did say she wanted to keep my email for the next round. We’ll see…

I’m enjoying making my own cooking videos at home. It’s fun to combine my two passions: theater and cooking. Then I can yell at my husband too when he messes up the lighting, or my close-up doesn’t look good, or he’s missed filming some part of the preparation that I can’t repeat. Yes, in my own kitchen, I am my own diva, and I like that. He doesn’t like that too much, but he gets to eat the results at the end and I’ve yet to hear a complaint!

For the next two months I plan to chase Moulins (wind mills) through France, drink wine, run, blog, make videos, visit back home, attend my sister’s wedding, sail in Croatia, bicycle in Alsace, and cook for private parties and fundraisers in Paris and San Francisco.

It’s amazing at how one can fill up the calendar without a real job! I’ve never been busier!!! Then come September it’s back to the normal 3-Star grind.