Easter FoodLove

On Sunday April 24, 2011, armed with over 400 portions of donated baked goodies, my son and I set off to Mary's Place, Anselma House and the House of Friendship in Kitchener to deliver some FoodLove to deserving folks.

The premise of FoodLove is simple... hand someone a cookie (muffin, chocolate, cake etc.) and you may just change their day.

We had a TON of INCREDIBLE people who took some time to bake us up some goodies, many of them people I had never met until they arrived at my house to drop off their donation.

Due to the sensitive situations that some of the people we were visiting are in, we couldn't take many photos. But, the boy and I were met with a lot of smiles, a few tears and even a hug from a little boy with a frosting smeared face. While I hope that the food we delivered brought some smiles, I'm sure that what Nicolas and I felt was even more profound. In the words of my small son, "I LOVE giving food".

I am so grateful for all the people who helped out with this event. It was bigger than I ever expected and it gives me even higher hopes for the next one (save the date, it's coming on August 21).

I am so grateful that I have the opportunity to involve my son in activities such as this, knowing that what he learns today will become a habit for life. There will never be a day on this Earth where a spirit of giving is not needed.

I am so grateful for all the volunteers and staff I met at the 3 different shelters... what we did took a day, volunteering like you do on a regular basis is a wonderful and selfless act. YOU ARE APPRECIATED BY MANY.

Details for the Summer FoodLove event are coming soon at www.bourbonbaker.ca

Finding Appreciation

Because of my profession, I guess I've taken it for granted that I always have a professional dishwasher to help take care of the very large mess I create. And I do mean VERY large. I've never been a one-bowl kinda girl... why use one bowl when you can use six?

One of the causes of my very large mess problem is that I am a serious muti-tasker. When I'm in the kitchen I can have 5 or 6 things baking at a time and well, those things create dishes. When I'm baking at work, no problemo, I've got a person that's assigned to just doing dishes all night long but when I'm at home... well I can't afford to hire anyone and my kids are too small for slave labour so the mess often ends up in the hands of my darling hubby.

I usually don't think about this too much, I gotta admit. I leave the place a mess; run to work, a cooking party or cake delivery and when I return it's all shiny again. I notice he's done it, I appreciate him for it but gosh, it just never occurred to me that I haven't had dishpan hands myself in months.

Until this week... hanging up the phone I grinned at him and said "50 custom cookies and a 2-tier cake" and his reaction was on the side of muttering "well isn't that just (insert profanity here) great" while walking away.

So next week, I'm giving up my dream of buying a smartphone and I'm going shopping for a dishwasher, because in the end, if I didn't have him, we wouldn't have this business at all.

Plus, he's kinda cute.