ChefLuna.com

Yesterday I enjoyed the opportunity to share Luna Needs a Miracle! with students from Del Roble Elementary. What an amazing experience!

I was particularly impressed with their questions. They learned that I was going on a bicycle trip and they wanted to hear more about it. (If you’re curious, you can visit my blog: www.crosscountrychef.blogspot.com)

The photos do a great job of showing how excited they were. They didn’t believe I was nervous, but I was because, as one of the students said, “there’s eighty of us, there’s one of you.” They were pretty smart.

I was mentioned in Atlanta’s Creative Loafing and so was “Luna Needs a Miracle!” (Make sure to order one for $20 + S&H through this website, www.ChefLuna.com–while limited supplies last, of course.)

What is free?  What does it mean?  Free of ambition, greed, prejudice, pleasure, pain, sorrow.  You go to a restaurant and management buys you a glass of wine, complimentary, hence free. Is it free?  It may be free to you but not free to the restaurant.  Understanding what’s free is understanding what is to be prisoned.  Am I a prisoner of thinking, thought?  Is the mind limited?  Will I forever be a prisoner of what I think therefore live the past?  Think is thought.  That is a fact.  That is how we think.  You think present live the past.  Do you understand the problem?  We have been conditioned to think.  Why?  It is not difficult to understand the world’s problem is you and I.  You and I are the cause of the problem.  What is difficult to believe without belief is you do not know why. Ask yourself  the question: Am I born to be?

The French have a lovely saying about traveling: “Ça change les idées”. The direct translation in English would be “it changes your ideas,” but probably the closest translation would be, “it’s a change of pace”.

The morning sunshine, the early mists, the hills, and the abundant greenery. What’s not to love about Carmel? The place is magical.

Of course, I couldn’t go without taking my new kids’ book, Luna Needs a Miracle! I talked to just about everyone who would listen! Even a lovely couple who I can tell have been lifelong friends!

Friendship is Universal

They understood the magic of the unspoken. And, in their silence, I just know they supported my efforts to get the word out about this story. (They wouldn’t stop smiling when I shared the heartwarming story with them.)

My fiancee and I were charmed. It was nice to see the love eternal shared by my new friends in Carmel. Now, that I’m back in town, I look forward sharing with my friends what I learned in my travels.

(… Didn’t realized I’d been missed!) Nevertheless, it’s always nice to take a trip down memory lane. Creative Loafing in Atlanta had this little blurb about me, announcing my new book, Luna Needs a Miracle! and reminding me about my colorful and eventful past.

This little article is well-timed, given that the Marketing department with the self-publishing company I contracted insisted on pushing the religious angle on the book, when truly the intent of the book was not religious in scope–even if it did have a hint of religion in it, I still have a reputation to uphold. (More on that another time!)

Anyway, I was tickled to be in the Gossip column of this weekly newspaper–and it’s fun to surprise old friends after so many years. I even shared space with culinary peer, Chef Joel Antunes (who has also done the disappearing act. (Joel — We need to get together. LOL))!

While at the restaurant today, I overheard a guest respond to the host that his party was “three, and a half,” indicating that he was accompanied by two adults and a child. I don’t think the child overheard this comment, but I did, and it made me think about the way adults oftentimes do not view the child in their presence as a complete being.

What does this announcement say to the child? And what does it say about the person who made the declaration that the third person in his party was a “half”? At what point is the child expected to be whole? And at what point will the adult in the child’s presence acknowledge that child as whole?

Because I come from a large family, I have been a witness to the rearing of children since becoming an uncle in my single digits and into my adult-age uncle-status. And I have heard how adults speak to children of varying ages. One phrase from my own childhood that I’ve heard repeated with many other children is: “You should know better; you are no longer a child.”

When I heard this customer refer to his “half-guest”, it dawned on me how it could be potentially confusing to a “whole person” (whether child or adult) regarding how she or he should … be. Would it not stem, therefore that the adult who believes in the “half-guest” struggles himself with his sense of identity or wholeness?

Does this comment indicate a “half adult” for not seeing the “wholeness” of the child in his presence? What do you think?