Playing With My Food ~
A journal about food, thought, travel, and life; by Chef & Raconteur Chaz French.

As My Mother Lies Dying

For as long as I can rememberI’ve feared my mother woulddie from dementia Forget everything she’s doneForget her children, her travels,her perseverance Leaving an abusive marriageRaising children as a single motherMaking a new life of her own Her boyfriend, her grandchildrenand great grandchildrenall forgotten and lost To the fog of the brainThe crippling of the […]

Loss

Grief is fluidand like the ocean it has waves some just wet your feetand some are tsunamis  Worst are the sneaker wavesthat come out of nowhereand drag you out to choke and drown in a sea of your own tears —Dedicated to my friend Sean Reinert Tweet

Celebration

Celebration I should be dead by nowbut I refuse.In 1998 I became ~ other I became ~ positiveTold that I had twentymaybe twenty-five years to live, most of them ill. I stand, I live, I am healthyand I remain defiant.I will live.I will outlive you all! I simply refuse to acceptthat I cannot live a […]

After Gertrude

Is it? Was it?Could it be?Bliss,rapture,joy, toys, child, man,death cares not. I just got,got good,got together,forever,eternity,love’s prison cell,death sentence, marriage vows,In the halls of just us ball and chainforced labor,children,out of sight in the darkunder sheets and in-between. School work,business work,relationship work,Where’s you?Where’s me?Wears out. Broken vows, slaughtered cows,in the silence left to bleed,draw a […]

San Francisco

Fog tumbles over the mountainan avalanche incascading sheets of white. The City lays before me silent,in the late afternoon sun-setting time. Wind rushes by as it plummets into the cityscape sprawled out below. Slowly it succumbs to the avalanche. Fog falling all the way to the bay. Then the rush of white takes me deep […]

A Quieting

Yeah, it’s gone quiet. – Happens here and there. Cooking, not writing, but taking notes.  Busy being busy, stay tuned, the search for balance continues…. Tweet

Baked Sundays: Epic Baking FAIL!

This is an ancient draft post from way back before I started culinary school.  I never got around to finishing it.  Here it is… Every now and then even the most experienced cooks and bakers fail. This was one of those times. “What the hell is THAT!?” you say… That was a cheesecake failure, and […]

Absentia, Memoria, Florida Part Two

I kinda forgot I was supposed to post part two… Absentia, Memoria, Florida Part Two: Memoria/Birthday I’m going to start by saying very few people knew it was my birthday, and I kinda wanted it to stay that way, but word got out.  When you have the same birthday as the Guru you get overshadowed, […]

Baked Sundays: Sunflower Butter Cookies With Cranberries

As there are more and more nut allergies (or perceived to be) these days, I decided to play with a classic peanut butter cookie recipe and swap the peanut for sunflower, and then add a little something in the form of ground cranberries.  They add a subtle note to the cookie.  The recipe requires a […]

In Absentia, Memoria, Florida. Part One

Starting with silliness and at the end of the story, my flight home departs from Orlando, thanks to my friend’s elite status I got priority boarding which meant having time to sit and watch everyone else board, and I’ve realized that there is a whole subset of the “Bear” community, that are seriously into Disney […]