I will blame it on Comox. After I got home, I missed Kaylee and Cole so much I just couldn’t bring myself to blog. What was the point? There was no excitement in cooking; my family liked everything I made. At least with Kaylee and Cole I always had a challenge. But now I had no mission and I spent the next month and a half looking out my window at the greys and whites of our landscape. No ocean, no gargantuan cedar trees, no misty mornings that made the countryside look like a scene from the Twilight series. I missed the Island, big time.

At Wolfgang Puck’s new restaurant Cut, Steve (whose tastebuds were working just fine) ordered the Tasting of New York Sirloin which included 2 oz of Japanese Wagyu, 4 oz of American “Kobe Style” from Snake River Farms, and 4 oz of USDA Prime Dry Age from Nebraska. Bastard. I drowned my sorrows with a “Ginny Hendricks” martini made with Hendricks fine gine. I couldn’t taste it but it sure made me feel alot better. The way he was moaning and groaning, I’d say Steve was on a rocket flight  to Meat Heaven. For $150, it better be a 1st Class ticket. I tried it but you know…all I could tell was that it had a very nice texture. 

We got home 15 hours behind schedule, tired, cranky and still tasteless, (you can take that any way you want) but we came home to an incredible surprise. Our four kids had prepared a wonderful meal of pasta and meat sauce, all of them collaborating on the meal and two of them walking a kilometre in -18 Celsius weather to the grocery store for ingredients and necessities we needed for the next day. They had cleaned the house, set the table with candles and opened a bottle of wine for us. Now if that aint enough to make a mother proud, I don’t know what is.

It took having my sister, her husband and their son Tristan here for New Year’s Eve that finally lifted my funk. We ate, drank, and watched hockey for hours. Tristan, as it turns out, is a Flames’ fan but I still love him despite that. It made me realize though that you just can’t have Christmas without family. Next Christmas is going to be different and I’m hoping Kaylee and Cole will be a part of it.