The Skinny Beet Update

It's been exactly one month since we launched our new site, The Skinny Beet. It's been great to have an outlet to share what's going on in our world that we both can contribute to and we've also got our Twitter and Facebook pages up and running! On our new site, we write about work and the events that we cater as well as what we're cooking up in our own home. In case you missed it, here's some things that we talked about over the past month...

In October we got to work catering a dinner for the Phoenix Club at Harvard University, then, we entered the Boston Chefs Lamb Pro-Am (we both didn't make the final cut but we had a blast creating our recipes!).

Also in October we had date night at Hamersley's Bistro where we sampled their famous roast chicken that lived up to the hype. So much so, that we had to recreate it at home a couple weeks later.

We also squeezed in a mini-food crawl to two local hot spots in Cambridge; Catalyst and Area Four. Catalyst disappointed but we totally dug the atmosphere at Area Four.

Finally Richard made buffalo burgers at home and accompanying homemade spicy ketchup and steak sauce and we proved yet again that homemade anything is way better than store bought.

We can't tell you how much we've been touched by the support that we've received. We're thrilled with the work that we're doing and we're really looking forward to what the next couple of months have in store for us. In the spirit of this month of thanks, we'd like to express our extreme gratitude to those that have supported us on this journey. It's not always easy but it is always fun and the work is so satisfying.

Please Meet The Skinny Beet

Please allow me to back up a bit, to this day last year to tell you a little story...Last year at this time, if one more person told me that "things would change when I least expected it", I was going to stab myself with a rubber spatula (okay, maybe that's a tad dramatic). But, as it turns out, that advice was right and one year ago, today, things did change when I least expected it.

October 2010, Back Bay Social Club

It had been an awful day at work and I was debating not even going to an event at the newly opened Back Bay Social Club - sweatpants, tv and a solo glass of wine seemed much more comforting to me than socializing. But I blame the intrigue of a new restaurant as well as the suggestion that maybe it would do me well to be out and to have fun. So I went. It was raining that day as I trudged there, still debating my choice to go. But once in and settled, I was having fun. I snagged a seat at the end of a table full of bloggers and just before the food started to come out to the table, a dark haired man had arrived late and sat next to me.

I had never met him before but was instantly drawn to his friendly, laid back attitude. He introduced himself as Richard and we talked practically the whole night. He was a personal chef - something at the time I had wanted to learn more about. Once the evening had ended, we had loosely talked about meeting up for lunch sometime to talk more. It seemed like a polite offer and one that I hadn't taken seriously until, sadly, a friend of mine passed away and I wrote this post. Earlier, that day, before I heard the news, I chose a light salad over the burger that I really wanted to order. My friend's passing had made me realize how short life was. Why hadn't I stopped for a moment to enjoy life, worry less and get what I really wanted to eat? A polite and sympathetic response from Richard included an invitation to get a that burger. And that's how this story really starts..

We met at Post 390 for our first burger. He talked about what it was like to be a personal chef as well as culinary school. I, feeling like I had been at a crossroads in my life, felt like his story was so closely related to mine. I had been waiting for the answer on what to do for so long and there it was, right in front of me. I realized that I wanted to go to Culinary School. It was a Friday and I went back to work and spent the rest of the afternoon researching schools and crunching some numbers. By Sunday evening, I had completed my application and by mid-week, had sent it out.

As the story goes, I took a deep breath and quit my job this past December, went to school and graduated from the Cambridge School of Culinary Arts this May. All the while, I met up with Richard once a week, on Fridays, for a burger. It wasn't too long before he was making me laugh so hard, I cried and we became close friends. Our hour-long lunches grew to three hour food-talking marathons. And then, it just sort of happened. I fell in love with a Burger Boy. Last month, we moved in together and today, on this one year anniversary of our meeting, we celebrate not only our meeting, but the announcement of our official venture into business together. We had been teaming up in the kitchen, and now we're teaming up in the blogasphere as well and today we launch our joint venture, The Skinny Beet.

How did we decide on that name? In Polish, Richard's last name translates loosely to mean "skinny". My last name translates to mean "beet soup". We put our hands together and came up with The Skinny Beet. We invite you to check out our new site, which will be launched later today. In the meantime, you can "like" us on Facebook and Follow us on Twitter. We're planning to use our new space as a medium to talk about our mutual passion for food. We're going to share our lives as personal chefs and caterers as well as talk about our life at home and what we're cooking up in our kitchen.

As today is a personally important day for us, we've been asked what we're doing to celebrate..to answer that, quite simply, we're doing what we love best - we're spending time in the kitchen, cooking up the best food we know how to make for one of our regular clients as well as catering a dinner party this evening - and I can't think of any better way to celebrate than that.