When last we met I was strolling down memory lane in Santa Fe, NM, taking endless pictures of  chili peppers and turquoise, and puzzling my way through how to get multiples of the oh-so-fragile but eminently desirable chili pepper ristra home in my checked baggage without ending up with just a suitcase full of red pepper flakes.

Time have changed. I just recently completed a major move in  socio-cultural time and space from hotter-than-a-hot-dog Sacramento, CA to Boise, Idaho. No more Meyer lemons and year-round farmer’s markets. It’s cold here. Like, “get-a-real-coat” cold, not “wear-a-jacket-and-call-it-a-coat” California-style cold. Fortunately, cold weather, including four actual seasons, is one of the reasons I moved here, and I am happy to report that I am fully stocked in the coat department — in both hip and car-length styles — from my years spent living in Pennsylvania and Maryland (I knew it would eventually pay off to truck my considerable coat, hat, and scarf collection cross-country years ago!).

I’ve spent the last few years cooking along per usual and experimenting with this and that, but it was more of a dabbling effort than a chronicling effort.

Now I’ve gotten the chance to do something totally new for me and I think it’s going to be a pretty cool experience so I want to capture some of the journey.

I’ve just recently been hired to teach a weekly cooking class to disabled adults.

I know,  right? I’ve totally been waiting for this chance! The opportunity came up quickly, and I know very little about the parameters except that:

1). There’s a budget: $50 per event to feed 8-12 people

2). There are time constraints: two hours to prep, cook, eat and clean up a main, a side, a starch, and a dessert.

3). The participants are of every learning level, and the kitchen is meant to simulate a home kitchen.  That is to say, no fancy equipment: one stove, one oven, and (this being a  non-profit),  kitchen tools that come from the charity shop attached to our enterprise. It’s a bare bones situation.

So. Ready for a challenge? Me, too! Stay tuned.