my gorgeous Auntie Berta "The Bird" (on left), at her 80th Birthday Celebration. That's my gorgeous Mamacita on the right.

This is particularly exciting because about 2 months ago, I began very seriously contemplating making the leap of faith to quit (one of) my jobs to pursue a completely new career as a personal chef.  I was really stuck when it came to a ‘catchy’ name for this new venture.

As I often do when I am in need of a sounding board, I called my mom to pick her brain.   Unfortunately, she didn’t really have any ideas, but said she would ask “Auntie Bird”, because, “she always has great ideas about such things”.   I was so tickled when the next day, I got a call from Auntie.  She was so excited and sounded like she was just going to pop as she explained to me that she had the ‘perfect name’ for my business.  “Denise is cooking!” she said enthusiastically.  I have to admit, I was a little ‘underwhelmed’, until she began to explain…”Just imagine, my husband says to me..’honey, what are we going to do about dinner?’ and I say, ‘Don’t worry…Denise is Cooking!’…that’s it!  it has to be that, it’s perfect” she said.  I giggled and agreed to give it some thought.

Well, as you can see by the name of this website and blog–I came around to her way of thinking…and now…I am proud to present to my precious Auntie Berta (and the rest of the world wide web), my new ‘baby’.  I had mentioned Auntie’s idea to my dear husband (and resident web guru) and he was completely supportive of the idea.  Imagine my surprise when I awoke one morning last week to find that after our conversation, he had secretly bought the domain and started putting together the ‘bones’ of what is now deniseiscooking.com.  I was in tears when I sat here at my computer and realized that I had so many wonderful people who believed in my dream and wanted to see it come to fruition.

I am so blessed to have the inspiration and support of such wonderful friends and family to guide me in this new adventure!  Please keep me in your thoughts as I leap off the cliff and trust that the universe will indeed catch me and help me to fly into a prosperous and fulfilling future.

Julia Child wisely said,  “Find something you’re passionate about and keep tremendously interested in it”.  Well, I am passionate about good food and can’t wait to see what new avenues this interest will open up to me.

Thanks Auntie, and Happy Birthday!  I love you more than ice cream!  (and that’s A LOT!)