My Future

I look at this picture to my left and realize that I am on the way to fulfilling one of the desires of my heart. I have loved cooking for for as long as I can remember and I love creating something for family and friends to sample. I may look at recipes but I always have to add my own little twist, to make the dish mine. Adding an extra spice, a different meat, or even a different sauce to an old standby makes for some pretty interesting dishes.

My daughters and I are having a ladies only party this Saturday and we will be creating some new fingerfoods for the ladies to sample.

The closer I come to finishing this semester the more real this all is beginning to feel. We already have friends that are going to help us put our business plan together, the menu is coming along as well as the decor of the deli. We have already decided on some of our suppliers and their is more to come. In my head I am already planning the layout of the deli, the pre-opening dinner for family and friends (invitation only). My daughter and I are going to name a few things on our menu after some people that are close to us. Our Deli is named after my daughter Shalyn and my stake is all of this is to do something alongside my daughter. My other children and I will find our special place as well, but for now this is on the front burner. We have a plan and we are working our plan. Even our grades in school are good, speaking to both of us the importance of what we are doing for our future.

I haven't been this excited about anything since getting married and having my children. I am looking forward to the day that we can open the doors on the deli and begin serving. Shay and I have already decided that service will be key and so will working, in other words if you would like a paycheck then we would like for you to work for it, we aren't in to paying employees for standing around texting and talking on their phones, that will be fine on their breaks but not on our dime (so to speak), it amazes me when you go into restaurants and you see the employees just standing around talking, texting and horsing around and customers are waiting on service, leaves a bad taste in my mouth, not a place I want to visit again, food may be good, but if the service sucks, I will go somewhere else. We went to a fabulous restaurant in Manhattan called Bon 45, the service was exceptional (we were on a time limit because of the Broadway Show we were going to see) and our waiter had everything to our table, cooked to perfection, where we had time to enjoy it and then served us the best glass of wine I have had to date (and I don't know the name of it), this is a restaurant I will visit again and again. I would recommend this to anyone traveling to New York, it's amazing.

As I think about our deli, I visualize it as being successful, as customers coming in and out. I see us building a rapor with them. I want to sell certain types of art from local artists, my sister-in-law has a business and I would love to feature that as well and my mom-in-law does some awesome aprons and they need to be represented as well. Thank God for dreams!!!!!!!!

Hopefully the journey of this deli will continue to be recorded here and in my journals so that I can look back and see the legs of this journey.