Working out the bugs

Lunch with Ashley part 1

How do you go about getting started with something? Do you like to ease your way into things, or just jump in, wholeheartedly? I'm a wholehearted gal myself. I'm not the cautious lady at the pool that sneaks in, one toe at a time, and worries her hair will get wet. I'm the jump in the deep end and get the hair wet lady. Come to think of it, I always think about slowly lowering myself daintily into the pool, but there's one major problem I always come up against: I am not dainty. Refined, maybe. Elegant, perhaps. Romantic, for sure. But not dainty. Anyway, the point I am trying to make is that with my cannonball attitude, sometimes I learn things by trial and error, as opposed to well thought out execution. All great ideas can take a while to get going. You’ll recall that Edison made over a thousand unsuccessful attempts to create the lightbulb.  Hopefully, this blog idea won’t take quite so many tries, but attempt number one was very Edison-like in nature. Let me tell you about it.


The first, (and so far only), time I've tried making lunch here at work was for Ashley. As a fellow dreamer and creative soul, I told Ashley about my idea way back when it had first come to me. Being the sweet, supportive person she is, she not only encouraged me, she made me promise that she'd be my first guest. Enthused, I agreed! I then remembered feeling a sense of dread when I realized what I'd done. Ashley had some food restrictions I would need to take into account. However, I didn't realize just how extensive those restrictions were. Ashley couldn't eat gluten, wheat, sugar, or dairy. 


Yeah. This is pretty much how I felt.

There are countless delicious alternatives to gluten, wheat, sugar, and dairy, but I don't know what they are, and I certainly didn't know at that time either. I was scared. How was I going to pull this off?

So, you know how I mentioned above that I like just to jump into things? Well, let me retract that statement and modify it to say, I like to jump into things that don't terrify me. Add fear, and you might as well pull up a chair and get comfy because I will be taking my sweet time.

Weeks later, and countless instances of running into Ashley and promising her we'd do lunch next week, I decided to bite the bullet. I set a date, and we were going to do this!

In all those long weeks I'd been running menus in my head of what I could prepare for her. Should I do fish, chicken, a main course salad, salad on the side, soup, no soup? Sheesh. I agonized over whether she would like certain spices and what dressing to go with, could I sneak in a little sugar, or should I adhere strictly to her diet? Finally, after much self-inflicted agony, I decided to do a three-course experience and serve potato leek soup with gluten free crackers, a french style omelet with sauteed mushrooms and spinach and mixed greens on the side, and fresh fruit for dessert. A simple, easy meal I could whip up at work. Yeah. Right.