Scaling Back a Bit

The busy season looms.

Working in the Jewish community means preparing for four major holidays within a 3-week period: Rosh Hashanah on September 16, Yom Kippur on September 25, Sukkot on September 30, and Shemini Atzeret/Simchat Torah from October 7-9.  New terms for the Religious School and Adult Hebrew classes begin after Labor Day.  There will be long hours filling soon-to-be 6-day work weeks.  Other people go on summer vacation, I work more.

In addition to this, I have an important project - writing an article about Jewish radio/t.v. character Molly Goldberg and "her" cookbook - to finish by August 1 for Repast, the newsletter of The Culinary Historians of Ann Arbor.

On August 8, my article about holiday foods for Rosh Hashanah and breaking the fast at Yom Kippur will be due to the Washtenaw Jewish News. I'm going to write about Southern food - all the rage right now - and how its sweet traditions can help to usher in a happy new year. It makes me hungry just to think about it.

I've begun working as the "Culinary Concierge" with entre-SLAM, the group sponsoring storytelling and networking events for entrepreneurs who want to go schmoozing, noshing, and kibbitzing.  My role entails inviting local food establishments to help sponsor the slams and provide tasty tidbits for guests to sample.  I meet wonderful people, I hear great stories, I eat ... it's all good, but it takes time.  (And if you know of a shop, cook, restaurant, market, someone who might like to sponsor a table on July 25, please let me know!)

And all of this is in addition to maybe spending some time with Jeremy ... those moments when band practice isn't more enticing than Mom, anyway.  This is in addition to cooking, baking, and writing to keep both my column at AnnArbor.com and my blog happy and well fed.  This is in addition to interviewing interesting people in the food industry, so I can introduce you to folks who have gourmet food shops or who rent commercial kitchen space to small-scale food producers, folks who do kosher catering or who work at a farmer's market.

So I'm changing up my schedule a bit: I'll be posting here on Food Floozie on Mondays, Wednesdays and, of course, on Frugal Floozie Fridays.  I'll be posting on AnnArbor.com's Food and Grocery page on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays; it's easy to get to - just click on the box to the right of this post.  This should ideally help to free up a bit of my time, rather than posting on each site 5 days-per-week, while still allowing me to stay in touch with all my readers, followers, friends, and extended family in the cyberworld.  And each site is different, so this gives everyone a reason to check out both of them.

If I get a bit behind on reading your blogs, I'll apologize right now for my neglect; it doesn't mean I love you any less, it just means I'm trying to grab some dinner or take a nap.  Maybe I'm stirring some cookie dough or typing out just the key phrase to complete a post.  I will do my very best to keep up - that's part of why I'm scaling back a bit, after all: precisely so I don't lose a grasp on everything and everyone that matters to me by drowning in stress and deadlines and chaos.  Trying to meet too many responsibilities and commitments, and caring for others whose needs seemed greater than mine, nearly took me down last year ... I can't have a repeat performance of that.  Yes, circumstances were different (as long-time followers know).  But I can't take a chance.

The new schedule is starting this week; I just wanted to stop by today, even though it violates the new terms, rather than making yesterday's post way too long by explaining everything.  Go to AnnArbor.com when you're done reading this to find a really lovely recipe for Blueberry Ricotta Pancakes that are moist and light and just fabulous.

I'm hoping to go back to my regular Monday-through-Friday schedule in October, after the Jewish holiday season has ended and the secular/Christian holiday season is about to begin.  There will be Hallowe'en treats, Thanksgiving pies, and the annual holiday cookie baking fest to write about, after all!