A Weekly Serving - 3/12/2011 | What's Cookin' Chicago

Daylight savings time is just about here but I’m still on the fence whether I want to give up an hour of sleep or embrace that it will be light out earlier! This week has been an eventful one and I hope you had a great week yourself. Here’s my weekly musings on family, food, and fun…

Family – Joel is 44 weeks old this week and only 8 more weeks until he turns 1 year old. I’ve found myself looking at his baby pictures quite a bit these days because I’m constantly in awe how we’ve come so far. I’m not sure if its the usual monthly hormones but thinking back to the early days of him home from the hospital tear me up. Last week I starting birthday planning and decided to just host a small dinner party at one of our favorite places. Well, after talking to my mom and mother in law, we’ve decided to change things up. Since Joel’s birthday falls on Mother’s Day this year (the best Mother’s Day present ever in my opinion!), our immediate families will just come over for a potluck dinner. Because the 1st birthday is such a big milestone in our culture (even more so since he’s our little “miracle,”) we’re planning on hosting a bigger birthday party to celebrate with family and friends the weekend after.

As for themes, I wanted to tie in something special. Joel’s grandpa on Louis’s side is currently living in a nursing home, as he has special medical needs. We don’t see my father in law very often but he is very much in our thoughts. To honor him and since he is also part Chinese, we’ve opted to host a Chinese themed birthday for Joel. His party is going to be at a local Chinese restaurant, making it easy to do the theme with decorations, favors and even his birthday cake that I’ll make for him. I’m looking forward to it since my mom and mother in law have convinced me to make it a fun celebration with others who have been there for us this past year and have watched Joel grow in our lives.

This week, Joel and I had a lot of fun with pictures. He celebrated his first Mardi Gras and was able to wear a shirt he got from grandm and grandpa. It was the perfect outfit to tie in the colors. To make it more fun (for me, not so much Joel), I managed to keep a Mardi Gras headband on his while he was distracted with some beads. Gosh, he’s going to hate that I put him in this festive get up lol!

And lastly, some pics from this week’s photo session. He just wouldn’t keep his socks and shoes on so he’s showing off his chubby toes. 🙂

Food/Restaurant News – It was a slow week, just waiting for the contractor to start… but they did start eventually! Looks like it will be about 2 months before it’s all completed but we’re hoping that was an overestimate of time. So not much to really report on the restaurant front this week…

Fun – Probably the top highlight of the previous week was the Home & Housewares Show. It’s a trade show only for those in the industry and this year was my 5th year. I actually didn’t attend last year since I was about 7 months pregnant but I did more than make up for it! I attended with my friend and fellow culinary school classmate, Jill and her husband Dave. It was such a great time that we’re already looking forward to next year. We got to meet quite a few celebrity chefs and had an opportunity to talk with some of them for awhile. Here are some pics from the trade show:

Chef Cat Cora: Home & Housewares Trade Show 2011