As many of you have already heard, we closed our meals delivery service at the beginning of March, so I wanted to give an official update about what is going on. It seems most of my communication with clients is through our mailing list, so please sign up to be on the list if you are interested in periodic updates or news.

March was one heck of a month. Most of the time, changes happen slowly like a tide coming in or going out. You can see them coming and plan to get out of the way (or get in the way, depending on what you’re trying to accomplish). Once in a while, change happens like a tidal wave – a quick but violent burst, wiping everything clean. March was a month of tidal waves here at The Secret Ingredient. At the beginning of March, we unexpectedly lost our space in the commercial kitchen we were renting. I had to shut down the meals delivery service overnight. It was a very stressful time and I had to make a lot of difficult decisions.

The first thing that I want to say to all of my clients and friends is a huge Thank You for helping me see that I have an absolutely amazing community. I have received so much love and support and generosity from everyone. When I was stuck with $5,000 of frozen meals that I was preparing for a sugar detox program and a freezer I had to move out of, you all bought generously. You have sent me notes of support and goodwill and I am so grateful that our services are valued and appreciated.

Since that time, I have had some time for reflection, meditation and processing. I am convinced that most of what happened last month was an accelerated kick in the pants from the universe, telling me that I wasn’t listening. For the past year, I have been trying to run two totally separate businesses – the personal chef services that we have been providing for the past three years and the meals delivery business. I have been working way too much and as a result, many things were deteriorating – my life balance, my health, my relationships with friends and family. My husband has been alerting me to this state of affairs for the past year, but I was so wrapped up in what I was doing that I wasn’t paying attention.

For the past few weeks, I have had the gift of being able to slow down, start taking care of myself, and catch up on a lot of “time debt” around the house. It feels wonderful to only have one job at a time :). I have also had some realizations about where I would like to go next, so I would like to share them with you:

  1. I am continuing the personal chef services and will be expanding in the future
  2. If you are a weekly meals client who would like to try out our personal chef services, please contact me and we can figure out how to accommodate your needs.
  3. I got a lot of clarity that what we do is called therapeutic cooking, I just haven’t been using that phrase. I have been focusing narrowly on accommodating clients with food sensitivities and special diets. However, what we do is so much more! I will be updating the website and will post about that soon.
  4. I have also realized that aside from the cooking services, I spend a lot of time on the phone with new clients doing nutritional coaching. I will be adding those services to the website soon as well and will post more about that too!

Thank you all for being on this journey with me, and we’ll see where it takes us next!