My last birthday was all kinds of special, primarily because it was the last birthday of my roaring twenties. It was also the day of Kitchen Crush’s official launch and finally it was a birthday when I made out like a bandit in terms of culinary gifts. Among the things I received were: the cutest heart-shaped crème brûlée ramekins and a kitchen torch (thank you, Axel), a gourmet meal at Dusseldorf’s Monkey’s West restaurant (thank you Mimi and Ned), a book on the history of taste and a DVD of Julie & Julia (thanks Gosi), a set of beautiful amuse-bouche spoons and a beautiful cookbook by Tessa Kiros called Falling Cloudberries (thank you, Marion and Uli) and finally the coolest gift of all: a South African cuisine cooking class (thank you, the best of all husbands). This last gift was finally consumed last weekend and it reminded me just how much I love to cook. It has also motivated me to get off my derriere and start posting again. I have been neglecting Kitchen Crush for the past month, mostly because I was just so absorbed by my new job, and somewhat because I have caught a severe case of “the lazies”. I can’t explain it, but the fact that I started working and being productive in one area of my life, sent a treacherous signal to my brain which said “it’s okay to bum around for the rest of the time”. And so I bummed, and I bummed, and then I bummed some more, all the while feeling guilty about abandoning Kitchen Crush and my readers. A month has gone by and I think that the bumming period is over… it is high time to get back on track and to keep on doing what has made me so happy throughout February and March. So, I thought I would start the month by writing a bit about the cooking class that gave me that little kick I needed to get back on track.

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