Giving Back (Patreon)

Hi Patrons, 

We just recorded our second session under safer-at-home orders here in Southern California. We worked out our technical challenges with the one shot and had a GREAT time getting back into The Team story line with our favorite characters. Really looking forward to sharing it with you all early this coming week. 

You'll hear on the recording that an unfortunate consequence of creating the show this way is that I can't share a meal with my friends - a huge part of the inspiration for the show, both in its inception and for the story going forward. While this is certainly a disappointment, I didn't want the sense of sharing and community that comes from the meal to go away, so I am donating the cost of this session's meals, and all meals while we're under safer-at-home, to food banks serving those in need during this crisis.

I have a sign in my kitchen with the following quote from Thomas Keller, chef of the world famous French Laundry. Chef Keller said "“When you acknowledge, as you must, that there is no such thing as perfect food, only the idea of it, then the real purpose of striving toward perfection becomes clear: to make people happy, that is what cooking is all about.” When I first came across this quote, it hit me like a ton of bricks. It totally changed the way I look at my own cooking, putting into words something I had been learning through hosting Thanksgivings, dinner parties, and this show - How much it means to me to share food with my friends just to make them happy. This show has also helped me learn how important that aspect, bringing joy, is to me through my writing. The nature of this show is such that its never "perfect," but we love it, and I hope you do, too. I hope it makes you happy. Nothing is more fun than that.

It is in the spirit of that ethos that I am donating this session's meals, or the cost thereof, technically, to the Los Angeles Regional Food Bank and Gleaners food bank in Detroit. These are obviously the areas that mean something special to me and to us on the show, but we're gonna be in this for a while. Let us know in the comments below a food based charity supporting something you care about effected by the COVID-19 pandemic - could be a food bank, food for health workers, a fund for restaurant workers out of work, etc - and we'll pick one or two each session we record remotely to support on your behalf. 

Let's make some people happy. 

I hope wherever you are, you and yours are healthy and safe, and that in spite of all of this, you can still find a way to do what's fun. 

Thank you, as always, for your support. 

-Graessle