“Aprils have never meant much to me, autumns seem that season of beginning….”
                                                                                          ~Truman Capote, Breakfast at Tiffany’s

Indeed, the autumn of 2015 was a season of beginning like nothing I could have imagined. Both in the loss that precipitated it and in the astonishing expansiveness to which it gave rise.

On July 30, my adored husband, Joe, passed away suddenly and unexpectedly from cardiac arrest, followed within the next two months by my similarly adored dog, my constant companion, and my mother, my kitchen accomplice since childhood.

Almost immediately, food took on the symbolism of a quasi-secular sacrament: an outward sign of inward grace. With my appetite, among other things, dealt a mortal blow, thoughtfully prepared and diminutive dabs of this and tiny tastes of that, matched to various occasions, came to represent deepening dimensions of relationships with people, things, and ideas that flowed around and through me. My scaled back approach to nourishing my body proved to be immensely satisfying and perfectly proportioned as I focused more on nourishing my soul.

While my relationship with food, like just about everything else in my life, underwent a shift, I remain as full of curiosity and wonder in the kitchen ever before. I just find that I tend to cook more for others than I do for myself, and that food is less often my raison d’etre than it is an anointment of various aspects of a rich and full life for which I am unceasingly grateful.

But spring is an undeniably hopeful season. So, forced to rethink many aspects of my life, I decided in early 2016 that a Blooming Platter redesign was in order and launched it on this what would have been my mother’s 83rd birthday.

I hope you enjoy this new beginning in the form of a lighter, brighter, hipper, and slightly more feminine look and feel.

Yours, gratefully,

~betsy