Just to set the scene....

Part One. The story so far.

So we came to America. And then we moved to Boulder, Colorado; surely one of the best places in the world to live.

Within 2 days of being in town I found work as a Chef in an upscale French place downtown, we found an apartment and then Karen soon found a great I.T. job. We set about making a home in a new country.

Fully embracing the fit & healthy outdoor lifestyle that is so predominant here in Boulder (a stark contrast to most of the US) I started riding a mountain bike everywhere. And I quit smoking after 20 years of Marlboro Reds. So things are all pretty much going to plan. Until out riding one day I managed to run my mountain bike into a tree breaking both my wrists.

This is not a good thing for a cook. I managed to struggle on in the restaurant to get through Mother’s Day and Graduation Weekend. This was tough. Boulder is a big college town and for a busy restaurant this represented the busiest weekend of the year for us.

But things were clearly not going to work. However much Vicodin and Micro-brew you throw down there is a point when physically you just can’t function with fractured wrists. So that was that. I left the restaurant and tried to heal…. And watch the World Cup…

Well my situation was becoming as depressing as England's performances on the pitch.
The healing was not really going to plan and I was looking at the dark prospect of not being able to cook professionally again. This was a pretty bleak time for me. I had to stay cooking but needed to come up with something that would be do-able.