I keep my promises, Dad! I had a fan request to write a post this week and I made a promise that I would, so Sunday at 12:49pm, I am making good on that promise. No minute like the last minute, right? Right.

I like looking back on posts, seeing what I have done and where I’ve been, but something holds me back from actually writing on here. I have a lot to say, a lot swirling in my head, a lot that makes me grind my teeth in the middle of the night. I guess I prefer to let it fester than write anything on here.

So, what to say, what to say….It’s Sunday. I set my alarm for 8 am so that I could message one of our managers to make sure that a medium-sized catering would go out ok at 9am. They are all more than capable of making sure things are OK, but I still like to know that all is well. Anyway, set my alarm til 8, but then snoozed til 10am. Got up, had pineapple (Luis cut it – if it were up to me, that pineapple would sit on the counter until it rots and gets thrown out), went to the gym for a really fun cardio class, and worked a bit on the computer to get set up for the week. We have a new, full-time intern starting with us and I wanted to put all of the documents she may need in one place.

Yesterday:

I haven’t posted since December, so let’s go back to January of this year.

We spent New Year’s Eve in Denia – a friend has a brother with a house on the beach. It was cold and cozy.

Is he a business man or talking to his Mom? We shall never know.

We also went to Valencia for a quick getaway. Valencia is just over an hour by train, making it a great place to go for even a quick day trip. This was my favorite paella I’ve ever had. Plenty of cancer-causing crusty burnt bits on the bottom of the pan, my favorite.

My cousin, Hayden, has spent the semester in Madrid and it’s been beyond wonderful to have family close by. We get dinner every once in awhile and he tells us about his travels to tiny middle-of-nowhere towns.

Around January I took a few days to head to Florida. Per usual, it rained for a lot of it, but I don’t mind – I love just hanging out with my family. We walked, we beached, we ate, we watched tv, we played Rummicube. We took cute pictures of Teddy! The second picture makes me laugh because I took that picture of him rolling on the forbidden rug in the bedroom and his face says, “who, me?”

Around February, Luis and I went to Siguenza for a day. Beautiful town, sort of quiet. According to the tourist information center, it’s a “busy town” year round (there were like 15 people in the entire town). We want to go back with friends in the summer and see how bustling it can be. It was quite cold on this day. Luis and his important phone calls.

Small door or big man?

Besides that day trip, we took a little day trip with our friends to Torrelodones – went for a walk / hike and to lunch for some Thai food made by Spanish people (yum) and on another day, went to the town of Patones de Arriba, which is fairly close to Madrid, beautiful, easy to access, and very worth the day trip. Lots of hiking to get there, though. We went to lunch that day and then my friend, Emma, and I ended up getting pretty sick about 24 hours later. Not fun, but would go back to that little town.

I haven’t been just traveling. Obviously lots of work happening in there too. Caterings have seemed to boom lately, big reservations, and busy restaurants. We have also done some updates in the downstairs of our Chamberi location. It turned out great and we are very happy with the result. Now people don’t ask to be seated just upstairs!! What else? The Syrup Crisis of 2025 finally came to an end (every time we went to Costco, they were out of syrup, then one day we went and they had it and we bought thousands of euros worth of maple syrup — bet that’s something you’ve never done in your life. Never throught I would either…)

Doesn’t that sandwich look good? One day a few months ago, I decided our cheese needed a better cheese pull. We were using high quality cheddar, but I decided we needed some nice creamy cheese so we reduced to one slice of good cheddar (for flavor) and one slice of creamy cheese (no flavor, but adds creaminess) and I am very happy with the result.

Sometimes I like to make myself an espresso and sit at one of the tables and see what it feels like to a customer. I like to see their view, I like to see how they see the restuarant, sometimes I see something dirty that needs to be cleaned, or something that needs to be changed and sometimes, I just soak it in that that big, stressful, living, breathing restuarant is mine.

We are re-opening our first location. We dilly dallied for so long, dragged our feet, hemmed and hawed, but finally decided to go for it. Having an interior designer makes it more exciting for us and now that we have the project under way, we are excited! More information to come!

Lastly, in late April/ early May, Luis and I went to Philly and New York for the first time since opening Mazál. It was a great trip. We spent 3 days in New York with Lee and his girlfriend, Haley, and had the best time. We walked over 20K steps per day and bought every fad food out there. Even bought an 8$ coffee like real New Yorkers. Also a 7$ soft pretzel that happened to be at least 48 hours old and was AWFUL.

In Philly, we did all the Philly tourist stuff, had long dinners with my parents, and got to sleep like 10 hours per night and wake up to the birds chirping in Cheltenham. It was a wonderfully relaxing reset that gave us the energy to deal with all the business BS waiting for us on the other end.

That brings us to now, late May. Last Saturday my friends hosted a triple Bachelorette party for friends who are getting married this year. We started with a picnic, then made delicious smelling candles, and then got very drunk and had one of the best times I have had in a long time. We laughed a lot, told great stories, and paid for it hard the next day, but were recovered by Monday morning.

Of course in five months so much more has happened, but these are the highlights, the fun parts, the parts that I will want to look back on. Thanks for encouraging me to write, Dad!!

Over and out, friends & Dad.