EASY ENTERTAINING FOR BEGINNERS by Patricia Mendez: “I was considering starting a business of my own at that time.”

I have been catering and coordinating special events since the early 1990’s and am also an avid home cook who loves to learn new cooking techniques, experiment with new recipes and entertain our friends and family. In 2006 I threw a birthday party for my oldest son Martin’s 27^th birthday. It was a lot of fun and the menu was delicious. One of the guests was Martin’s business partner, Rene. At the party we conversed about how difficult it is for newlyweds and new nesters to find resources to help them learn to entertain without overwhelming them. That one conversation led to Martin and Rene approaching me the following week to ask me if I would consider writing a book to help beginners learn to entertain. They were interested in developing it into an e-book. This eventually evolved into the printed books.

I was considering starting a business of my own at that time. In addition to my catering background, I served as a Coordinator of a Mothers of Preschoolers (MOPS) community program for several years and also as a Director of Women’s Ministries for 8 years. During that time, I discovered that I was able to relate with and encourage younger women. So the idea intrigued me and I thought the timing was right and writing the book might be a good fit consistent with my experience and gifts. Not to mention that my biggest fan (ok, well my only one) my husband Augie, had been encouraging me to write a book for years. He saw potential in my writing abilities and was enthusiastically on board as soon as I told him I was considering writing an entertaining book for beginners. I started writing Easy Entertaining for Beginners in December 2006 and completed it in August 2007. Since my book is a non-fiction/cookbook category, there was lots of time in the kitchen as well as at the computer.

From the very beginning, I wanted to help beginners gain confidence and enjoy their first entertaining experiences. I have made plenty of mistakes and goof-ups during the many years of entertaining in my home and I know the pitfalls involved. That was precisely why I thought I could relate to my audience. I know how easy it is to fall into the trap of the extremes of thinking you have to be a gourmet chef to pull off entertaining. Or the temptation of being such a nervous wreck that everyone enjoys the event but the host. This is what I would love to help beginners avoid. Successful casual entertaining adds such enjoyment and wealth to life! It is a great way to connect with friends and family and to meet new people and get to know acquaintances better. Entertaining family and friends can be extremely fun and satisfying. So I set about putting together easy recipes and complete menus for occasions that I thought new nesters would most likely desire to host in the first few years in their homes. I encourage a novice host that a bit of organization goes a long way towards successful entertaining and to NOT take his/her mistakes too seriously. I want my readers to know that I am in their corner and have complete confidence in their ability to express their creativity in offering hospitality to family and friends.

Patricia Mendez is the author of the cooking and entertaining book, EASY ENTERTAINING FOR BEGINNERS.  You can visit her website at www.ezentertaining.net.

VOICE OF THE ANGELS COOKBOOK: TALK TO YOUR FOOD! by Dyan Garris

It’s that time of day again. Your stomach howls, growls, and grumbles and your mind begins cooking up a tantalizing array of possibilities of what to eat. Many people consider cooking to be a chore or something messy and time consuming, so out of the ethers appear the microwavable dinners and moveable feasts. It doesn’t matter much what’s really in the box or bag as long as it serves the purpose of being fast and easy. This doesn’t necessarily translate into something that’s going to be truly nourishing to your body, mind or spirit.

We live in a time when cooking shows are hugely popular, chefs are big TV stars and yet less and less people really cook. Everyone wants top of the line kitchen appliances in their homes, yet do they really use them or are they just for display, like ghost place settings at a table in a model home? I’m Greek. We feed people. I’m pretty sure I came out of the womb knowing how to cook. It was a prerequisite for birth. And certainly I needed those skills to be able to work in the family business which was restaurants of course.I’ve fed a lot of people in my lifetime both with real food and with spiritual food. During the course of this “feeding,” I’ve had a lot of people ask me, “How do you do that?” I reply, “I talk to it.” And I do. Literally. I’m a spiritual teacher, clairvoyant, clairaudient, clairsentient. I’m a psychic. I talk to a lot of people that others may say aren’t even there. But of course they are. My body of work has to do with what is called vibrational attunement. This is simply a balancing of mind, body and spirit.My goal with “Voice of the Angels Cookbook – Talk To Your Food! – Intuitive Cooking” is to give people easy and healthy alternatives to mystery food loaded with chemicals and unpronounceable ingredients. I also stirred in a little of the spiritual realm into the basic cookie dough because, while cooking and eating is something very “root chakra,” we just can’t ignore all of our other energy centers. Let’s lift up this experience a little bit and bring it through our whole body instead of just through our mouths.We live in a time when balance seems ever elusive, no matter how hard we strive for it. How can we change this? Take something very basic, such as cooking and eating, and instead of doing it mindlessly and without joy, do it in a way in which we are fully present. This begins to open a pathway for transformation on both physical and spiritual levels. With a little mixing, stirring and gently folding in, we can achieve balance of mind, body, and spirit.

Dyan Garris the author of VOICE OF THE ANGELS COOKBOOK – TALK TO YOUR FOOD: INTUITIVE COOKING. You can visit her website at http://www.voiceoftheangels.com/. If you would like to purchase Dyan’s book at Amazon, click here.

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