Welcome to the Year 2002!

Break out the champagne because I have finally launched my blog. I'm only about five years late to the game; a fact that wouldn't be quite as pathetic had I not spent the past eight years of my life in the world of interactive advertising. Alas, here it is for all of the world to see: Bacon and Chocolate.

Why Bacon and Chocolate? Well, anyone who knows me or my cooking over the past ten years knows that I've pretty much tried to include bacon into any and all of my dishes. As for the "Chocolate" part of the title...not to sound too much like a stereotype, but I am a girl after all. Even more, I was always the weird kid that actually preferred the Hershey Special Dark chocolates at Halloween (I always traded my Nestle Crunch and Kit Kats for these).

In addition to family, friends, my husband and cat, these two foods have the ability to make me really happy. They have all of the tastes that I love: smoky, sweet, salty, rich. Only recently have I tried the two of them together in the form of Vosges Chocolate and Bacon bar. Truly an amazing experience (one that would only be improved by upgrading to dark chocolate instead of milk).

Alas, I digress...So why blog now? Well, for those of you who don't know me, I've spent the past nine years of my life in the world of advertising, but have longed to cook. In January of this year, I finally decided to attend culinary school part-time. It was an incredible experience, but I was balancing my job, traveling for work, culinary school, volunteering and marriage. Needless to say, I was exhausted. So, I decided to quit my job and focus on my culinary career as that had been my dream for ten years. Sadly, it was not meant to be. Two weeks after my last day at work, I was diagnosed with breast cancer. Now, a bilateral mastectomy and TRAM flap later, no job, a culinary school dropout (technically on "medical leave"), I am currently going through chemo and figured that I may as well start documenting my thoughts for everyone to read.

So what can you expect from me in this blog? A good amount of random thoughts, updates and commentary on everything ranging from food and cooking, breast cancer and chemo, life in general, or how cute my cat is. I will try my best to update this at least once a week. And now, it is my pleasure to introduce you to The Zippie. Happy Reading!