Cooking has literally saved my life

[Nomad Chef Secret Restaurant]

Some of you may know a little about my personal story, but most of you won't. I opened the Nomad Chef almost 2 years ago. One of my son's friends, someone I'd known for 20 something years, who had eaten hundreds of meals at my house, said, "Shelley, you need to open a supper club!" She'd been to several but I didn't know what she was talking about. Other than the fact that my grandparents had had a secret club in their basement, they were jazz musicians in the 30s, in Seattle where I was born, I didn't know about the movement here in London. Two years ago I had lost nearly everything. My 32 year old son had died the year before, and then 10 months later my company went under. I went from having everything to having nothing. And so I cooked. It was the best thing I could have done.

Since I opened the Nomad Chef I've been cooking my way out of the darkness. I know these blog posts are usually about past or upcoming events. But since it is a small community of fans and supper clubs I hope you won't mind me sharing with you a project that is very important to me. Over the last 9 months I've been filming a documentary about this painful journey from complete darkness through a tunnel where I can finally see some light. This film is for people, who like me, were faced with a challenge that seemed too great. I looked for a film like this but couldn't find on. It is not all sad. In fact, there are lots of funny moments. And there is a lot of food! I took a road trip and cooked in Beverly Hills and New York and visited Silicon Valley and San Francisco. I am nearly finished with what will be a full length feature documentary (70 minutes) but I have run out of money to finish it. So I have launched a kickstarter campaign where people can donate as little as $1 to help finish it. Here is a 4 minute video about the project. Feel free to pass it on to others.

CLICK HERE TO WATCH

I'm grateful to this site for the ongoing encouragement to all of us secret chefs, but especially for the window onto this wonderful world we cook in. You may have noticed that there are no dinners planned in December at the Nomad Chef. That's because we did way too many the last few months, many of which were private. But we'll be back on in January! Thanks for being here!