Where it all began: the Kim/Bec - Ying/Yang - Glamorouse Thang...

For the past few days, since I have been able to think about anything other than how Dad is going in ICU (yep, still there and thanks for asking Mar, but that's for another post) I have been mentally writing this piece about how and why this all began. However, Kim's entry below (HERE) pretty much sums it up really, because who wouldn't want to write a blog with someone this destined for reincarnation as a really, REALLY higher being. I've been trying to remember the first time I met Kim and I'm pretty sure we were both pregnant and in the office of a former employer - although I think I was only just pregnant and Kim was noticeably so and so that is part of why it stuck in my mind. We were introduced, perfunctorily, by Julie, a mutual friend who does many social things perfunctorily, and that was that. The next time I saw Kim I think was when the Pea Princess and Oscar were still both very little; we were back in the same office and I remember being a bit confused in my usual confused-because-I- don't-ask-personal-questions-way, about the difference in our respective babies' ages. Oscar seemed older than he should have been, and if I had just asked the right questions I would have found out why, instead of absorbing it by osmosis over the later years of knowing the lovely Kim. There were various moments in between then and now, many of them involving (although she may not know it) me admiring her lovely feature articles for a magazine for which I was ultimately responsible, but mildly dreading the proof-reading (your, and you're, Kim, this is why I know private schools do not make a difference, other than apparently really curbing your teenaged sex life!). But the articles? were intelligent, warm, insightful and well worth the proof reading. Really. And it was on this basis that, when I was in another section of the same employer some time later and when the perfunctory Jules seemed to be using a different journalist for most of her freelance work, I felt free to poach Kim for an odd but relatively (at the time) lucrative job helping out with the statewide training awards. I was, at the time, pregnant with the twins, which must mean Kim was coming out of the first stages of maternightmary (I'm coining that phrase now) arrangements for Felix. I didn't get to work with Kim for as long as I'd hoped as, boring story cut short, twins kept threatening to arrive early so I had to leave my job early and spent many, many, many long weeks reading and knitting... but I digress. So, we kept in touch off and on and most particularly when it came to food. Kim is the author of a number of my best and most favourite recipes and a steady and wonderful source of advice about restaurants, ingredients and, most importantly, cooking techniques. Along the way, bits of parenting triumph and disaster-sharing crept in and, before it could really be announced in The Times, I believe we became friends. Kids, cooking, careers. Then care. Because for me, the defining moment with Kim was when I was attempting to organise a surprise birthday party for my husband at the end of the dreadful, horrible, awful year that my mother died. I had this desperate need to make something, anything, go right and so, of course (by then) I consulted Kim on food. Not only did she have the most amazing and clever ideas for catering for the small group we could actually fit in our tiny house, she offered and then insisted on making a truly stupendous chocolate birthday cake, and delivering it personally during the secret preparations for his party that afternoon. But wait, there's more, and it is SO like Kim that I absolutely must tell it here and now. I had done my best and naturally that was not enough to really organise a party for 20 while juggling three kids under five and a full-time job and a pretty massive load of grief and self-pity (see how I've learned to be retrospectively kind to me sometimes?). Still, my best had been done, thanks to many friends, including the lovely Kim, and it was the afternoon of The Surprise... Kim not only showed up on cue, with spectacular chocolate cake; she immediately assessed my sorry state of preparation and divined that no amount of hard work by me and two others would pull this gig together in the half hour remaining. So she installed herself in the kitchen and seamlessly pulled it together like the pro she is. She also stayed and kept things moving AND washed up, meaning I could actually mingle and this, I know for a fact, is the only reason Chris and I can look back on that night and smile rather than grimace. I can't quite find a way to say this that I can be 100% sure won't offend, but (after hastily checking her post here to be sure I didn't say any of the other offensive things) I'm giving it a go: Kim gives me hope in hope. I'm not spelling it out, that'll do. mtc Bec