The word of the day: CHEF

I am such a culinary goober. While other people might get excited and drool over themselves when they run into movie stars and sports legends, I get completely tongue-tied and dorky when I see celebrity chefs. Maybe its because, lord knows, I love food, or maybe because I'm envious of their talent, or maybe because there has always been a part of me that wanted to go to culinary school. The day I met Tom Douglas still ranks among my best days ever (don't worry not above my wedding day or anything but definitely better than my rain soaked college graduation) and if I ever saw a Top Chef contestant I would demand an autograph.

So, as you can imagine I just about peed my pants last night when I met two of Seattle's best chefs: Scott Staples and Matt Dillon. I was playing bouncer to one of our uber-swanky work parties and as soon as I saw their names on the door list, I started to cross my fingers, just hoping they would actually show up. And oh my gosh, I may have mentioned this before, but I was such a goober when they did. When Matt Dillon walked in, I didn't even wait for him to say his name before I thrust out my hand and said, "Hi! I'm Kate and I love your food." No joke. Word for word, like I was teenage girl you just saw the cast of High School Musical. I had to repress a girlish giggle even. I'm not sure whether he was flattered or thought I was like a stalker but he laughed so oh well. Scott Staples and I had a less embarrassing moment but at the end of the party I marched up to him and told him point blankly that we loved Quinn's and had a great time and managed not to be quite so well, gooberish in doing so. I think. Possibly. Actually probably not. Oh well.

But seriously, people you would thought have I'd died and gone to heaven- I was that excited. My co-worker looked at me with this look like, "Seriously? That wasn't Justin Timberlake you just met or anything" And then, to make it all this even better, I am still on Cloud 9 today because tonight, TOP CHEF premieres. OH yeh, baby.