Danielle Storm
I attended UCLA and have a BA in history, a BA in psychology, and an MA in education. None of which have absolutely anything at all to do with cooking, camping, or anything else I do now.
These days, with one kid studying physics at Cal Poly Pomona, another studying engineering at St. Mary's College, a third in architecture grad school at Columbia University, and the last two in high school, still stuck at home to endure our weirdness ("Hey! Let's go move 800 pounds of dead logs at camp this weekend instead of watching football on TV like you'd really rather do!" and "Taste this smelly root I found at the African grocery store today!"), my husband Bill and I try to fill whatever rare time is leftover with various outdoor activities, hopefully centered around some great bottle of wine. Usually this means heading up to the camp I run to fix something/find something/build something; but sometimes it means a kayak trip in Tamales Bay, a wine picnic on the Napa River, or an impromptu camping trip in the redwoods of Northern CA.
We actually do work, though. Bill works in education, but I still have a hard time figuring out how to answer the question, "What do you do?" Last year I started my own business, Firefly Fabrics, where I sell specialty fabric, trim and stones to a very niche market of skatewear designers, gymnasts, dancers, etc. I also design and sew about 50 skating outfits a year, which you can read about here.
I also coach roller figure skating, because everything else I do isn't weird enough already. Check out the fruits of this particular labor, here.
Since I guess I'm not busy enough, I also manage to still fit some catering gigs into our schedule. These days it's mostly small-time stuff, like a 12-course plated tasting dinner for ten that we put on when our oldest, Michael, brought his partner out from NY to meet the family. Their end of the table was elegant and tasteful, with delightful conversation that occasionally wafted toward my end of the table, where the inhabitants were making various fart noises with their sake glasses. Otherwise, our catering schedule is pretty much limited to a huge track and field banquet we put on every May (oh, and I'm the local HS track coach, too), closing work party at camp (where we turn the best movie line ever, "He's cooking our garbage!", into a religion, where the goal is to feed 60 people for a weekend without buying food and instead just using up whatever happens to be leftover from the summer -- last year it was an overabundance of bread, 40 extra pounds of zucchini, 30 pounds of overripe tomatoes, and 6 5-lb bags of shredded cheese), wedding cakes for very good friends, and various excuses to host wine-related dinner parties whenever we can. Otherwise, I guess every summer evening (when the kids are home from college) could be considered a catering gig to people who aren't used to serving six or seven (or more, depending on who happens to be in town) people every night.
Of course, what takes more time than anything else in our lives is this camp. It's completely volunteer work, 100%, which should help to alleviate any sort of envy you may feel about wishing you, too, could turn camping and playing in the wilderness into a career. I am working on officially retiring from this position, though...
Still, the common thread through all these odd jobs/careers/manias has always been food. Why it took 48 years to figure this out, I don't know. But here I am, and I'm glad you're along for the ride.
These days, with one kid studying physics at Cal Poly Pomona, another studying engineering at St. Mary's College, a third in architecture grad school at Columbia University, and the last two in high school, still stuck at home to endure our weirdness ("Hey! Let's go move 800 pounds of dead logs at camp this weekend instead of watching football on TV like you'd really rather do!" and "Taste this smelly root I found at the African grocery store today!"), my husband Bill and I try to fill whatever rare time is leftover with various outdoor activities, hopefully centered around some great bottle of wine. Usually this means heading up to the camp I run to fix something/find something/build something; but sometimes it means a kayak trip in Tamales Bay, a wine picnic on the Napa River, or an impromptu camping trip in the redwoods of Northern CA.
We actually do work, though. Bill works in education, but I still have a hard time figuring out how to answer the question, "What do you do?" Last year I started my own business, Firefly Fabrics, where I sell specialty fabric, trim and stones to a very niche market of skatewear designers, gymnasts, dancers, etc. I also design and sew about 50 skating outfits a year, which you can read about here.
I also coach roller figure skating, because everything else I do isn't weird enough already. Check out the fruits of this particular labor, here.
Since I guess I'm not busy enough, I also manage to still fit some catering gigs into our schedule. These days it's mostly small-time stuff, like a 12-course plated tasting dinner for ten that we put on when our oldest, Michael, brought his partner out from NY to meet the family. Their end of the table was elegant and tasteful, with delightful conversation that occasionally wafted toward my end of the table, where the inhabitants were making various fart noises with their sake glasses. Otherwise, our catering schedule is pretty much limited to a huge track and field banquet we put on every May (oh, and I'm the local HS track coach, too), closing work party at camp (where we turn the best movie line ever, "He's cooking our garbage!", into a religion, where the goal is to feed 60 people for a weekend without buying food and instead just using up whatever happens to be leftover from the summer -- last year it was an overabundance of bread, 40 extra pounds of zucchini, 30 pounds of overripe tomatoes, and 6 5-lb bags of shredded cheese), wedding cakes for very good friends, and various excuses to host wine-related dinner parties whenever we can. Otherwise, I guess every summer evening (when the kids are home from college) could be considered a catering gig to people who aren't used to serving six or seven (or more, depending on who happens to be in town) people every night.
Of course, what takes more time than anything else in our lives is this camp. It's completely volunteer work, 100%, which should help to alleviate any sort of envy you may feel about wishing you, too, could turn camping and playing in the wilderness into a career. I am working on officially retiring from this position, though...
Still, the common thread through all these odd jobs/careers/manias has always been food. Why it took 48 years to figure this out, I don't know. But here I am, and I'm glad you're along for the ride.
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