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Here's to Great Friends!

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Hello, foodies…

August is a big month for my friend Tara McConnell. QVC is celebrating 31 Days of Temp-tations®! If you haven’t already, you’re going to see a lot more of Tara and Lisa Gleason on air this month. And every week on QVC.com and our apps, you’ll find new items you won’t see on air. It’s no easy feat to coordinate something like this, so a great big shout out to my dear friend for bringing you all so many new colors, patterns, and pieces.

It seems like yesterday that Tara, who I met in the mid-90s when she was working with a vendor group at QVC, developed Temp-tations. It was 2002. And the first-ever set was only available in one color…Old-World Green. And while the pieces did come with a serving rack, they had wicker baskets instead of wire. Do any of you remember that? I’ll bet I still have one or two of those original pieces at home somewhere…

Anyway, Tara and I worked side by side—almost twice a week, every week for years—so we naturally just became friends. Then, in addition to being coworkers, we became neighbors when she moved into a house just down the street. During the holidays, Tara and her mother Gail always welcomed me when I couldn’t get home to North Carolina, we hosted parties together, and we’ve even shared blackouts!

I’ll never forget it…a few years ago, we had a freak ice storm in October on Halloween weekend. The trees still had all their leaves so it was just devastating. Well, we both lost power and I called her and said “Are you as cold as I am?” And she said, “I can’t begin to talk to you because my mouth is frozen shut!” Luckily, I was just finishing a pot of chili on the stove before the power went and I also have a wood-burning fireplace, so I told her to come over and we ate dinner practically sitting in the fire.

She’s since moved to another neighborhood but we’re still friends. And we certainly have had shared lots of laughs over the years.