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February 08, 2005

Why I Want To Go To Culinary School

Summer of 1977: a three year old little girl answers the front door and tells the neighborhood kids that she can't go outside and play because Julia Child is going to be on TV in a few minutes. They look at her with part confusion, part bewilderment as they wonder who Julia Child is and why she wanted to watch her. The little girl asked daily after Julia's show "can we have that for dinner"? The answer was always the same, as soon as you learn how to cook. That little girl was me.

Flash forward a few years, mother and daughter head to the neighborhood grocery store, a chore most mothers hate and children despise even more. But my dad was the General Manager and at five years old I had the coolest job in the world, using the price gun to put little price stickers on each individual half-moon block of cheddar cheese. My mother had to drag me out of there.

I started making desserts when I was still in elementary school. Spending a holiday with family in New Orleans, I wanted to make a banana split dessert pizza, one of my favorite desserts; my uncle, however, wanted bread pudding and my aunt only had enough ingredients for one of them. I, of course, won and we caught my uncle eating over half of the dessert he didn't want in the first place.

When I hit junior high school, most kids looked forward to summers so they could play outside or watch cartoons. I would spend part of every summer with my Great Aunt in a small town in Central Texas working and cooking at the Senior Citizens Project. One summer she bought a new refrigerator and with it received a cookbook. I immediately had to try an ice cream recipe that looked like a whole watermelon when finished. My aunt told my mom that there was no recipe in the world that had too many ingredients for me. The ice cream was really good and looked even prettier.

One summer my parents took me to Dallas to a Food Show my father was attending for work. While walking around attempting to sample every morsel, I looked up and saw Paul Prudhomme sitting at one of the booths. My father introduced me to him and told him that I wanted to be a chef. He told me, "Get in the kitchen".

Throughout high school, college and the three years that I taught public high school in Texas, I cooked at every opportunity. At every potluck supper, every birthday, or candle party, I would show up with some new recipe for everyone to try. I even baked a cake for my students on their birthdays.

In June 2002 I sold my home in Sealy Texas, quit teaching and moved home to Central Texas. I had finally figured out after seven years of college and three years of teaching that I needed to go back to my first love, cooking. I worked part-time at a deli near my home while working full time as a software support specialist at a manufacturing company nearby. The excitement I had the first time I got to bake cookies at the deli made my parents realize that culinary school is where I was supposed to be.

Here it is November 2004, I'm 30 years old and I finally figured out what I want to be when I grow up. The sad thing is I knew all along, I just wasn't listening to my heart. After nearly a year of restaurant management, I am ready to move on with my dream of attending Culinary School and becoming the chef that Julia Child brought out in me over the television airwaves so long ago.

Posted by FutureFoodTVStar at February 8, 2005 11:45 PM

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