Desperation and new beginnings

My mother and I, baking apple pie.

I am fairly certain I knew my calling when I was about thirteen. I cannot say for sure, because I practically grew up in the kitchen. But it is when I have the clearest memory of this desire. You see, my mom was a full-time mother of 4 and home-schooled us in the kitchen while she canned fruit, baked pies, ground wheat and made bread.  We often had mid-day breaks in which she would pull small bits of bread dough so that we could bake our own mini-loaves. However, I think the real ah-ha moment happened shortly after my parents separated. Back then, when my dad was a bachelor, many late nights were spent inventing recipes, executing and eating our creations as late as midnight.

At the age of seventeen, I was full of hope and excitement about my future as a chef.

I had a plan and I would be great, naysayers be damned! With this in mind, I had enrolled in a technical school for culinary arts my senior year of high school. I spent half of the day at high school and the other half learning all manner of culinary skills. I loved my teachers, chefs who knew and recited recipes, taught us how to run a restaurant and how to ignore the pain in our fingers. Our restaurant manager taught us how to speak properly to guests and set a table fit for the queen. Here, I found a community. Others like me who wanted to create, wanted the chaos, the heat of the kitchen, and the camaraderie. This was it; I was hooked. 

Of course, at that age the possibilities that I could see foresee were fairly limited.

My first real line job was at a chain restaurant called Teds' Montana Grill. I was hired by a very skeptical chef who seemed confused as to why a young, pretty girl would be so excited by the prospect of flipping burgers with a bunch of guys. Nevertheless, he took a chance on me and I ended up working the blue-plate station. I was a quick learner, a very hard worker and would accept no less than total success.   

Of all that I gleaned from working at Ted's, the one thing that stuck with me most, was taught to me by the dishwasher. This was a man who had been a cook most of his life. He once said that the passion he had for cooking was gone. The love he felt had melted away and turned into hatred. The fear I had in that moment was overwhelming. And the dread that I could one day hate cooking, unthinkable. 

I did not realize that falling out of love with your passion was even an option.

No, I was sure it wouldn’t happen to me. I would be different because I had more passion. For me cooking was a visceral need, and there was nothing but cooking. Unlike him, (I thought) I was full of hope and determination. This was my dream and I was going to stick with it until the bitter end. Looking back, that fear was a knowing inside of me. "This could very well be me someday." But I tucked the thought away, buried it deep inside of me, this fear of possible fate. A year later I would be accepted to the California Culinary Academy in San Francisco.

When the burnout hit, I couldn’t get out fast enough. I was twenty-seven, working in Denver and living with my sister. The resentment hit much sooner than I could have dreamed. But my artistic expression had been stifled all these years by a culture of misogyny and micromanagement, I couldn't stand it any longer. The dishwasher had been right and I hated myself for allowing this to happen. The hours, the lifestyle, all of the holidays past spent with co-workers in place of my loving family had worn me down. The dreams I had when I was thirteen had led me to what felt like a dead-end. Desperation filled me.

I resolved to turn my resentment into power. What else could I do with a culinary degree? Why hadn’t I pushed myself further?  I decided that if I could not find a place where I was empowered and appreciated, I would have to create one. Perhaps I would write a book titled So you thought culinary school was a good idea? 

The Denver Library happened to be a place I spent a lot of time. Of course, there was reading but exploring the many floors for a secret place, the somewhat unknown art gallery, the architecture; this was a sanctuary to me. It was there that I flipped through a book that chronicled various jobs and ways you could use your culinary degree. What followed was my career as a private chef. The next six years were spent in a world I had fought for. Part of this was luck, but mostly I had worked hard for what I wanted. I ended up cooking for someone who was unwaveringly supportive, and how many people can say that?

The older I get, the more I feel I can’t escape, nor do I want to, that calling. I often feel it is more of a need, a well inside me that waits to be filled. Cooking for and sharing with others, enjoying one another over food, the smiles on people's faces. There is nothing else that can fulfill this exigency I get from sharing my soul with others. I had to dream of it, to strive for it, I was abused by my need for it, I discarded it and then grasped for it again, found a bit of fight left and decided it was the soul of me.