future plans

i can remember saturdays on pbs sitting in the living room of my house with my dad watching cooking shows, lydia's italian table, julia child, and ciao italia with maria esposito. jokingly my dad and i would talk about how great it would be to be able to cook for a living like they did, to have their own show and enjoy what they were doing. as i grew up i was always in the kitchen helping, thats just how it was in my family everyone helped with dinner. as we grew up we became more responsible for cooking our own meals. i always enjoyed it deep down and always wished there was something more i could do with it, like go to culinary school. i was never really sure of what i wanted to do, first i considered social work, eventually i thought working with 4-H a program that had helped me out so much and formed me into who i was seemed like the perfect fit. i applied to colleges, began classes and never really looked back. last year wasnt to bad, i made friendships some lasted longer then others but i thought the deeper i got into my classes and coursework the easier it would be to make friends i would spend the rest of my years with. summer after freshmen year for some reason i cant remember i started following blogs, collecting recipes and trying some. i made a peach pie and zucchini chocolate chip cookies and was given aprons from my grandmother. after that it felt like i was truly doing something i enjoyed. last semester was hard but i figured soon it will only be my major required classes, i'll enjoy them more. instead i hated them more and more. every now and then i would joke around with my mom about going to culinary school. i knew it was only a pipe dream, then i registered for a weekend class at le cordon bleu and it seemed my mom finally grasped how much this was something i wanted to pursue further. so i am. next year i won't return to the university im attending now, i'll move back home and start at a community college based culinary arts program. at first when i started telling people like my favorite teacher and 4-H leader i felt i was letting them down. but now i've come to realize however hard it will be to explain to some i'll finally be happy in my classes and i'll be doing something i truly enjoy. this post helped me really clarify for me that i was doing what was right for me and that i wasnt alone