The first dish…

I was thinking last night as I was making a beautiful slow cook pork tenderloin rubbed down with garlic, pepper, salt, and chili powder, that I need to start getting ready to go back to school. I know that there is basically no way that I’ll be able to start when the next term starts because that is in April and there just isn’t enough time between now and then to get everything done. I still have questions for the school and I still have to figure out so many things! These are the thoughts that were running through my head as the tantalizing scents were wafting through the air:

“I have started looking in to actually going to culinary school. The first thing on my mind is how to pay for it. I know that there are things like scholarships and the fafsa but I haven’t tried to go to school in years, so I have no idea how things work now. Do you fill out your fafsa at the beginning of the year even if you don’t sign up until August for school or do you fill it out when you sign up. Also how to I apply for scholarships? I have never applied for one in my life! No one ever explained how they actually work. I know that there are scholarships for everything, being a Mom, being old, what you want to study, etc. There are also many programs and scholarships set aside for military wives, so I may be able to take advantage of those as well. Also how much is this going to cost me in the long run? Well I have the answer to that one. An Associates of Science degree in the Culinary Arts costs in the upwards amount of $50,000!!! That not including supplies and travel and the “Starter Kit” that you need to buy from the school, which I am sure includes the tools of the trade that I’ll need. Like Uniforms, cutlery, hats, things like that. As of right now I have no idea how I am going to come up with all of this, but I know that it’s just part of the journey.

The next part of the journey is going to be finding out where to buy my books! Have you looked at what college textbooks cost these days!!?? How can they justify the price of these books??!! Are they crusted in diamonds and dipped in gold? Basically I have no idea what I am doing in that area either. I have looked on amazon at the random culinary textbooks and some of them are not that bad in pricing. I just wish that I knew which books I should research. They don’t release the books list until you actually sign up, I guess because the books for certain classes change depending on what new information has come out. Either way the few books that I already have I am going to read and study to have a little bit more knowledge before entering the classroom.

Another part of the journey is a mass questions. Why am I trying to go back to school? Why do I think I can handle this? Why do I want this? Will I be good at this? Will I be able to take care of my family and go to school? What is my back up plan if I can’t find a way there? Is this something I can finish? Is there any easier way to achieve my goals without putting this strain on my family? Am I too old to start out in the Culinary field? I keep thinking that I will be able to have the answers to these questions before I start classes, but I know that all of these questions are going to answer themselves later on. Its hard for me not knowing whats right around the corner. I don’t like to just jump in with both feet, I want to know as much about what I am going to do as possible, because for the most part I really hate surprises.

The final and most important part of this journey is my family. Are they going to be ok with this. How will I possibly be able to be here when my daughter gets out of school? Are her studies going to suffer because I’m not home? Will I be able to find a sitter that I can trust to make sure that she gets her homework done? Will my husband be able to handle the house cleaning and meals that I can’t be home for? Are we strong enough to survive less time together? In an effort to not have to spend less time together I am hoping to be able to arrange my class schedule so that I only have day classes. I’m also hoping to find someone that I have almost every class with so that I can car pool to and from class since we only have one car. That way we can just pay for and only half of the gas at that. My husband also brought up an interesting idea about seeing if there is a train from here to where the school is, I looked it up this morning and its a no go. There isn’t reliable transportation to and from where I live everyday unless I own my own car!!”

That last paragraph really put me down, it seem like everywhere I turn something is holding me back. I tried to talk to my husband about it but he just didn’t understand. During the night I had dreams about being in school and having them kick me out because I didn’t own a car. Nothing got resolved but for some reason when I woke I felt better. Maybe its knowing that they can’t kick me out just because I don’t own a car, or maybe its just because my mind mulled over that all night so I got some real rest, either way it was good to wake up and feel like I could take on the world. Tonight dinner will be a tasty treat I think, something that will remind me why I am doing all of this and why I want this. Maybe the answer will come to me while I am sniffing the air to find the scents of wonder that food brings, or maybe while I am watching my family happily eat the specially prepared meal I set out for them, maybe it won’t come to me at all. One thing I have learned is that with cooking, as with life, you have to have faith that everything will all turn out right.

Dinner

There is a moment in one of my favorite movies where the actors are using a metaphor about the meals of the day. At the end of the movie the female actress tell the male actress “That was dinner!!” That line always makes me smile because it reminds me how important “Dinner” really is. I know that they say that breakfast is the most important meal of the day, and body health wise that’s true, but to me, and in our house, dinner is most definitely the most important meal of the day for mental and emotional health not to mention family stability and happiness. When my family takes the time out of a busy day to sit down together and enjoy good food and have conversations together it makes us a stronger family. We might argue, or laugh, or just talk about our days but we all know that the most important emotion around the table is love.

To me food has ALWAYS equated love. There is just something about sharing food with the people you love. The smiles and laughter surrounding the dinner table are some of the best memories that I have of my husband and daughter. The oo’s and ah’s that let me know that what I made was tasty and enjoyable are just icing to the cake! That’s not saying that I always hear those, because sometimes I invent a new recipe that just doesn’t make the cut, but most times I get the appreciative looks and sounds that remind me that I am now on the right path to following my heart.

These are the thoughts that swam around my head last night as I made an amazing beef soup. With the snow, wind, and cold outside I had thought that a beef stew would be just the thing. In cooking as in writing, (or any other art for that matter) your initial ideas tend to merge, flow, and evolve. As I was thinking of my family, and our happy times around the dinner table, my idea of a stew evolved into making it into pot pies with a buttery and flaky crust, then evolved again to leaving it simple, just a tasty beef and veggie soup with rice. This soup turned out to be perfect. A couple of slices of home-made white bread to dip into a bowl of warm broth on a cold winters night and talking and laughing with my family around the table. Now THAT was “Dinner”!!

Entering the Kitchen!

It has taken me years to realize that no matter what happens in your life, you should always follow your heart. I tried to go to college and failed miserably doing something I wasn’t all that interested in. Its not that I had bad grades, I just didn’t want to do what I was doing. I would do something small for the class and then run to the kitchen to create something delicious and wonderful that melts in your mouth.  I didn’t always succeed but when I did it was amazing! Then I would go back to my humdrum classes and wish I was still in the kitchen. Eventually I dropped out of college and became a stay at home Mom. I tried the occasional job, you know fast food and retail sales, I even had my own small business for a while, nothing was ever as satisfying as being in the kitchen and watching people enjoy my food.

Now I am getting ready to start the journey toward culinary school. I’m scared, excited, nervous, and EXCITED!!! I know that the road will be difficult, especially being one of the “older” students, but I am at least halfway prepared for the challenges ahead. I decided to start this blog to write about my creations in the kitchen (I’ll never write down a recipe in full that I have developed, but I’ll give you recipes and citations from the cookbooks that I use) and my successes and failures in the kitchen, in school, and in life. I hope that you’ll join me on this journey and maybe send some advice my way.