10:59 p.m. - 21 August 2002
Major changes
The good thing about working at a job that I intensely dislike is that it’s made me sit down and actually make some decisions. Namely, one big very important decision: I’m going back to school. Not grad school, though: culinary school.
Yes, I’m planning to go to Johnson and Wales in Norfolk. No, I don’t think I’m crazy. Yes, I’ve talked to Lee about it (he actually encouraged me). No, my mother doesn’t think I’m crazy (she encouraged me, too). Yes, I’ll be keeping my job and going to night and weekend classes. No, I haven’t figured out how I’m going to pay for it, other than loans and maybe some scholarships.
Right now, the plan is to pay off as much of our debt as we can (that would be the truck and Lee’s student loans, not necessarily the house) before we go even further into debt for me to go to school. I’m kind of thinking next September or maybe December, since J&W has terms that start both those months. I really want to go up there and take a tour and talk to some of their admissions people, since most of their students are right out of high school, not five years out of college. But just having a plan makes me happy.
I’ve known for a long time that even if I did go to culinary school, I wouldn’t want to work in a restaurant. That’s a kind of hell I can only imagine: producing the same food, night after night after night, no holidays, no weekends, etc. No thank you. But part of what was preventing me from going to school was having no clear idea of what I would do other than working in a restaurant.
I think I’ve found the answer to that question, though: becoming a personal chef. Of the go to a person’s house, cook a week’s worth of meals, clean up and go home sort, rather than the work for one wealthy person round the clock sort. I think it’s something that would work well here, particularly if I target some of the people here at the hospital and the doctors, who can afford such a thing. I’ve even found out that one of the local caterers also does some business in this realm, and I’ll probably give him a call before too long.
And if not a personal chef, well, there are even more options: food writer. Test kitchen chef (I’d really love to work for Cook’s Illustrated, but they’re in Vermont. I don’t know if I can take Vermont winters). Heck, even restaurant reviewer is an option. So long as it doesn’t involve restaurant work (although I’m sure I’ll have to do some in the course of going to school).
So, wow. I know what I want to do. I even have at least a rudimentary plan for how to do it. All of a sudden I feel remarkably like a grownup. How did that happen?
