It never occured to me that I would ever grow up to become anything other than a teacher. I did go to teachers college, but that turned out to not be my true calling in life. I kept finding myself working in local fast food chains and then one day I went to pick up a friend at the local community college and fell in love with their culinary arts program. It started out that I was just frustrated with all the teenagers getting the management positions and I was being bypassed. So I signed up for the Hotel-Motel Restaurant management program. Pretty soon I realized that I wanted to do more with the cooking part of the program and decided I would become a chef. I had big dreams. I would do an internship at Walt Disney World then I hoped to work in a fabulous hotel or a cruise ship. What I didn't realize is that the food service industry is not friendly to the single mother of an only child situation. Since normally food service workers work when other people are off work.. the evenings, holidays, weekends and obviously it would be difficult to raise a child on a cruise ship or in a hotel, contrary to what the movies and television would have us believe.
I thought the perfect solution was my own catering business. The real kicker here is that again I worked when other people were off.. weekend weddings, events dinners for the hospital (in the evening)... after awhile I got frustrated and took a job at the local college, where I got my teaching degree. Again I worked long hours for amazing pay, but never saw my child. So it was back to culinary school to further my talents. This was mostly because I could get a grant to attend school so I didn't have to work so I could spend more time with my child. I worked part time as a pastry chef in a local hotel until my advisor informed me that I had to do my internship somewhere I had never worked before and suggested that I work at the colleges cafeteria for 6 weeks.
The plan was to keep my job as a pastry chef, get in do the internship, get the credit and get out. Well as it turned out people at the college cafeteria started quitting and I was offered a job as a cook. ten years later my daughter was in high school and I was managing the cafeteria. I had quit the hotel and at some point along the way took a positon as a cook in an assisted living facility which led to more management responsibility. I was also driving an hour to and from work each day. This was before gas prices reached $2 a gallon and I was putting out almost $200 a month in fuel. My contract with the college was up and I chose not to resign because they wanted me to commit to seven years. I did not know if I would still want to be working there in seven years so since it was christmas break and I had time off anyway, I started looking for another job. It took me 2 weeks to find a job working for a relay for the deaf and hard of hearing. I did this job for 3 years again working into a leadership position. I adored this job and had every intention of staying there for the 30 years til I could retire.
I said I was at the relay for 3 years. As it turns out my head can be turned by the offer of a management position at a nursing home. I had a lot of reservations about taking the positon of kitchen supervisor and as it turns out I should have turned it down because again I got frustrated working for the administrator from hell and I quit after 8 months and went back to the relay.
I then met the man of my dreams and ended up moving to another state to live with him. I have to say the community I live in has very few opportunities for food service. I am currently working for a sandwich chain and I love the job. I make decent money, but the taxes in this state are so high I really should have a second job. Currently they are looking for a manager. Our regional rep is trying to manage the store and I think it is going alright, but he really wants to end the stress for him. after 4 months of finding no one and the resumes he received were laughable I turned in my resume even though I don't really want the job. I am thinking I will make the offer then let go and let God. Apparently he choosen to first hire a 21 year old, blue haired, tattooed kid whose claim to management fame would be that he worked at Ihop and was employee of the month 8 times in 18 months. Thank goodness for background checks because we found out he is on probation. Ok so I am thinking I am going to have to deal with being the manager. Ok, I guess I can deal with that. EXCEPT the regional rep decides to offer the position to a 25 year old girl who until february never worked in our industry and plans to quit soon to go to college but thinks managing the sandwhich shop will look good on her college resume. Don't get me wrong I would not mind working for either of these people if they had any management experience whatsoever. Yes I do not want to run the store myself but I'll be damned if I want to be a party to seeing it run into the ground.
So now you know what frustrates me. In a nutshell I am a chef working in a sandwich shop with no management about to be run into the ground. On the home front, my man and I are both trying to loose weight. He used to be 200 plus pounds heavier til he had gastric bypass surgery. I used to weigh 302 until I invested in the 6-week body makeover. It Does work. however 2 years later we are both starting to gain some weight back so some of my frustration is finding foods we will both eat. we both love the fattening comfort foods that made us fat, I have learned to eat things like fish, chicken, turkey, avacado, slow digesting carbs and fruits. He cannot eat these things. He has to be on a high protein diet. One would not think this would present much of an issue, but I am pretty frustrated trying to figure it out.
Also going on at our house right now is this garden. I am spending a lot of my days trying to figure out how to process all the zucchini, cucumbers, corn, green beans and peppers we are growing.
So, what is this blog going to be about? Clearly I am frustrated at not being able to cook the amazing meals I trained to cook. I am also frustrated trying to find healthy, amazing food we will both eat and processing the garden. I am also a frustrated teacher and writer. So I am going to use this blog to tackle all those things. I am hoping to write and perhaps teach some techniques and recipes and ideas that are interesting to me. I am planning to post some recipes and some how-tos as I learn new things. And perhaps even share some insight into happenings in the foodservice industry today. If anyone has anything they would like to see me cover please feel free to let me know I will do my best. Since todays entry has been so cumbersome I will save recipes and whatever for tomorrows entry. Hope to see you soon.
