A good bye for now, not forever.

"Time flies when your having fun."
That was a true testament to this last week, although I hope it doesn't apply for over seas travel.

This past week I've been doing alot of last minute shopping for italia and saying my final good-byes to as many people as I could.
(If your reading this and I missed our good bye I'm sorry, Goodbye, I'll miss you. I'll be back in February.)
                                    But all the driving around has given me alot of time to think about everything that's going on around me through school and travel, friends and family and I really just can't wait to go and start a new chapter of my life.

First off let me say that I've never been away from my home for longer than a week so this 4 month trip overseas, to some may seem small, but to this guy, its a big deal. I never thought packing clothes for that long was going to be easy but surprisingly it wasn't too too difficult. (Ill probably get to Italy and then realize i missed a bunch of things but I'll worry about that when the time comes.)

But over the past week with the thousands of questions asked about the trip and such one question sparked me more than any "What made you want to start cooking?"  And I really couldn't put an answer to it exactly. Now I'm talking back when I was a kid, back when the legacy first started (I have a feeling I'm gonna regret that line.) I couldn't even think what made me want to cook, I just always have.

Back when I was knee high to a grasshopper and the earliest memories I have are burning my hand on a cast iron pan, I've always been interested in cooking. I would always cook with my grandparents when ever I could and that was always fun for me but when I got older and I needed to know more about what I was doing I enlisted in the closest help possible, Family.

Cousins of mine, Jane and Shelia, owned their own catering business (Heavenly Edibles) and that was really the first "Job" you could consider me having in the culinary field, nothing serious just enough to get my nose into it and see if I liked how it all smelled, well sure enough I liked it and ended up choosing my High School because of it.

 I went to Cheney Tech in 2005 for culinary arts and I really didn't have a doubt in my mind at that point that this would be something I wanted to do for a while. My absolutely fabulous instructors AL Hovasse, Roxanne Ballachino, and Theresa DeSantos were three major influences on my culinary career and I still keep in touch with them to this day. Without the guidance, knowledge, love, understanding and the "constructive" criticism they gave me I can easily say I wouldn't be who I am today, and for that I thank you guys.

But there is only so much school can do for you, everybody has had to work in a restaurant one time or another and I haven't had many jobs in the field being only 19 but I have tasted both ends of the culinary spectrum.

Besides working with family I then had a job working at a local Greek/Mediterranean restaurant where a busy night was 60 covers (Covers = tables of people that order food). From there I cant say I learned new way to cook but it had opened my eyes to a real restaurant atmosphere, an experience which is can not be taught through any sort of classes.

From there I landed my next job at Restaurant Bricco in West Hartford. Now going from doing 40-50 covers a night to 250-350 is a monster jump and its here I learned that your fastest fast, just really isn't fast enough. I never once considered myself a quick worker by any means but this was a real eye opener. But it wasen't just the sheer speed and turnover that impressed me the most it was the dedication and care that the people had for their food. It didn't matter if we had a full board and more tickets coming in, every single dish put out was made to look "nice-nice" because if you didn't look at it and instantly want to eat it, what makes you think someone paying $25 for it is going to want to.

So I guess if it wasn't for the speed and dedication of Bricco, or the eye oping experiences at the first job in east windsor, or picking my high school to pursue culinary arts, or getting help from family, or even burning my hand on a cast iron pan before I could even read; if it wasn't for those things you probably wouldn't be reading this blog anyway, so I guess when it all comes down to why I went into cooking...

...Everything Happens For A Reason.

-R