My Culinary Life
I have loved to cook my entire life. I am a wife and mother of three children. I am married, and we have 3 children that are 18 months apart. I am lucky and blessed that my husband has always been a great provider, and that it was important to both of us that I stay home with the kids.
I am an active, healthy person, and found early on when my kids were babes that I could stay connected to myself and others through food. I have always worked in restaurants. I have literally done every job one could do at a restaurant. In these early years with babies under foot and being a stay home mom, food was my outlet creatively. I could set up a kid on the counter in their infant seat and hand them a carrot while I prepared meals and their siblings played.
At that time the Food Network Channel had just launched, and Emeril Lagasse and other chefs entered my living room. While my children played or during naps I learned. I watched them all and soaked up every technique they showed me. I learned how they chopped and which knives they used.
My husband indulged me to get cooking in by agreeing to have large elaborate dinner parties with our neighbors. All of our friends had kids the same ages. I would make invitations and invite our friends and make a four course meal for everyone. They were asked to bring wine. My youngest child is a girl, and she would help me make bouquets of flowers for the table and make it look pretty.
Our kids would get a separate meal from the adults, but we were all together having fun. Those were foundational days for me. I knew I had cooking skills and they kept getting better and better.
I gradually began taking more formal cooking classes. There was a mom that I knew from the neighborhood that worked at a store in town called Sur La Table. It is like a William Sonoma but with a demo kitchen area where renown chefs came to do a class. I went to as many as I could! I loved the classes, and they ignited me. I then started taking classes about knife skills, how to make stocks, basic sauces. I couldn’t take enough classes! I just loved it and it energized me.
One afternoon while at home with the kids, I was planning a dinner for the friends, and came across an article in Bon Appetit Magazine for a cooking internship with a highly acclaimed chef. It was a $25.00 fee to submit and application. I told my husband that it would be a dream come true to be able to work for 2 weeks with any of these chefs.
There were 6 chefs mentioned, from New York, Philadelphia and Washington DC. I honestly had no idea how I would pick the one I would like to work with! I sent the application and kind of forgot about it. It was a dream!
One day, while on the phone ordering pizza, another call came in the other line. I put my pizza order on hold. “Hello?” “Hello, may I speak with Janet?” a very French voice said to me. My adrenaline started flowing… ? Yes? It was the facilitator for the intern program! She called me back to interview me about the internship!
Let me clarify something here — the internship was not free. It was $2500.00 to have the honor of cooking in a 5 star restaurant for 2 weeks. I was so unprepared and did not expect this call! I never thought this dream could become a reality!
I answered all of her questions, why I wanted to come, what is my cooking background, can I get around a kitchen, honestly I don’t remember the questions, I was so excited! The last question was, “What chef would you like to work with?” W H A T C H E F?? Any of them would have been an honor!! In between me sending my application and this phone call I had received a packet with a fold out of description of each chef. I literally pointed at one, and said in a very confident voice — “him”. It was Michel Richard from La Citronelle in Washington DC. My French woman on the other end of the phone applauded my choice of chef as being agreeable to work with and a good choice. Oh brother!
Now for the hard part — could this really happen? $2500.00 seemed like an absolute FORTUNE. I was a stay-home mom! My husband always was traveling. How could I possibly leave for 2 weeks?
When my husband got home that evening I talked it over with him. Well, he started trying to figure it out — I could get there on free miles because of his traveling life. He could arrange his schedule, we could get my mom to help. Wait, was this really happening? Soon flights were made, and I was off to DC for the culinary highlight of my life…
