Back to School...

So I have to submit an essay of 1 to 2 pages to my chef before I start school on Monday. It is supposed to be about me and where I'm coming from. I've been procrastinating for a month. Its real long I think. But I like it. I might go back and change stuff before I send it this weekend. Hope he likes to read. Here it is:

I, Jennifer, was born and raised here in Orange County. It was an imaginative and outdoor upbringing filled with sunshine, laughter, and exploration. I certainly leaned towards the arts as a young girl, baking pies for the fair in lieu of kicking soccer balls (or getting them kicked at me). Some of my favorite things to do were to raise and show rabbits, go to summer camp, and dance with my friends. I begged my parents to take me to actual dance lessons until finally they caved, allowing an inflexible 12 year old to jump headfirst into what would be a torrid love affair spanning the next 15 years.
I danced at all times possible. Class and movement and music and training were the most important things. I attended an all-girl catholic high school where I had to put in serious hours as well, leaving little time to get in trouble. This was a good thing. I followed my love to UCI and began there to understand what foundation really meant. I had passion, joy, and style, but soft foundation. With an intense and rigorous schedule juggling rehearsals, academics, dance technique classes, and teaching my own classes I felt alive and competent. I was learning and teaching, giving and taking. I finished school early, ahead of my peers, and backpacked through Europe for my last semester. It was there that I seriously fell in love with food. I incredulously asked “All of this bread gets made BY HAND?” and “People like cheese THIS STINKY?” Wine pairings, serious seasonality, and cult food obsessions were not part of my daily life. These things were new and fascinating. I loved them all and the artisans who made them. It would be some time before I came back to think about these questions again. But happily, I did. I left for New York City the morning after I graduated UCI.
New York ages you faster than you expect. Possibly dog years fast. I was there for about 2 years and might as well just have lived for 14 anywhere else. I danced, auditioned, waited tables and learned how to layer clothes for cold weather (the last one is more important than one might think if you are from southern California and your idea of warm shoes are closed toe). I found myself looking to connect with friends over meals and outings and ended up spending time with my fellow restaurant staff friends more than I expected as the dancer friends didn’t eat. We would spend a few weeks searching out the “best of” any number of foods including pizza, steak, and margaritas (if you eat chips with margaritas it is considered a food group). A few of us decided to make thanksgiving dinner together. We used memory for recipes and an ironing board for counter space. Bob Marley played and we improvised. It was creative and wonderful. One of the best times I had ever had in the kitchen, even though we had no roasting rack and jacked up our bird on piles of silverware. All of these wonderful tastes and even my desire to take cooking classes were not enough for me to leave my leotards and work in a kitchen. I didn’t know you could change paths that way. I did know that you could move to San Francisco, closer to family, and still dance.
I don’t know if it is because of the cloud of culinary smug that sits over San Francisco or not, but those outdoor markets just suck you in. Next thing I knew I was sourcing ingredients all over the bay area in between ballet and my modern dance class. It was green and lush and full of food energy. My new lover, food, was moving in to my studio apartment with great gusto. I googled recipes and watched the food network. It was magical courtship. I ate at House of Nanking and Chez Panisse in the same weekend. Napa Valley was only an hour away. My head was spinning with this new found fascination and I was tiring of teaching at the dance studio there for little pay. I was offered a job here in so cal by the studio that I first danced at. I moved the next month.
It took me five years to build the training company that I just left. If I could have been in culinary school while doing so, I don’t know that I would have. Maybe the two lovers would not have gotten along. Maybe they would not have minded sharing my time. But I am loyal and devoted and even felt dance being edged out by food and cooking in these past few years. I felt frustrated that I had to prepare choreography and design costumes instead of poach salmon or dissect chickens. My favorite project was Le Cordon Bleu at Home, a cookbook I am still determined to cook every recipe from. I kept a journal of these endeavors and love to look back at the ambitious menus that can take a few days from start to finish. I didn’t mind the wait or work so I went to work for a natural foods grocery store in my spare time. I said I wanted to learn how to cook and then was hired as part of the marketing team. I would help with catering projects, perform cooking demonstrations, create recipes to feature new products and serve special diet needs, and then of course all of the other things you have to do in marketing that I wasn’t as interested in. I was so lucky to have those 2 years to learn about ingredients and producers. It put me in touch with environmental issues and food chain dynamics. It was like a mini food/earth school.
After leaving the foods store, (they wanted my time to be theirs, and I did not want to leave teaching yet), I slowly began researching schools. I did not consider this school first as I had never really heard of it. The more looking I did the more I found out about my own food foundations. I never gave notice to the small seasonal changes that I did grow up with in my home in Orange County; the abundance of zucchini in summer, as well as tomatoes, herbs and plums. Tangerines, first strawberries, and year round lemons, both eureka and meyer. Some of my first memorable restaurant meals including swordfish at Chez Panisse at about 10 years old (“Does the fish REALLY have a sword?”) and sizzling rice soup at a local Chinese place. Magical things happen in those kitchens, I was sure of it. Food had been with me before I had realized I was in love. Like some sort of romantic comedy with the silent best friend. A few months in Europe at 22 just blew my mind open to it. I am ready to dive headfirst into this continuing adventure. I can’t wait to be a student again and I am so grateful that I am able to attend school. I hope to bring my passion, joy, and style to the kitchen.