"Here We Are", the Jimmy Buffett tune that attempts to describe the Parrothead phenomenon popped into my head as I began to write. I wanted to be able to explain why I am writing, so here we go.
Last March I was working as a nurse, performing antenatal testing. Richard and I had been dating about 5 months and living together about 3 months. I was growing more frustrated by the day with the nursing profession, my job and my boss. Richard could tell. I had expressed an interest in going to culinary school. He said"Why don't you go down to Cincinnati State and check out the culinary program?" So, I did. I came home that evening and he asked me what I thought. I said something like, "If I won the lotto, I would quit my job today and start tomorrow!" Well, needless to say, they failed to pull my numbers out of the lotto tumbler, but by Friday I had given 2 weeks notice at work and registered for classes that started in early April.
I completed Cooking I, Sanitation, Nutrition and Survey of Hospitality Careers my first term (Spring 09). When summer came, I registered for and completed and accelerated Excel course. In May, Richard and I set up a garden in the back yard and grew tomatoes and basil. Just a "trial" garden to see if we could grow stuff. The tomatoes grew and so did the basil. It was fun. We GREW something! Then we ate what we grew. Pretty cool. I wanted to know more about growing stuff. My brother was growing stuff too, but on a larger, more successful scale. He had a greenhouse. As always, he was willing to instruct his "'lil seester" on the finer points of gardening.
Early fall quarter started and I registered for 11 credits. Richard and I borrowed my brother's tube bender and went to work building a greenhouse of our own. I began to look back, trying to remember how things came to be and how I had arrived at this point. It had only been about 6 months since I started school, but already so much had changed. I wanted to document my journey. I want to watch the change. I want to be able to look back and read about how I felt during my experience and compare it to the inevitable changes that will occur.
So here we are... This is not Alice's Restaurant or Alice's Greenhouse. These are Alice's thoughts about her journey into the food world. So if you would like to check in on my journey now and then, you are welcome, stop by anytime. There will be current posts and some posts about what has happened over the past 6 months, provided I can remember enough to write it down!
