What made me finally enroll in culinary school?

Honestly, I don't know why it happened on that day. It was July 15, 2010, and I think I saw one too many of those commercials encouraging me to "get my career cooking" and to "call now for a free brochure".  Since I left my beauty industry job about 2 years ago, I have been working in a call center for a vacation resort company as a customer service agent.  I was helping wonderful customers get on vacations, I had a great supervisor, health benefits and vacation time. Sounds pretty good, right? But, as I told my friend Steven  11 years ago, I wondered if I would ever find my greatness. Your "greatness" is that one thing you are destined to be, that you are really good at and enjoy working toward everyday. I see it happening to others, but wondered if that would ever happen to me. How do I find that?? 

I had no idea where to start and I honestly thought it would eventually find me instead.  I figured it was a matter of destiny and I would fall into something fabulous that I would have a secret talent for, people would love me and my life would become effortless!  Mmmmmkaaaay.  Not exactly.  18 months and 3 internal job interviews later, I am still in the same place.  I am well liked there, have recieved awards for performance and I am happy doing it about 50% of the time (is anyone really happy with their job more than that?)  But I am still just---there. Thank you for calling.

So why culinary school? I love food. I love cooking. I love eating and feeding people. I finish cooking one dish and I am already on to thinking about the next thing I can make. I don't shop with a grocery list, I wait till I get there, see whats on sale, really fresh or catches my eye and pull up Big Oven on my  iphone for ways to prepare it. This means I will sometimes be preparing 2 or 3 dishes at the same time. I can't help myself. This is either my destiny or an eating disorder.

I am not unique in my love for cooking and food.  Lots of people love it but some people love it just a little more.  Or a lot more.  I think it started for me when I was a child. It was in the late 70's and my father and I used to watch the earlier cooking shows on public television waaaaayyy before they had any food networks.  We would watch Great Chefs of New Orleans, Chicago and France, among others.  I still remember the sight of the chef placing water-bathed ramikins of eggs and cream in the oven for shirred eggs, one of my favorite breakfast indulgences. I think I was about 10. We also watched other shows like Yan Can Cook and The Frugel Gourmet.  Julia Child was naturally a staple.  But my father was really the one to credit with exposing me to cooking. He would often be home from work first and would begin preparing dinner and he would share his knowledge with me. He taught me alot of things but this is what I remember learning from him more than anything else.

I think this journey will mean alot more to me than just a career. In this way I will continue to remember my father and the things that I think made him special to me.  And I know that through this I will finally find my greatness.  And perhaps as a bonus I will learn to do a proper dice.