A Naive Kid:The Start of my Culinary Journey
Growing up in small town Orangeville I was raised on simple comfort foods, pot roast Sundays, pizza Fridays, Shake and Bake (does that still exist?). I didn’t realize it then but my food world was tiny. Still, I already knew I loved cheese, and I already knew I loved to feed people.
By the end of high school, like most kids, I was trying to figure out what came next. I kept coming back to the kitchen. I had a natural pull towards cooking and baking. It just made sense. So at 17 years old, I packed up and headed to George Brown college for culinary school.
I lived off of the Danforth in the East end of Toronto, surrounded by tiny markets, butchers, and bakeries. I’d wander from shop to shop, picking up ingredients I didn’t even know how to cook yet-but I was about to start learning!
Culinary school was a wake-up call. I thought I was ahead of the game because I was a wicked fast potato peeler and I could bake a decent chocolate chip cookie(recipe straight off the bag of course!). I was so wrong!
Most of my classmates were older and had already been working in restaurants. I was the baby of the group-just an ex-dishwasher, who got to peel garlic on slow nights. Already in the first week I learned how to hold a knife, dice an onion, that I would be needing A LOT of deodorant for those hot instruction kitchens, to carry bandaids at all times and food would be my new perfume.
My instructors were retired Chefs from around the world-England, Scotland, Germany, France, China and more! I learned so much about the world without even leaving the building. Years and years of experience and knowledge right at my fingertips. They were stern and caring at the same time. Some of them scared the heck out of me! But in honesty, I realized there was so much more to food than what I knew. I became obsessed with learning, tasting, and trying everything.
I started a journey thinking that I was good at food. What I found was a whole world I’d barely scratched the surface of and I’ve been chasing that knowledge and honing my skills my whole life since!