My first job was in a busy restaurant when I was thirteen. It was hard, hot work, toasting enough hamburger and hot dog buns to keep up with the endless orders that would fly from the grill. The job only lasted the summer but it gave me some money and personal freedom which was nice.

I worked other jobs as a teenager – cleaning hardwood floors with my uncle sometimes, a lot of summers doing commercial drywall with my dad, I even worked behind the counter at a deli slicing lunch meat and cheese (as well as my finger) for a while. Scattered in the mix were some more restaurants. I never really took any of the restaurant jobs because I wanted to work in a kitchen, but because I needed work and it was a job. Then something happened.

I moved to California in ’97 and needed work in the evening while I attended classes during the day. Restaurants were an ideal fit for the student schedule and over the few years prior to moving I’d picked up some decent pizza making skills. I applied for a position at a popular local restaurant in my new California location, hoping for a few hours a week and a free meal. Instead I was given something else.

They offered me a position as a line cook, saying all their pizza maker positions were filled but they were down a man in the kitchen. I remember looking over at the open kitchen during the interview and seeing bursts of flames as pans were deglazed with white wine. There was yelling and throwing of random items and grabbing of others, an insane performance by madmen with fire and knives, but each dish would slide gracefully across the counter with a sprinkle of parsley or a sprig of basil just where it should be, exiting the eye of the storm unscathed. I had no idea what was going on but I knew this was some next-level shit and I wanted to be a part of it.

I picked up the basics fairly quickly thanks to general restaurant experience, but moving beyond that took time. I could communicate with the pizza section or a server about their table well enough, but when it came to discussions about the food, how it reacts to high heat as opposed to a lower flame, or balancing out acid with a base, these concepts were new to me. The head cook would explain something and I would grasp it a little more each time and then try to make each dish taste a bit better than the last. I would strive for perfect soups using not just seasoning but technique. I would occasionally burn an entire pot of meat sauce or ruin a batch of a hundred or so meatballs, but even mistakes like that taught me. I learned to use my sense of smell, to keep track of more than one item on the stove, to time things separately in my head. It’s funny what skills you’ll find to prevent ruining hundreds of dollars worth of inventory. The seminar at the Culinary Institute Of America, Greystone for the company’s head and 2nd cooks was a fantastic experience and opened my eyes even more. I learned so much in such a short amount of time, and probably would have learned a lot more if it weren’t for the fact that I was a 23 year old know-it-all. Thankfully I had a great teacher as a boss so in spite of my cocky nature I still was able to learn. Imagine that.

I moved on after nearly a year, returning to the east coast and immediately applying for work at a nearby italian restaurant as a line cook. The chef was looking for someone with a little more experience, but he gave me a chance. I was glad, because I knew I was good and that’s all I needed. Remember I said I was cocky?

It turns out I was good at the other job. I knew their ingredients and their menu. Repetition had made me fast. I didn’t know food yet. I didn’t know how to improvise. I didn’t know how to think outside the box. And I didn’t know how to shut up and listen.

I did OK at the job, grilling steaks, fish, octopus and whatnot over open flame. Many of the items had their own sauces so I was making those a la minute which was fun, but I was not the phenom I thought I was. It took quite some time for that to sink in. I began watching cooking shows, reading recipe books and cooking guides, learning more. I wanted to be better. I wanted to know more. I wanted to be who I was claiming to be, I suppose.

The years passed and I worked my way from one restaurant to another, never staying in one place for long. The experience was fantastic, trying my hand at everything from short order to fine dining. Eventually I began to approach food differently, no longer using food items as recipe ingredients but instead working with food to create the best dishes possible. I began tasting everything around me, putting handfuls of whatever my mouth before and after they were cooked just to stay familiar with taste and texture. During my journey I had watched many great chefs transform food instead of merely cook it, and the process was now taking place for me as well. I was getting recognition for my hard work. I was given kitchens to run and asked to write my own menu on more than one occasion. I was no longer an impostor. I had become who I claimed to be.

Over the years I’ve set out to do something and fallen short many times, only to try again and again until I got it right. My first attempt at putting together a website wasn’t exactly the best, and my second attempt resulted in the loss of many hours worth of video footage and several days worth of writing. Now I design websites for clients. My first short film was fun – just a few minutes worth of footage, all done with in-camera edits and no sound to worry about. From the reception I received in class I thought I was to be the next Sam Rami and went into my second film with feverish excitement. When it came time to screen project #2…well, let’s just say it didn’t go over quite as well (because it was terrible lol). I realized making a film was much harder than my first experience made it appear, so I kept plugging away, reading books and watching movie after movie, doing my best to learn from my mistakes and improve my craft. Eventually I started to grasp some concepts, similar to the way I started grasping the concepts of cooking or web design, and my films began to improve a bit. I would pick up more and more skills the closer graduation came, but I also began to see just how vast a world I was entering and how long it would take me to find my footing.

I still have a lot to learn when it comes to my passions, a journey I think will last many years, but that’s OK. I’m sure there will be success as well as failure, headache and excitement, but in the end I will come out transformed once again. I learned to fight by lowering my chin and throwing a punch. I learned to cook by grabbing a hot pan and stepping up to the flame. I’ll continue to learn by trying, and by always being who I claim to be.

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