Learn it up

So this is my first post, after my first day working at my first internship, after my first year of Culinary School at New England Culinary Institute. Seems like a lot of firsts eh? To me its something comforting and familiar, like an old friend.

I've worked kitchens before, even at the kitchen I (re)started in today, I've been a cook since I was 14, and I don't regret a single day of it. I'm a line rat, through and through. As I said, I just finished my first term of culinary school, and in retrospect, it probably counts as the best 6 months of my life so far. It was a full six months full immersed in everything culinary, it's what I lived and breathed day in day out, whether I wanted to or not, and it not only taught me a lot, but let me grow up a little and just realize I need to absorb EVERYTHING. That's the number one thing I can say I learned, is that watching everyone around, asking everyone questions, not just the chef instructors, or the chef you're working for, EVERYONE, will get you much farther much faster than anything else ever will.

Even just talking about food with friends I learned a lot. I have a lot to thank my friends for, including much of my knowledge, they're some of the best teacher's I've had. All year, pretty much all of my conversations got back to things we could do with food, or what beer we liked and for what reasons things in the industry are done a certain way. Specifically Derek, Courtney, Pete, Aaron, Mikey, and Jamie I am indebted to for a long long time for all they've taught me.

This takes me to where I am now. Tonight was my first night interning, and we didn't do many covers, but I worked my ass off. I prepped out a couple basic things, then started scrubbing everything in sight, just because it has been written into my programming. While it may not seem like much this is something significant to me. This is the first time I've found myself doing it automatically, like it was a natural process to me. This would not have happened if you had seen me six months ago, or even 3 months ago, and it shows me how I've grown and learned what I need to do to become a chef and make it to the the top.

All I really need to do is learn it up.

-CT