How did I get here…?
Sometimes I wish I had gotten into food sooner, or taken it more seriously when I was younger, or gone to college and learnt the French names for things, or taken a different route; but then I think we can be fairly certain based on chaos theory and the butterfly effect that I wouldn’t have ended up exactly where I am right now. Which is a funny thing when you think about it, because how do we really know that? Maybe I would have happened across the jobs I did anyway? Maybe I would have learnt from different mistakes I made and grown from them just as much? I guess we will never know for sure.
“(in chaos theory) the butterfly effect is the phenomenon whereby a minute localized change in a complex system can have large effect elsewhere. Named from the notion that if a butterfly fluttering in Rio de Janeiro could change the weather in Chicago”
But something I do know for sure, is that being near food is where I was destined to be. From when I was a little person I loved it - eating it of course, but moreover making it! The infamous “making mixtures” era of my early childhood should have been a tell tale sign (much to my parents horror sometimes, I am certain, when I would present to them for tasting a concoction of mustard powder, chicken stock cubes, raw flour, melted margarine, dried herbs, sugar and goodness knows what else, warmed in a pot in the microwave topped with a spring of parsley like I thought I was a 5 year old Delia Bloody Smith). My Mum often recounts the story of me deciding to cook my family a 3 course meal, by myself, at the age of 8 or 9. I have literally no recollection of this, which probably serves my cringe-glands well tbh! But none the less, it happened…and if my Mum is to be believed it was a triumph. I must ask her what I cooked and see if I can equal the magnificence now.
I am not sure why I didn’t think to be a chef sooner really. I had all sorts of other ambitions in my teens; teaching, medicine, criminal psychology, American summer camp counsellor, even juror at one point before it was pointed out to me that wasn’t actually a job… but for some reason never being a chef. It is weird considering I have worked in hospitality from my very first job in an ice cream parlor outside Canterbury Cathedral at the age of 15.
But here I am now, having worked my way up, honed my skills, learnt what part of working in food really lights my fire…and it turns out that it is literally doing professionally what I started as a 5 year old amateur all those years ago; almost like it was meant to be.