A New Beginning

   I recently moved back to the Nashville, TN area from eastern North Carolina.  My husband is a Marine; I moved to the Camp Lejune/Jacksonville area after graduating college last December.  There were few--actually, no job opportunities in the area for a microbiologist.  So for the seven months I was there, I did almost nothing except cook.  

   It is the closest thing to heaven I have ever experienced. 

   Now that I am back in Tennessee and the search for a real job has begun, I am wary of every listing I find.  Am I qualified?  What are the benefits?  How am I supposed to gain industry experience when no one will hire me because I don't have any experience?  (This, I believe, is ultimate the Catch-22 of my generation.)  Mostly I think:  how will I cope with standing in a lab, peering into a microscope, and constantly trying to keep up with the latest scientific finds for the next 40 years?  The truth is, I'm not sure that is what I want to do.  At this moment in my life, all I want to do is cook.

   This irony of this situation is that I almost went to culinary school.  I talked extensively with reps from Johnson & Wales, the International Academy of Culinary Arts, and The Culinary Institute of America.  An application for the CIA was completed and ready to mail.  I stood in front of the mailbox for a long time, staring at the envelope in my hand.  A million ideas swirling in my head.  Finally, I turned around, walked inside, and promptly threw the application away.  Some nights I lay awake wondering if that was the biggest mistake I will ever make in my life.

   In order to right things with myself, I have started this blog.  It is a way to hold myself personally responsible for something related to food other than putting dinner on the table.  A mish-mash of recipes, reviews, and thoughts on food that will serve this overwhelming desire to simply immerse myself in a food driven world.