Turning A New Leaf (Again)
Over the course of many years I’ve dabbled at this. The plan was always for it to turn into something more. Something that I could do for a living. The restaurant industry has burned me out many times, I don’t have the drive of other chefs. Cancer rocked my world in young adulthood, I didn’t want to constantly and kill myself and lose time with the people I love. Time that was now beginning to count down in front of me. I couldn’t explain it to my coworkers or my managers, but I didn’t want to be them.
Every time I find myself looking to a new thing, I always want to investigate the history of it. I got into fashion because clothing didn’t speak to me, but fashion school didn’t either. Then I found belly dance, and burlesque and I wanted to create costumes… but I wasn’t keen on the glitter and the rhinestones. I wanted to make Eartha Kit-esque ensembles. But school is hard for me, I don’t like the timelines. I want to do things on my own. So, I got a culinary cert. I needed a field I work in consistently, and at the time the prospect of the many hours cooks work and the over time it came with really looked good. I spent a long time in institutional kitchens with their steady hours, just grinding away making large quantities of alright food. And then I got a shot at a real line and it was hard, and hot, and my grill cook was an asshole. But it got me into a world with a team who truly wanted to create. When I came “home” to Wyoming, to my desert under the mountain I was filled with drive. I got a pastry job and I was eager to please, to push, to be new. I burned out, I nearly died, and I wanted out. I wanted slow. I wanted a sense of connection to food that I wasn’t feeling.
I don’t have the technical skill for haute cuisine, and I don’t want it. And I think at 30 I’ve finally found what I want. I want to be a food historian. And funnily enough…. You don’t need anyone else to do that. I live in a world where food is looked at from a colonizer standpoint. With an appreciation for your surroundings and even nature, but no real emotional connection to what this land is. So, I’m going to explore that now. Here. Not everything will be an experiment, some things will just be the practical passing’s on of someone who lives rurally on a limited budget stretching her meals for her family. And some will be fun, moments of light to help us all get through. But I want to dedicate a space to learning the West, to creating in it a sense of pride found in the other regions.
Things won’t always be pretty, and I’m definitely going to share many failures. Because I want more than anything to document this journey.
Hopefully you’ll all be here for the duration.
Your creativity and imagination have shined through in everything you have accomplished.