When I was much younger, if you had asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, I would have told you I was going to be a chef. I was 100% certain I would have ended up in culinary school learning to create the world's best pastries, therefore changing the world around me, ONE BITE AT A TIME! I vividly remember unwrapping my Kitchen-Aid mixer on Christmas morning, and thinking that machine was the single key to my success (Silly, yes, but I was 19 at the time). I wasted no time getting started. I tore open the box, ignored the directions, and baked my first batch of chocolate chip cookies straight from the back of the Toll House Semi-Sweet morsels package (typical, yes.) From there, it was cakes, brownies, and anything that needed to be mixed or whipped-up. Soon, I moved on to making homemade pasta and breads and even started experimenting a bit. I had some successes, many failures, but enjoyed it all.
Soon after that, I landed the job that began my career. No, it wasn't at a bakery, it wasn't at a restaurant or a candy shop. It was with a music publisher. Yes, I realize I said I was going to be a chef, but when life smacks you in the face, sometimes it changes your path. Eventually, my love for the music led me to law school to study Entertainment Law, and for three years, the Kitchen-Aid didn't even make it out of its box. Even after making it back to Nashville, I found that I had settled into a great career, surrounded by amazingly creative people, who I loved to work with and the years sort of flew by. It isn't as though the idea of cooking never crossed my mind, but my days in the kitchen were reserved to single dishes at potlucks, family dinners, and the occasional birthday; nothing like what I had once dreamed of.
Then, in 2007, I met The Texan. He was a tall, handsome man from Houston (hence the nickname) who had a love for classic cars. I was completely smitten and wasn't gonna let a mere 900 miles stand between us! After our first year of dating, he invited me to spend Thanksgiving with his family. For me, this was a BIG deal, because Thanksgiving is THE holiday for my family. If I was going to spend it elsewhere, I had to bring a little bit of my family cooking along with me. I made six pies that year, and the most memorable part of the entire trip was The Texan's discovery of Chess pie; it was "epic" (his words, not mine). For days, he bragged about those pies as though they were made of gold. Who knew that making a few pies (and having someone love them) could make you feel like a million bucks? That's when I started to understand the old saying, "The way to a man's heart is through his stomach."
Although Thanksgiving had once again sparked my interest in cooking, The Texan and I lived hundreds of miles apart. So, the opportunity to cook more often didn't come along until he moved to Nashville. Once he lived closer to me, I found myself opening up my old cookbooks, checking out cooking blogs, calling my mom for advice, and planning out all the meals and treats I could cook for him with entirely too much excitement. In August of '09, he proposed to me (hopefully not just for the cooking) and we were married in April of 2010. We quickly settled into a nice little routine that usually involved me cooking dinner every night. Then, one day, he said, "You know, you don't have to cook dinner for us every night." Now, this took my completely off guard, did he not like my cooking as much as I thought he had? "You don't want me to cook for you?", I asked. "No, that's not it. I just don't want you to feel obligated to cook after a long day of work." That's when I realized I wasn't only doing it for him. I was actually re-discovering my love of cooking.
Now that I've remembered the dreams I had as a young girl, I've found myself on this journey of learning and enjoying and discovering new things every day. I probably won't change the world with my cooking. I definitely won't be heading to culinary school in Europe, and I certainly won't be opening my own bakery; but, with my Kitchen-Aid at my side, I hope I'll be putting some smiles on the face of those I love. ONE BITE AT A TIME!
