I have heard quite a few celebrity chefs telling the stories on how they get inspired to become, well...chefs. Things like tasting foie gras in some exotic faraway restaurant at the age of 5 months, liked it and remembered it...to been cooking since age 3. A lot of them have been surrounded by people who could afford visit expensive restaurants and taste very expensive dishes. Quite a few had been able to attend the most expensive culinary schools that can exist: The French Culinary Institute, The Cordon Blue, The Culinary Institute of America… and so on. Some just got the inspiration from within without the thousands of dollars.
So saying that, I'm wonder how I will get there. At 36, I haven't taste foie gras. I started cooking when I was 12 because my grandma had an accident and couldn't get out of bed for quite a few months. The first meal that I ever cooked was white rice with corned beef. But it wasn't the fancy corned beef brisket. It was a canned corned beef that is so present in puertorican dinner tables. I'm not able to afford one of the culinary schools mentioned early because I just "invested" in going to a business graduate school, not realizing that the thing that most exited me it's not marketing, is FOOD.
That leaves me in the group of the inspiration within.
But I still wonder if that's enough. I’m wondering if it is too late. Regretting a few not so suitable decisions in my life. How much time will I be waiting? Is it the time? Now? How? Last week I spend an hour and an half at Borders reading On The Line of Eric Ripert. I was just amazed. I imagined myself in that "not so big kitchen" making sauces, chopping onions, plating or just looking at them and seeing how they dance in that kitchen line. I know never it's too late. But I hope the courage doesn't hold too much time. After all, I do have an inspiration: White rice and Canned Corned Beef!! Maybe it's stupid, but making that simple, poor and humble dish took me to cloud nine. Even do I have suppressed that memory for so long, that was my epiphany. If it wasn't for that dish, I wouldn't have dared to make a souffle.
