Thursday, December 29, 2011

A little about my Culinary Background

Starting out here & switching over my blog, several of my friends probably already know this.  For those of you who are finding me for the first time, Welcome!  I've always have had a love of cooking & would help out my mom in the kitchen a lot when I was growing up.  By the time I got to College, I studied for a degree in Nutrition and Food Science with the Food Science emphasis.  My first job out of college was in quality control at an industrial Bakery.  From there, I went into flavor applications at a small flavor company that manufactured liquid smoke.  I realized there that I really wanted to go back to school to get my Culinary Arts degree.  So, while I was working I started my Culinary Studies and did my restaurant internship at the Wisconsin Room at the American Club in Kohler, WI.  Now that was a learning experience!  It was a good thing I did it while I was young, because I worked full time at the flavor company, spent Fridays at Culinary School, and then went and worked the dinner shift at the restaurant on the weekends Fri - Sun.  From here, life happened a bit.  I wound up changing positions to work in flavor applications for another flavor company and wasn't able to make it back to finish my culinary degree for a couple of years and several moves later.  So, about 4 years after I started, I finally re-entered a Culinary Program in Cincinnati and later earned my Culinary Certificate by going to night classes. (The counselor at the school told me an Associates Degree would be repetitive since I already held a Bachelor's Degree).  This also helped my career a bit and I was able to switch a bit from just doing flavor applications to expanding into Creative Development.  I also was promoted to a Senior Food Scientist/Research Chef.  I waited until others recognized me as a chef, before I called myself one.  I felt like it was something I had worked hard for and was proud to be recognized as such.  Then, after a few more years, life happened a bit again.  My husband went active duty in the Army and our first duty station was overseas in Germany.  It was time for me to walk away from the flavor industry for a bit and focus on being a mom & wife.  I've enjoyed my time exploring new recipes and cooking for my family, and as I've shared on facebook I've started to have more friends ask me for recipes, and ask food questions in general. I also had some fun teaching a few cooking classes while we were overseas.  Now that we're back in the States I decided to go ahead & start taking some pictures and share what I'm cooking.  
Feel free to look around, ask some questions, post some comments.  If you have a dish that you've been wanting to cook but feel like it's too intimidating, let me know.  I may already have a recipe for it and would be happy to share.
Thanks for joining me in my cooking adventures!  I may not post every day, or I may post every day.  Life kind of has it's way of keeping things interesting, but I hope you all will enjoy this as much as I do.

Catherine

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