Letter of Intent

There’s a strong feeling in my gut that drives me to want to attend cooking school and pursue a professional culinary career. I’ve been digesting and metabolizing this feeling as long as I can remember. There is no denying that food and cooking are the things that bring me the most joy in my life — cooking feeds my artistic needs, brings me energy, and fills my soul.

My first adventures in cooking began with a bet I made with my Dad in middle school: if I got straight A’s, he would pay me $100, if I didn’t, I had to make him any meal he chose. I lost. But I made veal parmigiana. While studying in Japan, my home-stay family owned a squid fishing boat, a stall in the local open-air fish market, and an izakaya. Walking home from school every afternoon through the fish market, all the vendors became friends and implored me to try new and exotic items from the sea. Yelling, “John-san, John-san, challen-gi!,” I tried everything from fresh uni, to whale blubber, blow fish, and seemingly every possible way to cook squid. I’ve since traveled to over 35 countries, and while I might not remember the hotels or business clients, I can most always certainly remember every meal in great detail. During college and summers living in Marin County, CA, I learned about farmers markets and Alice Waters. I sold grills at a frou-frou hardware store and taught the rich and famous about the joys of such heady things as pairing smoking woods with salmon and chardonnay.

Today I am the primary cook in my family. Joy for me is cooking: learning to make pasta by hand with my two kids and wife, menu planning for intimate evenings with friends, or spending multiple days to prepare passed food for a much larger party. I collect and devour cookbooks new and old. Weekends always revolve around trips to the farmers market, Sunday evening family meals, and getting a jump on cooking for the week. Whether in the wok in 5-minutes, or from the newest Ottolenghi cookbook in 5–8 hours or more, I simply can’t get enough time in the kitchen.

I trust and hope that attending cooking school will accelerate my new choice of careers, though I know it will be difficult. Though I do not know what form, or forum, my professional cooking may take place in the future, I know I want to learn the techniques so the recipes become unnecessary. I want to cook in a professional kitchen to gain the necessary skills and to understand the environment. From there I want to start and grow my own business, not just to feed mouths, but to feed my community. I’ve started keeping a journal of business ideas across a spectrum of possibilities, including creating a locally sourced home dinner delivery service, or better boxed lunches for kids, or learning how to consult on zero waste cooking, or starting a food-destination blog about foraging for mushrooms and oysters on some distant island. I am less concerned about my final choice of career because I have confidence in the process of attending cooking school, in my seriousness to be a student again, and applying the bounty of newfound techniques, networks, and skills to advancing a new career in food and as a professional chef.