It's Sunday morning, around 10 am, and I'm sat in bed waiting for my day to start. This is not the first time, nor will it be the last, that I experience the feeling that despite being awake my day has 'not started'. This time though I'm not just starting my day. For me, writing this blog represent the start of something much more.
Like many before me I've been struggling with my current career for a few years. I'm a secondary school teacher (a 'good' one officially) and am currently in my fourth year of teaching since qualifying in 2011. In all my time, I've never felt 100% convinced by what I do. I remember, in the days running up to starting my new job in North London, breaking down in front of my partner simply because I didn't believe I was doing the right thing. I never really shook that idea, and more importantly I tried incredibly hard to ignore it.
When you've been told that something is 'right for you', that you're good at it by those who should know, when you've passed several interviews where people have confirmed that, it's hard to think that it's not. You suppress other ideas, interests, partly because you think you're right to, partly I think because you're scared to entertain another idea. The irony is the longer that you do this, the more distant those ideas become and likewise the more afraid you may become of entertaining them. For me that idea has always been food. Now I am making the choice to reclaim that idea.
I love food. I love to taste it, eat it, cook it, and share it (although sometimes reluctantly). I want to inspire others to share my love of it, I want them to have that same feeling of excitement.
So, now I a sit at the start of something more. I take this first step forward to follow my heart and enjoy what I love. To put aside concerns about security and long term financial prosperity in favour of fulfilment, fun and of course food.
It is my dream to be paid to cook and serve the food I love. How that plays out in reality I'm not sure, but I know I need to set myself down a path that will help me fulfil that. My next step now is to equip myself to start cooking to a professional standard, to finalise my own menu of the food I want to share and how I'm going to share it.
Why a blog? This will serve as a note book of sorts. Somewhere I can record my ideas, findings and food loves with the hope that this will be the start of my food future. It is also a promise to myself that even though it will be scary, daunting at times, I have to pursue it.
So the journey begins to become a Chef! Step 1:1 complete, Step 1:2 ongoing and this of course, Step 1:3 -. Now to work on Step 2!
Thanks for reading and if you too share my love of all things food, please share your own ideas with me!
