My earliest culinary memory that I can recall is being 5 years old, I was whisking the pancake mix having a blast cooking with my dad. When the pancakes were served up everyone complemented me on how fluffy they were and I was like wow… this is pretty great. Making breakfast is where my passion for cooking started because I was allowed to have fun with the ingredients and experiment with different ideas.
What pushed me forward though was seeing my grandma and my mom cook, my grandma would make these amazing dishes without ever once looking at a cookbook. Everything was hand measured, eye balled, and guessed and each and every dish she made came out amazing. My mom helped me explore different cultures and have an open mind when presented with a new dish or item of food, which is where I took on the mindset of always trying something once. When I was in grade 10 I would go to our Culinary Arts classroom almost every day to study, when one day my teacher Mrs. Booker asked me to join with the grade 11 and 12 students to make sausages. While everybody else looked bored I was so excited to learn. She noticed my drive and asked me to volunteer for Provincial Skills Canada to get a taste of what a Culinary Competition could be like. Through out the rest of my High School years I tried out for our High School Culinary Challenge Team and became the captain in grade 12.
Today I am currently working at Nineteen under the guidance of Chef Andrew Fung and his amazing team. I am only 4 months into this program but I have already learned so much and I am excited to see what the future will bring.
- When looking for culinary inspiration: I go on YouTube, my favorite channel is Foodwishes or I just read through cook books and surf the web.
- When cooking at home for family or friends: For my family I love to make Spaghetti Bolognese with garlic bread. It’s a simple but very delicious dish. For my friends burgers, fries, hot dogs, salads, beer and comfort food style.
- When in the mood for a guilty-food pleasure: Grilled cheese and a cold glass of chocolate milk, I remember one time when I got home from school I was in grade 3 I asked my dad if I could have a grilled cheese and he told me go ahead thinking that I was going to use the electric grilled cheese maker. I buttered the bread threw some cheese slices on stood on my toes to turn the stove on and started making grilled cheese barely being able to look over the rim of the pan. Shortly after I put the bread in my mom came home with my brother and saw what I was doing very angrily took the spatula and finished the grilled cheese for me and woke my dad from his nice nap to what he recalls to a very angry wife.