Living in Iowa, there are frequent snow days scattered throughout the winter months.  I remember one particular snow day that really influenced me, and what I wanted to do with my life.  I was in sixth grade, and was watching T.V., trying to pass the time on one of the several unscheduled snow days.  I came across the food network, and I’m not sure why, but I decided to watch.  The show I watched was called “30 Minute Meals with Rachael Ray,” and that show, as corny as this will sound, altered the next two years of my life.

         Watching Rachael Ray make everything that she did was incredibly interesting to me.  I wanted to recreate the dishes she made, and so I would take notes on the dishes she prepared on her show.  It gave me something to do, I wrote down everything she did, while trying to decipher the meanings of the various technical terms she used.  I still have the notebook full of recipes I recorded laying around somewhere.

          I remember finding out that I could simply go to the Food Network website in order to find the recipes for her dishes, and this deflated my interest in Rachael Ray’s show.  You see, when I didn’t know about the online recipes, I had to pay attention, catch every detail, copy everything that Rachel did, and it gave me something to do, a purpose, but if the recipe was online, what was the point in watching the show?

         My commitment to watching “30 Minute Meals with Rachael Ray” dwindled, but I was still interested in culinary arts.  I think that through out middle school, I had ambitions to one day become a chef.  My interests in cooking however, decreased.  I was busy, I didn’t have much time to try out new recipes, and I accepted it. 

         “Chefs have long hours” my mom told me, “they are always on their feet.”  This was another reason for me losing interest in becoming a chef, my mom made it sound like I would quickly lose interest in it.

         I didn’t cook nearly as much as I used to after entering high school.  It just wasn’t as much of a priority anymore.  I have decided however, that since it did, at one point interest me greatly, I am going to research culinary arts for more insight on the matter.