Well, we are coming to a close on my time cooking in restaurants. I only have 6 more shifts working back of the house before I start the journey full time with photography. It is a little bittersweet because I have spent almost my entire career cooking in restaurants, it is a very large part of who I am and such an important part of my life. But at the same time I am so excited to move forward and start a new chapter. People who know me are probably aware that I stopped cooking for a 4 year period mainly in part to my hand getting pretty bad. For those who don’t know I have had a tumor in my right wrist and palm since I was 4. Unfortunately there is nothing they can do to remove it so I had to find ways to deal with the pain when it flares up. Because of that pain I stopped cooking for a few years when I was younger and looked at different job opportunities. I worked at a car dealership, built LED signs, and even Gamestop for a hot minute. But when I got a new evaluation and MRI on my hand both specialists told me that it’s basically a jumbled mess. The nerve tissue and tumor tissue have fused into one and they can’t tell what they are looking at if they had to do surgery. When I heard that news I was pretty devastated.  But it gave me the mentality of , “Fuck it, if there is nothing they can do about my hand then I am going to cook again and do what I love.” Which worked for a little bit. The problem with that is I don’t think my hand agreed. Pushing it more and more obviously wasn’t the best idea because it put more strain on it. It is one of the main factors of why I moving away from the kitchen and on to a new path.

I will always continue to cook, work on recipes, and come up with new dishes, but my time setting up my cutting board, prepping my station, and sauteing like a fiend have come to an end. Sometimes life deals you a bad hand (Pun absolutely intended) but you have to adjust and make changes to take care of your health and well being. I think one of the things I am looking forward to the most with photography is the fact that I can still be involved in the kitchen and industry. I have met so many amazing chefs, bartenders, cooks, dishwashers, servers (that’s rare), farmers, purveyors, and so many more. It is a family, they are your brothers and sisters in the trenches who understand the stress and challenges of working in this field. So for that I am very grateful that I can still have the opportunity to work along side them but from a different perspective and share their stories through photos.

We are only 18 days away from the move to Buffalo and with that comes a lot of major life changes, but they are exciting changes and ones that I think are much needed. Even though my time on the line is coming to a close the doors to exciting new opportunities are starting to open, and that has me very eager to hit the ground running. Thank you guys so much for checking out today’s post, I will have a couple more recipe posts before the move, some stories from the kitchen, and some travel updates during the following weeks! Peace out girl scout.