Mendolonium

Do you ever say, “If I won the lottery I would…”?

For the past couple of years I’ve been saying, “If I won the lottery I would go to pastry school.”  It is a completely fanciful statement – I’ve never even bought a lottery ticket.  We are fortunate in Pasadena to have a large, well regarded, culinary school:  the California School of Culinary Arts (CSCA).  As I drove home from work on Green Street I would pass the CSCA and slow down just a bit to catch a glimpse of the student chefs in their white coats perfecting their craft.  On a whim, I once called the school to inquire as to the tuition for the baking and patisserie program.  The answer:  about $40,000.  I quickly put the idea of attending pastry school back into the realm of owning a unicorn.  I settled by taking several of the weekend “consumer education” classes offered by the CSCA.  But in addition to leaving the classes with food and set of new skills, I left with a sense of sadness; knowing that a few classes a year was as close as I would likely ever get to my dream.

A few months ago I heard about a new culinary school in Pasadena, Ecole de Cuisine Los Angeles.  Ecole de Cuisine is the vision of a former chef-instructor from the California School of Culinary Arts.  I was excited when I read about the Ecole’s philosophy of small class sizes and a focus on the working professional – with all of the classes offered in the evening.  I bookmarked the school’s website and mentally filed it in the category of “things to consider when the kids are older”.  Fall turned to winter and winter turned our kitchen into the warmest room in the house – with my double ovens churning out breads, cookies, cakes, and pies.   I took a couple of weeks off of work and immersed myself in the holidays and cooking.  Up late one night, unable to fall asleep, I stumbled upon the Ecole’s bookmarked website and the noticed that the 36 week long baking and pastry arts program began on January 10th.  I also noticed just how affordable the Ecole de Cusine was – about one quarter of the cost of the big culinary school.  I mentioned to Jeff, for the first time, the idea of going to baking and pastry school when the kids were older.  And Jeff said, “Do it.  Do it now.”  I protested, rattling off all of the reasons why such as thing was impossible.  “It isn’t a good time”, I explained succinctly.  At Jeff’s frown, I elaborated, “The kids are too little for me to to be gone that much.  I would miss the kids’ bedtime two nights a week.  I am already busy with a job, two kids, and a huge garden.  It’s still a lot of money.  Other than kicking ass at school bake sales, I don’t have a concrete plan for what to do with professional baking & pastry arts knowledge after the program is complete.”  Jeff countered, “You bake all the time.  You love to bake.  You are really good at baking.  Just do it.”  And it hit me that it is never going to be a “good” time.  The kids are going to be with me until I am at least 48 years old.  I am never going to not have a job to work around.  The economy probably isn’t getting better anytime in the foreseeable future.  As I look at my parents’ generation prepare for retirement I see how relieved, almost desperately so, they are to be done with “work”.  I doubt my generation will even have the option of retiring in the sense that the baby boomers will and I don’t want to put off my dreams until the time is right – because there is no guarantee that time will ever come.  I want to work hard now at the things I love.  And so I made what might be the most spontaneous decision of my life and three days before classes began bought a cap, apron, white coat, and checkered pants, and signed up for school.

I have to admit that the first time I put on my uniform it felt a bit like a Halloween costume.  But now, three weeks into the program, I’ve come to be rather fond of my elastic waist checkered pants.  I come home from class exhausted but exhilarated.  And though I still look the same on the outside, I have changed.  I feel like I’ve won the lottery.

So tell me, what would you do if you won the lottery?

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 25th, 2011 at 11:34 pm and is filed under Me. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.