About

Welcome! My name is Stephanie and I am so excited to invite you into my tiny kitchen. The lack of counter space and petite stove has been the canvas for so many smiles, dinner parties and culinary creations. I am 28 years old, live in San Francisco and spend most of my time letting my inner foodie flag fly. 

This past year I decided to take a great leap of faith and change everything I knew, and work towards following a dream I have had for a very long time.  Through the amazing support of my boyfriend, family and friends, along with many sessions of deep breathing, I quit teaching and began my path through culinary school. Full-time student, and now unemployed I began this year with an excitement for all of the possibilities along with this deep pit in my stomach that realized that I have left everything I knew myself to be. I spent so many years practicing and conditioning myself for teaching and always saw myself in a classroom, teaching children. Now I began a whole new world. I entered a world of crazy long hours, cut throat competition, and days where my body literally felt like it was going to fall apart limb by limb. There were many days when I got home when I would wonder if I chose the right path for myself. But then every morning when I stepped into the kitchen, I felt something inside ignite and a sense of calm, comfort and confidence would come over me.

My culinary path did not start the day I began culinary school. Cooking and food has been a part of my life for quite sometime. Growing up I was a pretty healthy eater and loved to cook. But the biggest turning point was in college. I was going to San Francisco State University to get my B.A in Child and Adolescent development when I realized that I had become victim to the freshman 15 and a bit of the Sophomore 20. Realizing that I was not feeling healthy, fit or myself I decided it was time for a health overhaul. I began by a couple sessions with a health counselor at school but then found myself consistently researching health and wellness and leaning as much as I could about alternative healthy lifestyles and food choices. Soon after I graduated SFSU I began working as an assistant teacher in the 1^st grade. Shortly after that I enrolled in the Institute for Integrative Nutrition. It was a distance program so it allowed me not to go to New York and still keep my fulltime job. A year later I graduated as a Board Certified Holistic Health Counselor.

Beginning to see clients and helping them on their road to a healthier self I was always coming up with healthy and delicious recipes that were easy and satisfying. I loved working and cooking with my clients, and helping to take the fear of cooking and a healthy lifestyle out of their day-to-day lives.

A couple years later I sent a proposal to the school I worked at about developing a cooking curriculum and elective for the middle school students. It all began by one middle school student coming up to me and asked if I would teach a cooking elective. By the next morning I realized how wonderful it would be to teach and I then spent the next couple weeks coming up with a proposal, budget, and plan for this exciting opportunity. It was an instant sell to the heads of school, and then it was time for the fun to begin. I instantly had a swarm of students wanting to be apart of the class. The hardest part was telling them that there are only twenty spots per semester. 50 kids were wanting to get in. I was blown away and humbled by the turn out.

Cooking Elective - H'orderve Day

The first semester began and I instantly felt so comfortable and at ease with these kids and the wonderful kitchen chaos that happened every Friday morning. Two months into this new curriculum one of the kids said,  “Ms. D, you’re a really good cook. Did you ever go to cooking school?” When I said no she asked “Why not?” And with that simple question I began to question everything I was doing. The next couple weeks “why not?” was repeating though my head like a constant knocking at the door. And by January I was applying to the California Culinary Academy, Le Cordon Bleu. It may have seemed like a quick decision but it was something that I always wanted and somehow put it on the back burner. I guess I kept thinking I was supposed to do something else. So why not?....

That school year ended and 3 weeks later I went from teacher to student while having no idea what I was getting myself into. However, the first day I walked into class, everything seemed to fall into place. Children and teaching will always be apart of my life and I know someday I will mold, cooking, kids, health and teaching into a beautiful little package, but for right now I am working in a corporate kitchen fulltime, doing personal chef work on the side, and soaking up the culinary world like a sponge…while loving every second of it.

Winning "Luce Culinary Clash Cooking Competition"

So this blog is my journey. My journey post culinary school. Culinary School has ended and it feels like the beginning of something great.