Posts Tagged ‘food’

Food for Thought

// June 13th, 2008 // No Comments » // Grub

About a week ago, I spent one entire day helping with a mailing for the least favorite member of my team and the whole time I was shoving papers into envelopes, I was thinking about food. (Well food and why I got stuck with this and how not to get a million paper cuts.) I started thinking about dishes I’d like to try and then how I’d like a bigger kitchen, and eventually how I really would like to find a job associated with food. But there is the dilemma! I love to cook and write about food, but I don’t have any formal culinary training and I don’t quite think the old blog here qualifies as professional writing experience. So how does a complete novice break into the business and in what capacity? I never thought that I’d be contemplating a career change in my 30’s, but I honestly didn’t think I’d be where I am now in the banking industry. Not exactly a creative situation or a happy one with all the turmoils of the financial sector making headlines these days.

When I first started this blog, I had an idea that maybe it could eventually lead me to opening my own specialty food store. I had admired Ina Garten’s (a.k.a. the Barefoot Contessa) story about how she went from working in politics to owning her own store and then on to food goddess. I still have the dream of a store, but now I’m wondering if I should start working on my goal a little earlier by looking into food positions here in New York. I mean this is the Big Apple and it’s full of foodie goodness. Oh, but where to begin? I mean Monster can only help so much – their search engine can’t quite understand my request for “food, creative, coordinator, culinary, catering”. I think I probably give it a big headache.

I still don’t have a good answer for this problem. I guess I’ll just have to keep plugging along on the blog!

I Find This Article Funny

// May 7th, 2008 // No Comments » // Grub

A bunch of food writers from the New York Times decided to venture outside their comfort zone of Manhattan and try various chain restaurants outside of New York City.  They were all pleasantly surprised that their meals were tasty, cheap and served by friendly and efficient waiters.  I’m not from New York City and so I find this article funny because these writers, for one of the biggest newspapers in the world, thought that going to a chain restaurant was such a grand experience.  I could have told them that yes, the Olive Garden can make a decent pasta dish, the fish at Red Lobster is actually pretty good and Chili’s has some tasty entrées.  I know the Big Apple is home to some of the best eating places, but I still miss some of these old school favorites.  I’ve had a number of good times at some of these establishments and I’m glad these writers had good experiences too!