Background

I have always loved to cook. And when you have a stressful job, some creative outlet is needed to keep you sane. Mine has always been cooking. Over the years I have taken cooking lessons at the local community college, the local cooking school (Nothing To It) and spent two weeks in Tuscany learning Italian cooking. By day (and occasionally by night), I have been a nurse. Over the course of 30 plus years, I have worked in Orthopedics, Surgery, NICU, ER, ICU, Recovery Room and as an Office Nurse/Administrator. When my passion for cooking began to outweight my passion for nursing, I felt it was time for a change. Somewhere in my 20's, I decided that I did not want to reach the end of my life only to look back to find there was something I had not done solely because I had been afraid to do it. And that being said, it still took a figurative kick in the butt to motivate me to change; along with the continued support and encouragement of the man I love.

I spent some months looking into cooking schools: the CIA in Napa, the California Culinary Academy in San Francisco (a Cordon Bleu school-how exciting to follow in the footsteps of Julia Child and attend Le Cordon Bleu?! Never mind that it was not in Paris!), the Cordon Bleu schools in Sacramento and Las Vegas, and the local community college culinary program. All these programs were from 9 months to 2 years in length and you spent only four hours a day actually cooking. While in Denver for a nursing convention, and finding myself with downtime one day, I googled cooking schools in Denver and came across the Cook Street School of Culinary Arts. For me, it was perfect! Love at first sight! Four months of intensive studies for 8-9 hours a day, culminating in a three week culinary tour of France and Italy. Yum!

While many of the schools in the United States offer culinnary programs, the opportunity to actually practice culinary skills occurs in four hour increments on either a daily basis or several times a week. You must also decide if you want to practice Culinary Arts (savory) or Baking and Pastry Arts. They are usually not a combined certificate or degree. I was going to take Baking & Pastry Arts at the California Culinary Academy but the more I thought about narrowing my studies, the more I realized I love to cook as much as I love to bake. A dilema! Enter Cook Street School-they offered it all! An intensive program that covers a wine education, entrees (they believe and teach menu planning using foods that compliment each other), garde manger (literally means keeper of the pantry) and bread baking & pastry. Cook Street also offers two additional course which I decided to take advantage of: a Personal Chef Course and a Business course (for the food industry). At the end of four months, a trip to Paris and Northern Italy is offered to add "frosting" to the proverbial culinary cake. Cook Street also offers a three to six month continuing education in northern Italy should you decide to take it. The possibilities were endless!!! I drove over to Market Street to look at the school and talk with Meghann Diggles, the Admissions Director. What I found was an older building in the LoDo district of downtown--lots of wood and brick with a decidedly European feel to it. I fell in love with the building even before talking to Meghann. She suggested I spend a day with them to see if I liked the teaching methods at Cook Street. So on Friday, March 19, I donned a chef's jacket, a little chef's hat, an apron and joined the class. There was a lecture, then the practical portion of class. The class made cassoulet, a salad with goat cheese, small chocolate tarts, coffee cheesecake bites, cheese spiked dinner rolls and foccacia. Not only did they make it, but then they all sat down and ATE it, along with two wine pairings. Once the meal was done, they went around and critiqued it. Everyone had something different to say. I thought it was all fantastic! I went back to my hotel room and talked to Jordan about changing schools. Denver was further away, but I would be gone for a shorter period of time (4-5 months in Denver vs 9 months in San Francisco). He was all for it! I quickly applied for admission and in a short time was accepted into their Professional Progam.