Sigh. A dream.

I want to preface this post with the fact that I am in full-on summer break (I ONLY GET TWO WEEKS!) mode and have been drinking and sunning and, well, drinking. So, you know, don't judge? Also...I have an overwhelming urge to hug my life. Oh, beer.

Top Chef. This is hands down, balls to the wall, my favorite show on television. Tom Colicchio is just, well, fucking amazing. And this season they added Eric Ripert. I squealed a culinarian squeal. I know that most of my readers do not stalk chefs like most people stalk Taylor Lautner. But, I want to know what they are doing. I want to know everything they are cooking and exactly what their days are like and how they balance this with the rest of the world. I am obsessed with it. I read everything I can find on chefs in the real world, chefs who manage to make a life with people who are not chefs.

Because...lets be honest...I have chosen a career that is not conducive to the rest of the world. I will work late nights, while the rest of the world sleeps. I will be surrounded by drug addicts and criminals and the dregs of society. I am not being prejudice here...not at all. Just honest. The restaurant industry is one where the fuck ups go to stay, where people who know nothing else find a home. I see this in culinary school and I see it in my limited experience in the real world. I fucking love food, I love to cook food, to eat food, to talk about food, everything food. I fit in, barely. At least not right now. Even my fellow classmates don't have that passion, don't have this love affair with food that will never die in me.

So, I watch Top Chef and I watch these people who are so much like me. These people who just fucking love food and appreciate the subtle nuttiness of an avocado and get that fatty pork is what makes the world go round. People who understand why I can't eat out anymore, because salt is not a substitute for flavor. Neither is lack there of.

I won't ever be those people. Not for lack of ambition, but because I have no desire for fame. I want a restaurant. Just one. Where people come, regularly, for amazing food and drinks. Where I walk out during dinner service and greet my regulars. I want a locally owned, locally grown, organic restaurant. I can see it in my mind, see everything I want just an arm's reach away.

I don't know that I will ever accomplish that. I have no idea what my future holds. I just want to figure out a way to surround myself with people who love food the way I love food, without becoming some TV chef. I want to be Anthony Bourdain, without the history of drugs. I just want to cook bad ass food for people who want to eat bad ass food. I know I need experience in order to accomplish this. I know being a line cook is a must, and I am so excited to be just that.

But, holy fuck, I can't wait for the day when I get to design a menu and a restaurant and a culinary voice. I can't fucking wait to make it.