by Chrysa Smith

All this writing about food makes me hungry. It makes me love cooking on my new Bertazzoni gas range. It makes me love my abundant yield of tomatoes and red peppers from the garden. And perhaps, that’s what’s also fueled my appetite this summer. But as I write about food again, the wheels are churning. And the churning keeps coming up with the same thought lately—one that is on my bucket list.

Not to be morbid, but I have been more aware of accomplishing some of the things that I’d like to do in this life. And one of them is to be working in the kitchen of a real restaurant, during their dinner rush—for just one night—-THE BIG NIGHT.

Now, I don’t need to be preparing the grand gastronomic offerings that require impeccable timing, precision and attention to detail. I am willing to be a prep chef, line chef, happily chopping veggies for a dining room full of hungry diners ready to pay good money for a well-prepared meal.

Is it the starving writer in me that seeks recognition in a commercial kitchen rather than at my own cooktop? Maybe. But it’s also this lover of food, the arts, the creative that thinks one night in a restaurant kitchen would fulfill some long-term dream: to try my hand at what I love doing as a hobby in a professional environment for just one night. Those days selling water ices at the NYC World’s Fair just didn’t cut it as being in the food business.

Any takers out there? I have no formal culinary training, but promise to come with clean hands, a positive work ethic and eagerness to follow directions. I’ll even bring my own apron and box of bandaids.