Hi folks! Thanks for tuning in for another post. This time I’m sharing a little bit more (okay, a lot more) about my own story: how I came to do what I do in the food world (I currently work as a chef and teach cooking and baking workshops) and some of the life events that happened (winning a national cooking contest) and decisions I made (opening a home-based culinary school) along the way. Disclaimer: I am not writing this as a “success story” :-) I just thought it would be helpful to let you know where I’m coming from when I create content for this website and to hopefully encourage you to share your experiences as well!

A Genuine Love for Food

My journey in the culinary world started with a genuine love for food, as it does for many in my profession. While at the age of 6 I was already hooked on helping my mom prepare our family’s meals and knew I’d be cooking for life, I didn’t really start thinking about teaching my skills until I was in my late twenties. In between, however, and despite not being able to attend formal culinary school (way too expensive, inaccessible, and out of the question for the youngest of 7 in a low-income family in Manila), I always kept “one hand on the cookbook,” so to speak. Throughout my childhood, I constantly hovered around my mother and older sister to learn how to make traditional Filipino dishes. In my teenage and young adult years, I saved up my money for cookbooks and experimented on my friends. When I became a mother in my mid-twenties, I dove headfirst into food entrepreneurship, starting up and operating a catering business serving local schools.

A Baby and A Business

Notice how I tried to juggle being a new mom and also giving birth to a business… :-) Not impossible, but difficult enough to really make me think about other ways I could put to use (and earn a living from) my cooking and baking skills. Getting up before dawn (already running on little sleep) to bake the day’s goodies and then be out of the house on deliveries made for some exhausting work days. I was eventually faced with the need to scale up, which would have meant moving out of my home-based operations, hiring more staff, and acquiring more equipment. Oh, and somehow find the money for all of it! Meanwhile, I also had a growing toddler for whom I very much wanted to stay at home.

The Contest That Changed My Life

While I was putting off making the decision to scale my catering business, I randomly came across an ad in the newspaper (Yes! That is how we found out about things in those days!) about a cooking contest being held by one of the country’s largest food brands. I entered and ended up placing Third, which got me national exposure, free professional culinary classes, and a life-long supply of ingredients. No big cash prize, but finally getting to attend those classes gave me the idea that I, too, could teach! I didn’t have a culinary diploma, but I had passion to share and the knowledge and experience to back it up. And that’s all I needed to get started. Making use of the equipment I had from the catering business (plus a very fortunate industrial oven and dough kneader sponsorship from a local company) and somehow managing to make space in our tiny townhouse, I launched my very own home-based cooking and baking school, which in conjunction with food consulting services allowed me to support my family over the next several years.

Cooking and Teaching in the U.S.

But my teaching story doesn’t end there. When my daughter was in her early teens, we migrated to the US where we had to start all over again in many senses. I picked up whatever jobs were available to me and ended up working in marketing and operations at a boutique design firm for almost 10 years, during which my food passion got funneled into making elaborate and healthy school lunches for my daughter and tasty contributions to potlucks. My tenure at the design firm ended a few years ago, which I took, along with other major life changes, as signs to slowly edge my way back into the kind of work I really loved: cooking, baking, teaching.

I eventually found a position working as a pastry chef serving hundreds—not exactly a gentle transition, but it did get me to keep looking for more food-related jobs. By the way, it was also around this time that I created this website and started blogging about my foodie experiments and travels. Through this, I got to interact with and advise my fellow food lovers again, from beginners to business owners. Last year I joined the Sur La Table team as a cooking instructor, which continued to fuel my progress on the teaching path.

These days I’m teaching and Head Chef-ing at the same time (we can talk about that balancing act in another post!). Life seems a little packed at times, but I am so happy and grateful to be using and sharing my food skills again. And I love that writing this blog gives me another way to do that! It would be wonderful to hear about your journey in food, whatever stage you may be in. Please feel free to share your thoughts in the Comments below or send me a message on my Contact page.