CIA

It is interesting how quickly things can change. A few days ago, I was a failed entrepreneur and terminally single, with my best ambition typing away at this blog and hoping against hope that something would happen with it, even if it was just a few of my readers learning something or at least getting a laugh. Then I applied for admission to the Culinary Institute Of America. To be honest, that's been a dream of mine ever since I first started to develop a serious passion for food back in 2007. Previously, there's always been an excuse not to do it. Back in late 2008, when I was originally considering culinary school, I didn't apply there because I didn't have much experience in the food service industry. All I'd done was work in the campus diner, the dish station at IHOP, and a movie theatre concession stand. Once I started my company, it seemed like I was too busy to move away for two years for school. After the company failed, I had so much debt that it seemed impossible to justify the not-inconsiderable cost of the CIA. Things are different now. My reservations have been nullified and I might be off on a great adventure.

When the company sold, it was done with the understanding that I would work as a consultant for its new owners, offering my expertise and experience in the industry. This was something I was happy to do if it meant getting the thing sold. At the time, I viewed it as a mild annoyance because I was ready to completely move on from the terrible memory of my failure. Meanwhile, I had liked the CIA Facebook page and tantalizing facts and videos kept showing up, tantalizing me to no end. Exciting as the fantasy was, the cost was too expensive to warrant it because I had no plans to work in the industry again. Around the time the company sold, its new owners told me tales of their greater ambitions in the dessert industry and their desire for my continuing services as a consultant on these hypothetical future ventures. Concurrently with these events, my parents began to encourage me to go back to school so that I had something significant happening in my life. Mentioning the CIA as too expensive, due to my debt, they offered to pay for it. Surprised as I was, I realized the value this would have for consulting.

If I am accepted into the CIA, there are a great number of ramifications. First of all, I'd be defying the limitations autism places on me in a very direct manner. This school is the best in the world for culinary arts and will require me to push the limits of my ability to learn quickly, to overcome my dexterity and coordination issues as much as I can, and to test the limits of my physical endurance. There's also the aspect of leaving my life in Springfield to consider. To their credit, my friends here have all said to go if I get the opportunity, as badly as they'll miss me, and I them, for the two years it'll take. They recognize that, as much as it sounds like a line out of a movie, this is my shot. An Associate's Degree In Baking & Pastry Arts from the CIA is, for a pastry chef, the equivalent of a Juilliard degree for a performing artist, a MIT degree for an engineer, or an Oxford degree for a writer. Graduating from these schools in these disciples is prestigious enough that, even if you never manage to make it in the real world, people must acknowledge you were a person who has shown his quality. For all my fears of autism defining me, CIA would define me in a way that supersedes all else.

-Frank