So how does a beer-swilling sailor wind up in a mostly vegetarian cooking school anyway?

I started dreaming of going to culinary school during college. Wouldn't it make more sense to learn a practical use of chemistry, say, learning how yeast leavens flour into delicious bread, rather than sitting through another lecture in Dr Faber's Chemistry 112 course? It wasn't really an option in my family or town. A four year college degree was just what you did. I never really got the hang of Dr Faber's class and one day I left the science center, never to return. Filled with romantic notions of the world I became a History major and then added Spanish as a second major. That led to a summer study program in Spain, and a fascinating exploration of sherry, olives, manchego cheese, chorizo, marinated mushrooms, and the then-exotic practice of eating tapas, little plates of wonderful foods.

It was the mid-80s and with a strong desire to do something of service in my first post-college job, I decided the choices were the Navy or the Peace Corps. After a lot of handwringing I decided to give the Navy four years; I'd be of more value to the Peace Corps once I had developed some practical skills. Well, one thing led to another and four years stretched into 22. I almost left the Navy in the early 90s to pursue culinary school but I got a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to circumnavigate South America on an annual training cruise so I decided to stay. I began taking recreational cooking classes instead. I enrolled in a series of classes taught by a young gal who had graduated from the Natural Gourmet Cookery School in New York. The school was founded by AnneMarie Colbin, who advocated whole foods and local, organic, seasonal cooking and eating. Janie talked about Dr Colbin's teachings, but what she really taught was how to cook delicious food.

Several years later the Natural Gourmet came up again. I was assigned to the Pentagon and took a lot of classes at a local school. Myra Kornfeld, another Natural Gourmet grad, would come down from New York periodically and teach. She was a fantastic teacher and made vegetables taste absolutely delicious. I was hooked.

A few years after that I found myself stationed in New York City, the home of the Natural Gourmet. I started taking some classes and when I found out about the part-time Chef's Training Program and realized that I could swing going to class on Tuesday nights and all day Sundays, I took the plunge.

A predominantly vegetarian cooking school in New York City during the height of two unpopular wars isn't the first place you'd expect to find a meat-loving military officer and isn't the first place she'd expect to find herself either. The first night of class we had to introduce ourselves and I really sweated it out as I heard one person after another introduce themself: "I'm a vegan;" "I used to be a vegetarian but now I let myself eat bacon;" "I'm really into raw food and juicing." How in the world was I going to admit to a love of foie gras?

Setting a new course....

I just retired from the Navy after 22 years of service, living and traveling throughout much of the world and at home here in the United States. My last assignment brought me to New York City, where I had the incredible opportunity to fulfill a lifelong dream of going to culinary school, in the part-time Chef's Training Program at the Natural Gourmet Institute for Health and Culinary Arts. Having fallen in love with the city and the new opportunities here, I decided it was time to hang up the Service Dress Blue uniform and embark on a new adventure.

Rhumb lines are a navigational term, basically meaning a line of constant bearing. Baba au rhum is a delicious rum-soaked cake (or baba), made with a lot of eggs, butter and milk. While I try to focus my cooking on health-supportive, mainly vegetarian fare, Baba au Rhumb will be my little treat, the spot where I will keep the log of my new career and also reminisce on the sea stories and adventures of the first career. Time to set sail!