When did you know that you wanted to work in food?

I had less of an 'aha' moment with food and more a lack of 'aha' elsewhere. Food and hospitality had always been in the background for me. I staged elaborate dinner parties for my friends monthly in high school; during my semester abroad in Thailand, I hopped into the kitchen at our favorite local restaurant and made fried rice with the chef; I was making our family dinners and catering for my parents and their friends for as long as I can remember.

When I graduated from college, I had an internship that lead to a contract position at an environmental non-profit that I thought would be great but made me miserable along with a rough break-up and a twin bed in my childhood bedroom. When it felt like nothing in my life was clicking together the way I imagined it would, I re-evaluated and realized the answer had been staring me in the face all along. That's when I walked into an open call for a new restaurant and said "I have no experience, but I should be in your kitchen". They hired me as a hostess, but within a couple months, I was leading prep, running expo and working the line.

How did you get your current good food job?

I had just made a fairly impulsive decision to move to New York City, but still needed a plan. I knew food and hospitality was the right place to be but I was getting frustrated seeing a culinary degree as a requirement for almost every job I wanted (many on this very website). As I was venting that frustration sitting on my deck in the sunshine, my Mom said, "Why don't you go to culinary school then?" I can pinpoint that afternoon as the moment it all came together. The next week, I went to New York, found myself a sublet, enrolled at the French Culinary Institute (now International Culinary Center) and reached out to my cousin Amy at ABC Carpet & Home, who was a driving force behind ABC Kitchen. She offered me an internship working on restaurant related projects. When that internship ended, I was hired directly by the restaurant and have been there since.

How did your previous work or life experience prepare you for a good food job?

Making people happy is the number one priority for my job, which is something that has always come easily to me. I love to say yes and squeeze in the last minute reservation, accommodate severe allergies, adjust those details, and offer real hospitality. It can be difficult to wade through the tougher guest interactions and get to the gems, but I've always prided myself on my ability to form relationships and maintain diplomatic communications. Those skills serve me very well. My experience in both front and back of house helps me understand which of those extra accommodations we can make and how.

What was the greatest obstacle you had to overcome in pursuing your Good Food Job dream?

My greatest obstacle has been cultivating and maintaining my personal relationship with food and nutrition. While learning to love cooking and hosting, I was also struggling with some heavy (pun-intended) weight and health issues. While devoting much of my time and energy into diet and exercise as a teenager made it difficult to keep up morale, it also fostered a lot of creativity to do without fat and sugar; I was able to become really knowledgeable about nutrition and how different foods balance each other and affect the body. A lot of people, especially young girls, have a very antagonistic relationship with their food that can color their whole lives, but fortunately, mine turned out to be full of awe and affection.

What can you identify as the greatest opportunities in food right now?

One great thing about food is that the opportunities are literally limitless. Everyone needs food, and people always crave hospitality, community, tradition and experimentation. This means that demand for new food ventures never wanes and there is always something you can come up with that won't have any overlap. On another note, being from Maryland, it's been amazing to watch the DC restaurant scene flourish over the past couple years. While it still seems like chefs and restaurateurs will come to NYC to cut their teeth, there has been a lot of emigration out of the city. Non-New York based restaurants and hospitality groups are growing both in scope and acclaim and I couldn't be happier about it!

If you could be compensated for your work with something other than money, what would it be?

Turkey sandwiches - one of my major food groups. I could eat endless turkey sandwiches and they are a fully balanced meal! Lucky for me, ABC Kitchen serves one of the best turkey sandwiches out there, so sometimes I DO get compensated with turkey sandwiches. To be very real, it's incredible that I get paid (in anything - let alone money!) to chat with people about their parties and what they like to eat.