Sometimes relationships are forced on you (like being picked last on the kickball squad), some are by chance (like finding a good mechanic) and then there are those that just work. No, this isn’t a post about how me and the hubby met, it’s about my summer apprentice, Jasmine. Jasmine is here for the summer visiting her wonderful cousin Terra; I met Terra a couple of years ago after she called to talk to me about my pastry business. She contacted me this summer to see if I could use some assistance in the kitchen because her younger cousin was an aspiring chef. The hubby and I thought it was a good idea to have an extra pair of hands in the kitchen to assist with prep for the market and the other orders that were streaming in. I was also missing teaching so I thought it would be fun to do some more mentoring. Jasmine has been a joy in the kitchen. She is now the princess of cream cheese icing, scooping cookie dough and washing dishes! Jasmine is a 16 year old with a lot of drive and ambition, even more than some of the culinary students I’ve taught over the years; she spent her summer days at Brainfood (a non-profit youth development program) learning cooking techniques and working at Barnes and Noble as a cashier, and spent her evenings with me prepping, watching, washing, tasting, baking and learning. Some nights she left me to do prep work for catering events her cousin was working on. We worked together on the iPhone cake (the apple was her creation, it was her first time working with fondant), made decisions on weekly production and talked about music (she’s an old soul), family and boys. Jasmine is really something else, she has already named her pastry business and has started her own blog: http://gojazziecakes.blogspot.com/. She has a very bright future, with her sights set on culinary school in 2014 (yay!). I was fortunate to have her this summer. My relationship with Jasmine has gone from apprentice to mentor to confidant to family. It just worked.
The Apprentice
