Move over, Anne Burrell, there’s a new restaurant chef in town.

Some of you have asked about my internship, which has been well underway for a month now. I haven’t talked about it much simply because I wasn’t sure what to talk about. A lot of the things I’m learning don’t translate to blog posts easily. So I sent out a plea asking for jumping points and here are some of the FAQ I got.

What’s involved in a typical shift?

My shift starts at 10am. The chef lays out a list of ingredients that need to be prepped for that night or the next few days so often I get started on one or two of those tasks. Our service is 11:30-2, during which time I could continue with food prep if it’s a light day or if things are busy get pulled into the salad and pizza station. The dinner shift chefs come in at 2 and for the last hour I’m there I usually work on one or two things that still need to be done for that night. I get out at 3 and, even though it’s just 5 hours of work, I feel as though a truck hit me usually. Time spent in the kitchen is no joke.

How do you think this internship will help you get to where you want to go?

To be honest I have no clue where I want to go. As much as I love food blogging, I wouldn’t put much stock into it as a job. I thought that working in a restaurant would be a logical step towards a real career. The very first day, my shift boss told me outright “keep cooking as a hobby.” As much as I’ve enjoyed learning to cook in a restaurant setting, I’m not sure I could see myself doing it day in and day out. Regardless, I’m picking up a lot of practical skills.

How do you stay gluten-free in an Italian restaurant setting?

Simply put, I avoid eating anything at the restaurant as much as I can. The food isn’t bad; in fact it’s terrific. It’s just what I would call a “meat and wheat” kind of menu and that’s not how I eat at all. Since I have to actually ingest gluten to have a reaction, I can work with it as much as I need to. If I do need a snack, I keep a bag of cashews with me.

What has been your biggest kitchen mistake?

Thankfully, I haven’t made any huge, irreversible mistakes. The only thing I can think of is when I was chopping parsley and nicked a tiny piece of my fingernail chopping it fine.

Another time I was using the meat slicer to cut prosciutto thinly and I got maybe 15 slices out of it before the meat was torn to shreds and useless. I’m not sure if it’s the way the meat was marbled or if I mishandled it on the slicer but I felt pretty bad after that.

What’s the best thing you’ve learned so far?

My knife skills have advanced leaps and bounds since getting into the kitchen. I now know the proper way to hold it and how to dice all the different types of vegetables. I’m even becoming jealous of the fancy knives and cutting boards I’m spoiled with at the restaurant and think I might have to splurge on a set for myself at the end of the Summer.

What has been the best job so far? The worst?

My favorite jobs are the ones that are simple, repetitive, and take a long time so I can zone out. Cleaning sugar snap peas and rolling garganelli pasta are some of the best.

The worst are beets—anything to do with them, like peeling hundreds of tiny beets after they’ve cooled or having to devein the leaves. Both leave me with sore hands and dirt under my fingernails for a week.

What goes on behind the scenes of your place?

There’s really no behind the scenes dirt to spill, and not just because it’s an open kitchen. I love the restaurant and their commitment to using fresh, local ingredients whenever possible.

Well, that’s a glimpse into my internship. If you have any other questions, I’d be happy to answer them either in the comments section or in a separate post.

This weekend be sure to see somewhere new,

Throw a party,

Hang out with your relatives…

…as distant as they may be,

Get a little wild,

And eat something fried.

For a long time most of my closest friends have thought I was a vegetarian until we’d go out to eat and I’d order chicken or salmon and confuse them.

“You’re not a vegetarian?!”

“No, why would you think that?”

“Because you always are cooking tofu and beans on your blog.”

That’s fair. And confusing. Not many people who eat meat ate as much “meat substitutes” as I did. But 2 weeks ago I made the big switch to the V word.

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Even though I’d been teetering on vegetarianism for months, maybe years now, it was one moment that put me over the edge. I was at my internship during the lunch shift(I work in a restaurant) and one of my jobs for that day was to clean the soft shell crabs for a pasta sauce. The crabs had just come in from the shore and were still alive, which is important that the restaurant use only live crabs or else we couldn’t verify how long they’ve been dead which creates a risk for disease. Professionally, I really didn’t mind doing this, and I’d probably do it again; it’s just another job at the restaurant that had to get done. But personally it had a big impact.

I never had to kill an animal for food before those crabs. Nowadays it’s normal for people to never see an animal be killed or even bones in their meat, and I wasn’t an exception for the past 20 years. Having to cut the crabs made me question whether I’d want to be the one killing all of my food, how I felt about that, and if I’d go through with it. In short, I decided I’d rather become a vegetarian. (Actually, I decided I’d follow suit with Mark Zuckerberg and only eat meat that I killed myself, but you won’t see me running outside with a crossbow and arrow any time soon.)

This was something that had been in the back of my mind for a while. I’m positive if I weren’t highly allergic to gluten I would have made this transition already, but eating out has always presented a challenge. It’s not uncommon that the only gluten-free option on a restaurant menu be a grilled chicken salad. I’m not sure that I’ve actually figured out a solution to this yet. I just know now I’m a strong enough person to deal with both when I need to.

Will I miss meat? Definitely. In fact, writing this all down is making me miss it more than I ever have, so I should probably wrap this up. You just can’t replicate the juiciness of a roasted piece of chicken or seared steak. I will happily roast a turkey for Thanksgiving and ham for Easter for my family just so I can get that smell to permeate the house. But I won’t eat it; I’ll just stand by the oven whiffing.

Do I think I will eat meat again? Probably. Actually, I’d bet on it. Statistically, about half of all vegetarians go back to eating meat at some point. And there will surely be a time when I’m out, starving, and the only thing I can eat is a slab of chicken. That being said, I’m committed to doing what I can, when I can and being happy with that. It’s easy to be happy in a world where chocolate is (usually) vegetarian.

If you have any thoughts, comments, or questions on the topic, leave them in the space below.