Needing to make some money to get back to California he decided to made chocolate chip cookie dough for my mother to sell at her job. I was always in the kitchen so I helped him make them. Within a couple of weeks he made enough money to get back home. He left with me the recipe and planted a seed of joy for baking. I started to make the cookies for friends and family as gifts and whenever my moth
er needed a treat to take to work I made cookies. After a while I started adding different ingredients to the mix and making the recipe my own. I also, as he did, used the cookies to make extra money through high school and during Winter Break when I was in college. Even though I pursued another passion, early childhood education, I still baked for family and friends. The seed continued to grow as I decided to leave the childcare field and pursue and develop my joy of baking. October 2008 I enrolled in Keystone Technical Institute Culinary Arts Program. Upon completing my externship at The Conference Center at Central Penn College in Summerdale, PA and graduating with an Associate Degree in January 2010 I opened ‘The Vanilla Orchid’ in February 2010. While growing The Vanilla Orchid, I worked as a cook for a human service agency dedicated to the social rehabilitation of court adjudicated youth for almost 5 years. Working there allowed me to cultivate the skills I learned not only in school but at home and through life. So as I establish The Vanilla Orchid I have turned the chocolate chip cookie seed in to a flourishing passion for food both baking and cooking.
