“May cooking bring you as much joy as it has brought me. – Mom.” That’s the quote engraved on my kitchen knife. I will be the first to admit that my mom’s cooking is infinitely better than mine. Before I tell you why, I want to start with a little bit about her life story. My mom moved out of her house at fifteen and very quickly realized she needed to find a way to support herself. She worked a couple of odd jobs before deciding that she needed to become proficient in a trade if she was going to go to high school and make enough money to live. She took a cooking class at her local community college and soon began working in whatever restaurants paid moderately well and gave her free food. She paid her way through college with money from cooking and some hefty student loans before finally graduating with a degree in psychology.
My favorite childhood memories consist of making dinner in the kitchen with my mom. Blasting music, we would make mashed potatoes, chicken and dumplings, and if it was someone’s birthday, her infamous shrimp scampi. My mom taught me that this passion could be used to help others. We spent many of our weekends together volunteering at soup kitchens, providing the good people of Boone with food and a warm place to eat it. My mom never forgot her days of sleeping in cars and relying on the kindness of others to stay on her feet. She taught me that every person deserves a meal and that it is a privilege to take joy in the process of providing that meal. Throughout my life, I have always had a passion for cooking and feeding others. That being said, I’ve never had to cook for my livelihood.
My mom’s relationship with cooking was a complicated one. On one hand, she loved it. On the other hand, it was a deeply important process where a single customer complaint could be the difference between making rent or not. My life, however, has been very different. I can cook casually, just for pleasure. I can also put my time into developing other skills such as isolating DNA from canine tumors in the lab or pursuing an EMT certification, just because it interests me. These are things that my mom could have never dreamed of doing. She barely had time to get her degree with the amount that she was working, but, because of her sacrifices and Goodnight’s generosity, I have had the freedom to pursue my passions without limitation.
That being said, I can never forget the woman who raised me; the woman who used her education to become a substance abuse therapist before transitioning into higher education where she advocated for low-income and otherwise disadvantaged students. With the experiences I’ve been able to have, I hope to go on and become a physician-scientist who can treat patients while also working to better understand their disease. Along with this, I hope to continue feeding those who need it whether it be through NC State’s very own food pantry or another space. Using the privileges that my mom fought to give me, I hope to make a modicum of the difference that she did.
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