“A man would know the end he goes to, but he cannot know it if he does not turn, and return to his beginning, and hold that beginning in his being. If he would not be a stick whirled and whelmed in the stream, he must be the stream itself, all of it, from its spring to its sinking in the sea.”

― Ursula K. Le Guin, A Wizard of Earthsea

I knew that a lot had changed at my old culinary school before I turned off the Black Horse Pike in Mays Landing into the campus. There were better and brighter signs on the road to the parking lots, for starters. I peeked down drives slowly, trying to remember which lots were for students and faculty and which ones a visitor would go unnoticed in.

The larger one in the back of the campus- now shaded by sun covers that doubled as solar energy panels- fit the bill and it was right near the main entrance that I rarely used as a student. Students always went in a side door near a smaller lot, closer to the majority of the classrooms and kitchens. Not that too many young culinarians still used it. Class sizes apparently plummeted due to COVID and the Culinary Industry Brain Drain. Even coming from a community college, culinary school wasn’t a winning proposition for young people tight on money and prospects. It was a place now for two kinds of students- the passionate, and the lost.

Fortunately, those are exactly the kinds of folks that have kept the industry moving for years. I walked up the wide, low concrete steps and pushed open the door. Rather than noise from busy kitchens and clamoring students in pressed white uniforms, I’m greeted by silence- and the mingled smells of butter, hot fat, flour, bread ovens, and cold vegetables. I can never forget that smell. Some things haven’t changed at all.

“Welcome back, Matt.”