I teach a course on love affairs. I am a matchmaker of food jobs. If you know what you love to do, not what you have to do, it is time to act and not wait a minute more.

We have way too many choices so it is difficult to narrow the options to a precious few. Eventually, you can make a decision and move forward after coolly examining your options.

After all, think of the number of significant others who pass through your life before you find and embrace your beloved.

Think how often we all make wrong turns before arriving at our destination.

Think of sailors who understand the navigational concept: that we almost never go directly from point A to point B. Instead, we set a course, periodically take readings of our position, then make adjustments to the very head winds which threaten to overturn our boat.

Some are threatened by changes: others are challenged by them. But like it or not, we must accept an irrefutable truth: everything around us is changing — fast!

Each of us must chart our own journey and hope we can use our past experience to propel us into the future.

Yesterday I spoke to a young culinary student who told me, with some passion, that she hates her job and hates the place where she is living. She hates her long commute. She hates the long, cold winters in New York. She said she wants to move to Florida but can’t because her grandmother will be upset.

Her grandmother is 66 years old. She believes she needs to stick to her horrible life until her grandmother dies.

I asked, “But, what if your grandmother lives to be 96?”

No problem. It’ll just be 30 years wasted…Meanwhile, there may a food job waiting for her near a beach in Florida. She just needs to put her toe in the water. And send her grandmother a plane ticket to visit…occasionally.

Pam Parseghian, Food Person Profiler

If you read Nation’s Restaurant News (NRN), you’ve been treated to my friend, Pamela “Pam” Parseghian’s marvelously thorough, well researched chronicles of the food industry. But it is her spot on profiles of legendary food figures I want to tell you about.

You see, Pam practices a lost art. When she profiles a famous foodie for publication – which she does often – she follows a detective’s path of inquiry. She does her homework before the interview, and then, once with the subject, listens attentively. Such careful listening is essential to capturing someone’s voice and meaning.

Pam decided early on that she she wanted to be a cook. She enrolled at the Culinary Institute of America (CIA) and then worked at a restaurant in Switzerland for a year. “Gradually,” she revealed, “I began to think about finding a job that was less physically demanding. I became interested in journalism.”

Cook's Illustrated magazine, 2011

She called several publications after she returned to the United States and ended up writing an article for Cook’s Illustrated magazine. The article was such a hit that Pam was invited to apply for a food editor’s job there that was open at the time. Pam adds that then-editor Judith Hill “interested in me because I had trained in an European restaurant and I had a degree from the CIA”

Eventually Pam applied for a job at NRN. With this job, she was able to travel to many exotic locations to cover the subject of food. However, this wasn’t often the case when profiling famous foodies:

“I don’t usually make a special journey to visit the person who is being profiled. Instead I try to arrange a meeting when they are in New York or we on the phone,” reports Pam. “I spend about a quarter of my time doing research and another quarter doing the interview; the remaining half of the time is spent actually writing and editing. Other people may allocate their time differently. Writing on deadline is the hardest part of the job. Even a seemingly straightforward interview requires more of the writer than the surface result would indicate.”

I, for one, applaud Pam’s career changing decision to put down the mighty wisk for the pen (and the laptop). May she write (and edit) evermore, evermore.

“Who am I and what am I doing here?!” This question was raised by a former running mate of a former presidential candidate.

I hear it echoed constantly from students enrolled in culinary school, particularly career changers who have risked everything. They’ve laid down their Blackberries, gilt-edge securities and taken up pastry bags and palette knives. Every so often, though, waves of panic crash over them and they begin to doubt their decision. They ask themselves that age old question…”Am I nuts?!”

The feeling passes swiftly when once again they glimpse that elusive ray of hope that propelled them into the land of cupcakes in the first place.

I just saw such a Eureka moment alight on the face of a student. He is an older guy, (old in the culinary school world means anyone who can remember the name Ross Perot, who was the aforementioned former presidential candidate.)

This “older” student had a former life as an investment banker working at the top echelon of a recently-crashed bank. He was earning a mighty impressive salary and making decisions about billions of millions. In his spare time, he liked to bake cookies. And decorate them. He graduated to bread baking, cakes and pastries. He prowled the aisles of the specialty food trade shows and restaurant and hotel trade shows. He devoured food magazines. He was addicted to the TV Food Network. He attended food festivals with the ardor of a dedicated foodie. Then. Suddenly. He had a “Road to Damascus” moment. He was struck with the idea he must give up everything and enroll in a professional school.

That’s how I came to meet him.

He was experiencing a moment of self-doubt but he had a class project to complete. He had to write a profile of a famous person about which must has been written. Not everything has been complimentary. Rumor had it that I knew her. I did. So do many others. I recommended other sources of information. He persisted. He was well-prepared. He came armed with dozens of questions. I declined to answer. He persisted. I answered.

That’s how I came to suggest he would be a great interviewer. He could transfer the research skills he had acquired as a financial analyst to become an on-camera interviewer. He would need in-depth culinary knowledge and the technical vocabulary to guide the interview authoritatively. With this ability and his professed passion for writing, he could extend his on-air food people interviews to the print media. He could write a Dead Beat column…obituaries of famous expired foodies. His contacts with the top tier of gastronomy would enable him to know where all the bodies are hidden.

I suggested he start immediately by writing a blog, as the thing almost all of us like to do, is to talk about ourselves. I was confident he wouldn’t have any trouble making contacts. His universe of food folk interviews will include not only celebrity chefs, but also the director of the purchasing department on the Queen Mary 2, the scientist who devises the food for NASA astronauts, SaltWorks, the entrepreneurs who traffic in truffle salt … he could even talk to cooking school teachers.