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.

Every few weeks I’m invited to speak to the newly arriving students at culinary school. I tell them I teach a class on love affairs.

I am the matchmaker.

I want to know what each student loves (not what he or she likes) to do.

With a little bit of luck, I can suggest ways in which they can marry their hobby or unique skills with their culinary knowledge as they seek a long and fruitful career.

I’m astonished to discover how many budding chefs yearn to own a truck. A truck that serves every kind of food from cupcakes and rice pudding to Korean barbecue.

Today I talked about the calendar. The US Tennis Open is coming up. So is the World Series. A sports fan may want to cook at the private dining room of a sports franchise or become a private chef for an athlete.

Dancing with the Stars employs a personal chef for each competition. Personal chef jobs are on the rise. It is one of the best jobs for an entrepreneur who can start a business without requiring a capital investment.

I spoke about jobs in art and design; photographer, food stylist, kitchen designer, and special event cake designer. Create a wedding cake in oil and acrylic paint to frame and preserve for ever and ever (or as long as the marriage lasts.) become a chef in a museum, create a food exhibit, become a lecturer on the topic of food in fine art? Become a recipe developer for Panera or Starbucks (or Dunkin D’s.)

Tasting is a good and well paying job. Taste ice cream, coffee, tea, olive oil. Chew gum. No kidding. Nestle is one of the companies that employs chewing gum tasters. There are real jobs that require super taster to… well…taste…all day. .

How about becoming an ethicist, a futurist or a trend tracker?

Or work on Wall Street analyzing food companies?

Or work for a food foundation or as a humanitarian or lobbyist or inspector to trace the source of contaminated food.

Here are just a few ideas for working in the food media: investigative journalist, vegetarian columnist, historian, folklorist (why do so many Jews go out for Chinese dinner on Sundays?)  The late Professor Alan Dundes examined this question with his students who also study the allure of violent sports, holiday traditions and even the mystique of the vampire.

Said Dundes: “As a psychoanalytic folklorist, my professional goals are to make sense of nonsense, find a rationale for the irrational and seek to make the unconscious conscious.”

How about taking up a career as a food memoir writer, biographer, commentator, geographer (do you know what a food geographer does?) trade magazine reporter, supermarket observer, radio host, (I’d like this job myself,) essayist, restaurant reviewer, food book reviewer (not only cookbooks but also food books dealing with politics, profiles of food companies etc.), catalog writer, TV star, ingredient shopper for TV star, TV producer, obituary writer for former food celebrities. Preparer of last meals in the federal penitentiary leading to a possible book contract for Meals to Die For.

I had only three minutes to describe my food jobs class so I didn’t have time to even mention careers in education, farming, science and technology or rare, unusual and extraordinary culinary careers so instead, I’ll get around to them in this blog. Please come back soon.

And.

Have a nice day (as they say at the bank!)

Celebrity Chef Wolfgang Puck

Dear Culinary Student,

It is estimated more than 70,000 of you are currently enrolled in professional culinary schools nationwide. How can you stand out from the crowd? How can you find a fulfilling career that will engage all your abilities? What are the possibilities you will become the next celebrity chef?

You have as good or better a shot of reaching your goal as the next person.

Look around! Look in front of you. Look behind you. Look at someone on each side of you. There is no one quite like you. You are unique. Now all you have to do is go to school to learn why and how things work. Once you know the fundamentals, you can reach whatever goal you set for yourself.

Everyone starts from a different point and is bound for a different destination. You are not competing with everybody else who may be vying for the same job you are seeking. Your only competition is with yourself.

Your road is there waiting for you. You just have to find it. Your horizon is limited only by your ability to envision it.

Besides my personal favorite, FOOD JOBS: 150 Great Jobs for Culinary Students, Career Changers and Food Lovers, one of the most popular resources is The Guide To Cooking Schools, compiled by ShawGuides. It lists more than 800 culinary programs worldwide, 358 of which are geared towards professional training. The courses are listed with such detailed information as: the type of instruction; faculty credentials; tuition costs; student profiles and status of accreditation. ShawGuides also offers a free job-matching site.

Yet this is only the beginning. If you are lucky, your culinary path will match The Road Not Taken poet Robert Frost described.You must be prepared to take a risk. Many risks, in fact.

As I like to say, if you don’t ask for what you want, the chances of getting it are close to zero.