— Melissa Bryant

So, uh, this could be a long story, so I'll try to abbreviate it. Um, for me, getting into the food, uh, world, uh, was a career change. And I'll start by saying that food, uh, has always been a big part of my life. I, um, you know, grew up with a, a Japanese mother and a, in a very food rich environment, and, uh, grew up in Japan as well, which itself is a, is a very food focused, uh, uh, society. And so food was always near and dear to me, and I enjoyed, uh, learning to cook at my mother's side growing up. And, um, I never really had an, uh, an interest in, um, working professionally, you know, in the food industry. But, uh, there was a point when I had an opportunity to go to culinary school after working as a Japanese interpreter and translator for, uh, for, uh, several years. And I went in with the intention to learn to cook for myself. It was just a, a deep curiosity I had about cooking. But by the time I came out at the other end of the program, I thought, wow, this, uh, you know, this, the, the high energy and the, the creativity and the structure and, and in other words, these contrasting sort of things, um, that are part of the food service industry was very attractive to me. And so I ended up making, um, a career change and, and kind of going down this path and, um, you know, studying food, uh, in a, in a structured formal sort of, uh, capacity, uh, was very helpful. Online schools did not exist at that time. So it was an on ground school, uh, here in, uh, Portland, Oregon. And, uh, you know, as far as key things that helped me on my path, it was continued learning for sure. Um, you know, for, for me, I, I went on to, uh, in order to kind of pivot into education eventually, um, you know, I studied education. I already had my undergrad degree in, in, uh, so I studied education at the graduate level and also, uh, cultural anthropology with a focus on food, and which allowed me to do some food research, uh, in places like India and Mexico and Japan, which really fed my interest, uh, intellectually, but also allowed me then to share a lot of information around food and cooking with the people around me. And I, I studied Ayurveda along the way, and that allowed me to, uh, the opportunity to, um, uh, teach Ayurveda cooking. And, um, it also allowed me to do things, um, that were not specifically hands-on food related, but, um, uh, things like lecturing, uh, on Japanese culture and history and tying it to, into food and, um, sort of satisfy these different aspects of my personality. Um, so continual learning in, in different ways, uh, I think is a, uh, have been key, you know, to developing the, this path that has unfolded in front of me sometimes in unexpected sort of ways. And, um, yeah, maybe I'll just, I'll leave it at that. That's kind of in a nutshell, um, you know, how I started and, um, you know, some of the, the bigger stepping stones that have brought me to where I am today.