A couple of weeks ago we had a retired teacher staying with us who asked me the question which most people who meet me tend to ask : What ever started you in the cooking Martin ?
She had spent the latter part of her career teaching teachers so when I explained that it was because I had failed gloriously as a teacher I think she was quite shocked.
I was too abashed to tell someone who had spent their life teaching that this failure was certainly the best thing which ever happened to me.

The very second blog I wrote , way back in April 2005 , nearly seven years ago was my description of that moment – I called the piece An Epiphany.

James Joyce refers to an Epiphany as a “sudden spiritual manifestation”
I relate the moment when I decided to cook instead of teach as one such.

My epiphany happened on the number 17 bus as it went from Blackrock to Rathfarnham.
I had decided that with a bog standard degree in English and History teaching was the only suitable career choice.
I had just finished a years post graduate course in teaching for primary schools. I was a very poor teacher and had loathed nearly all of it but had convinced myself that now at 21 was the time I just had to adopt that life of “quiet desperation” which I saw as my lot if I became a teacher.

At the moment of salvation I had no idea that I was being saved mind you.
I had been summoned to the office of the principal of Sion Hill Teacher Training College in the middle of the summer shortly before the results of the exams were due.
In my innocence I don’t remember having any premonition of the news I was going to receive. The moment of salvation was delivered by the principal, a kindly and intelligent nun , breaking the news to me that I had failed the exams, failed so gloriously that she wouldn’t recommend me to repeat. In retrospect I realise that this was an extremely humane decision to keep unfortunate children from yet another unhappy teacher.
Initially I was devastated. I had a job as a teacher all lined up. I had met the girl I intended to marry. I was thinking of houses to live and long summer holidays. I was assuming that the acute feelings of misery, which my inadequacies as a teacher filled me with, would get better with time.
I was feeling fairly shell shocked as I got on the bus.
I sat upstairs and I could see the two towers of the generators in Poolbeg when suddenly,
from nowhere,
I was filled with a wonderful glow of happiness.

This was my epiphany
The decision had been taken from me.
I no longer had to teach.
I could do what ever I liked .
No more the terror of facing 45 savage (to me!) 10 year old boys, all well conversant with my various Achilles heels.
No more the guilt of feeling that, far from educating the children , I wasn’t even keeping them in control.

I decided there and then that whatever career I choose was going to be one I enjoyed.
The question was what did I enjoy doing?
I was living with my , recently widowed , sister D at that time and I seemed to have become the house cook and discovered that not only did I enjoy it but I also seemed to have a natural aptitude (possibly allied to my natural aptitude for eating.)

Obvious answer, I decided to give cooking a career try.

Within a week I had got a job as a general dogs body in Snaffles, one of the best restaurants in Dublin at that time. (The perception of cheffing as a sexy trendy career choice was about 20 years away.)

Within two weeks I was cooking lunch there on my own and, almost 35 years later (In 2011 read 42 years ), that is what I have been doing ever since.

The funny thing is that I can never look at those stripey towers in Poolbeg since without getting a little lift.