A love for food and the preparation of it is so pervasive in my life that I'm constantly surprised by the tasks I end up doing and loving. Dicing onions? Love it. Washing dishes? Love it. Table service? Love it.

This week has been my first of three weeks of table service in Ristorante Caterina de Medici, a white tablecloth Italian restaurant. For seven class days before this table service class, we were in the kitchen producing the food, now we're serving it.

I've only had very little experience in service; most of it in casual counter-service style and just a few days serving students in a banquet style environment. When serving students, I was nervous as hell. I would find myself short of breath, flustered and forgetful of the things I needed to do.

But for some reason, now that I'm serving guests paying hundreds of dollars, I'm completely at ease. Two nights ago, I served a table of twelve that spent $2500 in three hours. The drinks were flowing, the food coming fast and furious and all during that time, I was completely comfortable. It may be that I'm a very accomplished bullshitter, or that I'm really just at ease talking about the things I love, but I'm so happy to be in this class now.

I've gotten rave reviews as a server and I can tell that I'm doing well and it just makes me smile even more. I know crappy service and I hate it. I'm not afraid to make a scene and ask for the manager. It ruins my experience and it cheapens how hard the cooks and chefs work to produce great food. Service is crucial, maybe even more important than the food itself.

Tonight, I received my best compliment yet from an administrator from the school. To be honest, I didn't know who he was until I just now looked him up on the school website. He's director of the continuing education department (a big deal here) and also a Certified Master Chef. To become a CMC, you have to be invited to take the test and many hundreds fail. I believe, there's only 80 or so in the United States and about 16 on staff here at school. These guys are literally the creme de la creme; the highest recognition you can earn as a Chef.

He told my instructor that I provided "some of the most competent, quality service he's ever had from a student" here at the Culinary. What a compliment.

Need some christmas cheer? Visit this house in Saugerties, NY.