How Culinary Arts Saved My Life From The Streets to Cooking

By Chef Tony

What inspired me to write this book is to show people that change can really happen. You can turn a negative way of thinking into a positive lifestyle.

This book is a motivational book everyone needs to tap from...learn from it and grow from it, we all got potential but it's up to you to tap into it and live it to the fullest. Thanks for purchasing my ebook stay tuned for volume 2 of how culinary arts saved my life from the streets to cooking.Have a bless day

• Language: English
• Publisher: Chef Tony
• Release date: May 12, 2020
• ISBN: 9780463756621

Book preview

INTRODUCTION

My journey started on the 17th of January, 1978.

My parents were Willie Mae Scutchings and Willie Scott, but they passed away when I was still very young, so I never really got a chance to know them. I grew up in a low income housing Projects. Growing up in Brooklyn can be rough for any young kid, but it’s even worse when you don’t have your parents there to look out for you.

Instead, my sisters had to take on the responsibility of raising me, which wasn’t easy when they had their own kids to bring up as well. We were all young at the time, but they always did their best to make sure their baby brother was looked after.

Watching my sisters, Sharon and Cynthia, prepare meals for everyone in our little household was what originally sparked my interest in the culinary arts.

CHAPTER 1

Fast forward to my teenage years; I was one of those typical kids that you always hear about getting into trouble at school and in their local community. Hardly surprising since I’d started hanging out with the local drug dealers and delinquents. They were my peers and it wasn’t long before I started to see them as more of a family than my real flesh and blood siblings.

It wasn’t hard to see I was heading nowhere fast, but hey, that’s what teenagers do, right? I didn’t care about the consequences of my actions, so long as I could have some fun along the way. It was also just as easy to see that my actions were hurting my sisters but I was too selfish and self centered to care. Back then, I just wanted to be a part of something, but without any real goals in life, it was hard to see a way out of the hole I’d dug for myself. I started to get arrested for minor violations but it wasn’t long before that led to something more serious.

Even when I started to stray down the wrong path, my sister's didn’t give up on me. She didn’t turn a blind eye to what her little brother was getting up to whenever he was out of the house, like some families did. Instead, she tried to separate me from my peers. She sent me down south to Virginia to stay with my other sister, Cynthia. Little did any of us know how that decision would affect my life forever. It led to my first felony.

I was charged with two counts of malicious wounding and firearm possession. Just to put that into perspective for anyone who isn’t as familiar with the legal system as I’d become, this charge carried a maximum sentence of forty two years in prison. Suddenly, instead of misdemeanors, I was faced with something a lot more serious and it was all because of my newfound friends.

They took me to a backyard party one night with the usual promises of a good time. What they didn’t tell me was that they had beef with another neighborhood. The details aren’t important, but the outcome is; the charges got dropped to a count of unlawful wounding, which carried a maximum sentence of five years in prison. I served the time and, once I was released, started my probationary period.

Someone else might have used that opportunity to turn their life around. They might have seen the signs and turned their back on that life, but I wasn’t ready to face that reality just yet. Back then, it was unthinkable to let them down. It would have been a betrayal of our friendship and brotherhood. Instead of looking to my future, I was being influenced by the street life. My peers, They had everything I thought I’d ever want and