I'm not a morning person

When I'm on vacation, and have no particular schedule to keep, I tend to go to bed around 2-3am and wake up between 10-11. Some people need a cup of coffee before they really wake, I need a shower before I can think straight. However, there are a few times when I love the morning.

The summer after I graduated from high school, I worked for a restaurant as a stock boy/bus boy. Only the chef would arrive at the restaurant before I did. He would give me a list of all the produce, meats and dry goods that the various cooks needed that day, and I would go to the stock room in the basement and start the process of bringing everything up to the kitchen.

Most of the time, a professional kitchen is full of noise, stress and chaos. There was something magical about being there when it was silent, and then watch thing slowly come to life. Various people would trickle in; the sous chef, other line cooks, the pastry chef. The quiet would turn to a whirlwind while the simple raw ingredients I brought upstairs would be transfigured into a tiramisu or a spicy seafood marinara.

While the kitchen where I currently work does not have the same kind of frenzy one would find in a restaurant's kitchen, I still love the mornings there. It starts quiet and still. I love turning on the light and walking into the cooler. Seeing the herbs and cheeses and pork loins sitting on the shelves, while knowing that later that day someone out there will sit down with their family and enjoy those same ingredients in a great meal, is incredibly satisfying. It's a great way to start the day, even for someone who is not a morning person.

Photos from a visit to The City Market in Kansas City last fall.