(Almost) master chef
Kacey M. Lefevers is a third-year PharmD candidate at the East Tennessee State University Bill Gatton College of Pharmacy.
Caring for people is my forte. I’m in my element when I can be a part of caring for people; thus, choosing a career path in health care seemed to come natural for me. Outside of pharmacy school, though, I have a different way of showing people that I care for them: cooking.
I remember cooking my first scrambled eggs at the young age of 5, and I automatically fell in love with cooking. From then on, I grew up watching and learning from my great grandmother, grandmother, and mother. To me, it is something more than simply making a dish; it is generations of recipes that have been passed down through centuries of my family ancestry. When I’m making my family’s secret-recipe cornbread, I imagine a younger version of my great grandmother making it. When I serve that cornbread, it is more than whipping together ingredients and then baking them in a cast iron skillet. It’s me giving comfort to someone I care about in the same way others of my heritage did.
The art of cooking
Throughout my years of cooking, I’ve come to appreciate the art of it. I owe this appreciation to the Master Chef himself, Gordon Ramsay. While one may watch the show Master Chef for the leisurely pleasure of entertainment, I watch it to learn. I take mental notes of the elevated dishes that the competitors make and the intricate critiques, both positive and negative, given by the judges.
Instead of going to restaurants to simply enjoy a meal, I now critique the dishes as if I am a Michelin star-rated chef myself and later try to replicate those dishes at home. I enjoy taking simple ingredients that can be found in any home’s pantry and refrigerator and creating my own elevated dish. I not only create the dish, but I create an environment in my kitchen that is like that of a cooking competition, even setting a timer to 60 minutes. I have always had a competitive side to me, and this allows me to compete with myself. That feeling of accomplishment when I create a dish that brings comfort to people puts my mind at ease.
My mental health break
No one said that pharmacy school would be easy, and that has only proven to be true for me. But most important is that it is worth the time and effort put into it.
Something that’s also worth time and effort is my mental health. Through the hustle and bustle of all that comes with pharmacy school, cooking has become something I look forward to doing to take what nearly feels like a physical weight off my shoulders. Doing something that I thoroughly enjoy doing and seeing the grins on people’s faces followed by a subtle “Mmmm” makes it possible for me to continue to push through difficult days. There is just something about braising a ribeye steak with butter and rosemary to the perfect internal temperature of 165 °F that makes it easier for me to remember which alkylating chemotherapy agent requires coadministration of Mesna!