Looking at life with a “meant to be” kind of attitude, it’s funny how the little events in life come full circle without you even realizing it.

Recently discovering the art of cake decorating, I have been trying to expand my skills at this hobby one cake at a time. Here at FONA, my department celebrates birthdays by taking turns in groups planning each other’s mini celebration of life. I felt I hadn’t participated in the planning in a while, so I volunteered to make the cake for Menzie’s birthday. (Menzie is one of our flavorists.) After a few moments of pondering ideas of what kind of cake to make for her, I had the answer. Menzie loves chips, so let’s make her a cake that looks like a bag of Doritos! The cake was a success!

These little celebrations provide us an opportunity to stop our busy work days and appreciate each other. I realized this during our last gathering, and it made me think back to why I first became interested in food science and the food industry altogether. Some time ago, before I had started my career, I was watching one of my favorite shows at the time, Unwrapped. I had always had an interest in how food products were made and loved the creativity that went into the formulations, but for some reason this one particular episode made me realize that this is what I wanted to do for the rest of my career. What sold me? The white lab coats featured on the show working on flavoring nothing other than Doritos! At that moment, I knew I wanted to wear that white lab coat someday.

Never did I think something as simple as a cake would remind me of how lucky I am that I get to do what I love every day and that the idea of it was once only something I could see on TV.