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Dyslexic
Chefs Of America, Untie! |
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career
center dyslexic
chefs of america, untie!t |
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May 2004
"I don't give a damn for a man that
can only spell a word one way." --Mark Twain
Mark Twain would have loved me: I can come up with an impressive
assortment of ways to spell the same word -- most, if not all,
considered by everyone but Twain to be wrong. As a dyslexic,
in fact, I specialize in misspelling words (often by transposing
letters). It's one of the things that convinced me years ago
that I'd never achieve my dream of becoming a writer.
Twain, like me, was thought to be dyslexic. In fact, experts
estimate that as much as 10-20% of the population has some form
of dyslexia. Leonardo da Vinci was also thought to be dyslexic.
So was Albert Einstein. CEOs ranging from Virgin's Richard Branson
to Cisco's John Chambers to Charles Schwab have also come out
about their dyslexia. Schwab, in fact, runs a very helpful online
resource for parents of dyslexic kids at www.SchwabLearning.org,
and Kinko's founder Paul Orfalea is writing a forthcoming book,
SECRETS OF A DYSLEXIC CEO.
Dyslexia makes it tough to learn certain things in the same
way that others are able to learn them and, to paraphrase Mark
Twain, to remember that one particular way the world has decreed
it best to spell a word.
Cooking saved me, in that it is a skill that relies more on
the senses than on the ability to spell, and allowed me to learn
that seeing things differently can be a plus (such as when coming
up with a new dish -- or an innovative concept for a new book!).
And since dyslexics tend to be very good at following routines,
cooking is an area where we can readily excel.
I decided to talk publicly about my dyslexia in the hope of
helping younger people realize that it doesn't have to hold
them back from pursuing their own dreams. I was interviewed
this past summer by Stacy Poulos for her inspirational Web site
on dyslexics throughout history at www.dyslexia.tv, and have
since popped up on other lists of "famous dyslexics." While
two of Britain's leading chefs -- Jamie Oliver and Marco Pierre
White -- have spoken out about their own struggles with dyslexia,
so far I'm the only U.S. chef on those lists. However, I suspect
there are many others out there (and have since learned that
they include GlobalChefs.com's own founder Jeremy Emmerson,
also Executive Chef at The Four Seasons Hotel in San Francisco)
-- so if you are, or know of, another dyslexic chef, please
let me know (at [email protected]). Dyslexic kids need our
support, and I'd love to share word about all of us who are
out there making things happen in the culinary world, as the
field is of great interest to so many of them.
This fall, I'll have the privilege of being the keynote speaker
in Belmont, California, at the Charles Armstrong School's "Success
Week," where I've been invited to speak to hundreds of students
and their parents about how I learned to live with the challenges
of being dyslexic. As the School's usual speakers have been
business executives (who have been a bit harder for young kids
to relate to), I've been told that the kids are really looking
forward to it. I look forward to reminding the students of their
potential beyond the challenge of dyslexia.
I hope that other chefs will make it a point to speak out about
how they learned to triumph over their own struggles with dyslexia.
There is power in numbers -- and we dyslexic chefs need to "untie"!
Written By: Andrew Dornenburg,
co-author of BECOMING A CHEF, CULINARY ARTISTRY and THE NEW
AMERICAN CHEF (www.becomingachef.com)
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