For the future chef

Beginning next week, my 16-year-old niece will be embarking on quite the summer adventure. First she is going to "culinary camp" at Kendall College here in the city. In addition to learning from the pros, she will take advantage of much that Chicago has to offer, including theater and fine dining and an architecture tour up and down the River. This is the part I'm most excited about, since my sister and brother-in-law seldom venture down here, and what's the point of living 20 minutes away from a world-class city if you don't ever visit it? For my niece, it's an opportunity to get an idea of what life may be like for her if she attends Kendall -- and a chance to spend a week with Lisa, one of her best friends.

The following week, my niece will take off for Wisconsin, to a small town outside Fon du Lac. There's a resort up there that my family has been going to every year since I was a kid. Because our two families go back so far, the owners of the resort have agreed to let my niece work there for about a month. She'll be helping the chef in the kitchen, waiting tables, filling in at the beach stand and, when needed, cleaning cabins. She's eager to do this because it will give her a glimpse of what day-to-day life will be like in her proposed career. Plus she'll earn a salary and tips that she can sock away into her college fund.

I'm excited for her, and a little sad. I was never this driven, nor did I have a career selected, when I was her age, so I think this is great. But I'm nostalgic because she's no longer the little girl who spent her summer on her bike and lived for the Harry Potter movie premieres. I miss that little girl.

But, to celebrate the future chef she's become, I got her this tote bag. I had a store credit from Zappos so it didn't really cost me anything. And if my niece is going to be living out of bags for the next month or so, one of them should be new and hers exclusively.