Kristina Wisneski

I can remember spending a lot of time in my great grandmother's kitchen. There’s a picture of me standing on a chair next to her peeling horseradish and peeling potatoes. Since then, I always cooked with my grandmother and my mom and my dad. And it's really nice, especially with family holidays. They’re the best. I like waking up early. My dad and I get into the kitchen right away on Thanksgiving and start making stuff. I've always eaten everything since I was little. My dad had me try new things. He’d say, “What's the worst that's going to happen? You're not going to like it. You're not going to die. You'll be fine.”

I think I made the choice when I was a teenager. I remember waking up in the mornings and watching TV with my dad. We would watch the Food Network. He bought me a cookbook, and it would be Mother's Day, Father's Day, one of our birthdays, or something like that. I would just make a dinner out of the cookbook and try new things all the time. So it was a lot of fun. And then I gradually started getting jobs. For instance, I had a job at Panera Bread. I had a job at a local restaurant called Morgan's and then Henry's Salt of the Sea. I fell in love with it. I knew this is definitely what I want to do.

I think what really attracted me to coming to this field is just the hustle and bustle of it all. It's crazy. It really is. It's a lot of fun, though. There's never a dull moment. Even on a slow day, there's always stuff. You're working on recipes. You're making new things. You're cleaning the kitchen. One thing that we really pride ourselves on is that we have a really clean kitchen. But that's because we all don't leave for the night until everyone's done. We all do it together. And that, to me, is a big thing. Even though I work a lot, I still have a family at work, because we all see each other all the time. We get along really, really great. And that's the nice thing about it too, is the team dynamic that you have.

Penn College was everything that I wanted. There were small class sizes. It was hands-on and the facility is beautiful. So it hit every bullet point that I wanted in a college. And it also just fit in with our financial budget. It was only two hours away from home, far enough that I didn't have to go home, but close enough that I could if I wanted to.

For me, the theory-based education was a lot of fun. I'm super into history and just learning the reasons why you do things the way you do them. So that, for me, was a huge thing, because we would talk about why you sharpen your knife, why you break down a chicken the way you break down a chicken, or why the chefs in the past did what they did to get to where we are today in this culinary industry. And having that and then getting to go to class in the kitchen the next day and utilize that information, it kept everything fresh in your mind.

The faculty legitimately care. I have never felt so at home away from home. When I was there, I actually almost left my second week. I hated it. I was like, I hate this, I want to go home, I miss my family. I had never been away from home at that point for more than a week or so for vacation. And I remember going to Chef Mike, actually, because he was my advisor at the time. I was like, "I can't do this anymore. I'm leaving." And he was like, "Listen, kid. Stick it out for the semester." And I'm glad I did!