“My name is Colby Chapin. I am in grade [11]. When I grow up, I want to become a chef. I was always interested in cooking food at a young age. When I was little, I always kind of liked to be in the kitchen when my mom would make food. I would always be hands-on in the kitchen. That’s why I’m really interested in being a chef, and I love everything about it. I worked at a restaurant for a year or two, and I had a lot of fun. I was very interested in being there to see all the different cuisines.

I have a bunch of cookbooks that I love to read in my free time. It would be nice to make my own restaurant that has multiple different religious foods and other ethnic foods. I love Indian food; I love Jamaican food; I love Jerk Chicken, MY GOD. That’s really one of my favorite things [be]cause it shows different diversity of different tastes in spices.

I definitely do want to travel the world; one of the places I want to go to right now is Greece. They have really good food. My grandmother used to make these little like rice things wrapped up in grape leaves, and they’re really good. I also want to travel to Pakistan, Dubai, South Asia, and Australia. I want to go to these places and learn all about the food and then bring it back to my restaurant.

Whenever I’m home, I’m usually cooking or at least looking at a recipe to cook. I’m probably the one that cooks the most and spends the most money on groceries in my house. My family used to own a restaurant called the Firehouse Café up in Adams. It’s right across from the town hall. I would love in the future to own it and make it like a multicultural food place. I was told it was cursed because whatever we could get from the restaurant, we would end up losing, but hopefully if I got it, I won’t lose it. I want to open people’s minds up to different types of food, and I want to bring more diversity to the Berkshires. ¨