Restaurant Manager

Amna Nawaz: Sometimes, the right learning environment can change everything.

For Courtney Irwin, that place was a youth development center in Salinas, California. Tonight, she shares her Brief But Spectacular take on how cooking and community helped her to find her way.

Courtney Irwin, Restaurant Manager: My earliest memory of cooking, I believe I was probably about 12 years old. I had told my dad, I was like: "Oh, I want to go to Olive Garden. They have chicken Alfredo."

And he was like: "We have so many kids in the house. We're going to make it at home." And we made it for the whole house. We probably made like five pounds of pasta. And I was like, oh, I like to do this.

My childhood growing up in Salinas, it was rough. I ran into a lot of problems in school. I was constantly ditching. I was bullied. And when I did make friends, they were not the best of friends. It leaded me to getting into trouble.

First, I ended up expelled and then I ended up on probation. So the person who ran me to Rancho Cielo, his name was David. He was my truancy probation officer at the time. I would always bring banana bread and cookies.

And he was like: "You know what, I think I found a good -- the perfect place for you to be where you could bake and get away from all the people that you're interacting with now."

I definitely think by coming to the ranch it stopped me from continuing to get myself in trouble, where I would have ended up in jail. It gave me a safe place and a sense of myself. One week, you're in the kitchen getting hands-on training and the next week you're in the classroom working on your credits and catching up.

Not having to be in the classroom all week, every week is such a drastic change. They send you out to do big events, Meals on Wheels. You work in different hotels. I remember one time I made these lemon pound cake cupcakes and I filled them with the lemon curd with the cream cheese frosting

And, like, still to this day, I dream about those. If I had the opportunity to talk to 16-year-old Courtney, I would tell her to stop and listen. You still have a lot of growing to do.

My name is Courtney Irwin, and this is my Brief But Spectacular take on finding my place where I belong.

Amna Nawaz: And you can watch more Brief But Spectacular videos on our Web site.