Paige Towery, Cooking Up a Lifelong Love of Food

Paige Towery grew up knowing she was destined to be a chef.

When she was 5 years old, Towery’s mom put a stepstool in the kitchen so that she could reach the countertop and help measure out ingredients.

When she was 7 years old, she was allowed to use the oven with her parents watching.

When she was 9 years old, she could use the oven and stove without supervision and could practice cutting skills with small knives.

When she was 11 years old, she progressed to using chef’s knives and making dinner for her family once a week.

To further her lifelong learning process, Towery opted to traverse international borders, relocating from McMinnville, Oregon to Florence, Italy to attend AUF’s culinary program, Apicius.

“I always think it's a good idea to try things,” Towery said. “That's why I love to cook so much; there's always something new to try, to make, to taste, to do, to learn, to practice. There's always ways to change and improve what you're working on, and I think that food represents that the best.”

Aside from being one of the highest rated culinary institutes in all of Europe, one thing that piqued Towery’s interest for Apicius was its experiential learning emphasis. After graduating high school, Towery spent a year working various roles in restaurants — bartender, dishwasher, prep cook, line cook — and the concept of going back to school began to seem more foreign to her than moving to a foreign country itself. Unlike most culinary schools, which are incapable of offering an intersection of the culinary world alongside classroom experience outside of full-fledged internships, AUF requires that students work 150 hours at its campus-sponsored dining facilities. 

“I knew that getting adjusted at school might be difficult, and I felt like having that experiential learning might help me adjust to being back in school a little bit better because of the work I was familiar with,” Towery said. “... Also, I just really liked the idea that I could still get hands-on experience in a kitchen on top of my class education.”

Nearing the end of her second year as a student in the master culinary arts program, Towery has settled on her specialization: Baking and Pastry Chef de Partie. According to Towery, her first and second year within the program were “completely different.” Currently, her course load is geared toward her specialization. Her first year, however, consisted of a wide range of classes, some of which discussed topics like wine, breadmaking, proteins, and how to meet dietary restrictions.

“For the first year I liked the variation because I got to try everything; even though I was already sure I wanted to pastry, I still got to have those other experiences,” Towery said. “Meanwhile, in pastry, what I like about it is the fact that I'm only doing pastry. I like every single one of the courses, (and) I'm sure that the culinary students feel exactly the same way that I do. We're only doing what we originally intended to do now, but I did still like the variation and the opportunity.”

With 15 class hours paired alongside 30 experiential learning hours each week make for the cultivation of close bonds with professors and peers alike, Towery said. And, because of the university’s vast study abroad program, Towery has been able to meet a diverse cast of characters from around the globe, some places of which include Australia, Mexico, Turkey, Israel, and across the United States — something that she “loves” about the program. 

When asked what she would tell another prospective international student interested in attending AUF for the culinary program, Towery’s answer was simple: invest in comfortable shoes.

“You're gonna spend a lot of time on your feet because you walk everywhere in Florence, but it's not just the fact that you're walking everywhere,” Towery said. “... It's really helpful to have the hands-on experience — you're going to be doing a lot of cooking — but also like a real restaurant experience, you're going to spend the whole day on your feet!”