The Career Alex Guarnaschelli Would Like To Have If She Wasn't A Chef

Our childhood dreams are often very different from those of our adulthood. One of the tough realities of growing up is sometimes having to let go of a childhood dream for a more realistic dream, or giving up an old dream for a new one. You might spend your entire adolescence thinking you're going to be a doctor, then graduate with a writing degree and go on to be a chef.

With many of the celebrity chefs we know and love today (Guy Fieri, Gordon Ramsay, Bobby Flay, to name a few), it's almost impossible to imagine them in any other career. Martha Stewart as a model? Alton Brown as an actor? Julia Child as a copywriter? (Actually, these chefs pursued these careers prior to making a name in the food industry!)

The point is while a good deal of famed television chefs have always been chefs (via Spoon University), many come from backgrounds that couldn't be further from cooking. Even "Iron Chef" star Alex Guarnaschelli originally had a plan for life outside the kitchen. 

Anyone who has seen Guarnaschelli cook would probably struggle to envision her in another career. Although she attended a number of esteemed culinary schools in France and worked under several world renowned chefs, Guarnaschelli first graduated from New York's Barnard College with a degree in art history. But that's not to say that was her career of choice. Instead, if she hadn't fallen in love with cooking, she would have "embarked on the search for those giant squid as a marine biologist" (via Food Network).

Fortunately for both Guarnaschelli and her fans, she can have the best of both worlds. As a chef and a guest judge, she regularly works with and tries seafood dishes. Perhaps her lifelong love of the ocean helps her see food (seafood?) differently. Whatever the case may be, she must have found that giant squid she was looking for because she recently shared a recipe for crispy squid with the Cooking Channel.