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Hi there! My name is Haley Kirby,
i'm a 33 Year old happy mother of 2. I have been through many of life's ups and downs, enduring my own childhood medical trauma from birth, graduating Cooking school, and working many jobs.
From the start, My brother, Kyle and I were born with a rare hereditery blood disease that caused severe anemia. Our Mother Krissinda faught for our lives finding doctors and clean blood doners for ongoing needed transfusions. We finally each had a splenectamy when we turned 6 years old which made the disease not a problem.
My parents, also grew up in Thousand Oaks, California.
My Dad is a Video Game animator who worked on games that we would test play him at his work some weekends.
I would go to beach and bbq every weekend, ran track at 7 years old. and learned my love for cooking, but mostly serving people from a very young age, 8 years old!
I remember at 12 years old getting my first chef's knife And cooking huge fancy dinners for my family because I just wanted to. It made my soul smile! I went to public school for 12 years,
•Graduated Thousand Oaks High in 2009. I did well in hands on creative classes like cermamics, photography And theatre tech.
I knew i had to get myself into a cooking school!
When i heard about A.C.E. Academy Of Culinary Education, a close, affordable yet legitimate private cooking school, It lead me to believe it was possible for my longest held dream to come true of completing cooking school!
ACE is owned and personally taught by Cecelia De Castro, who was mentored by Wolfgang Puck when she was 18 years old.
I ended up running its course of 9 months and graduating French cuisine cooking school, and then went a step further and also completed baking school.
I was then referred to work at Hollywood and Highland, Wolfgang Puck's Catering. I pursued the directed position as a cook working under 25- 50 different high end chefs who had many years of prior experience in the gourmet restuarant and catering industry. In time I began organizing , prepping and running parties, climbing up the latter and then trained as the Head Saucier, the Chef of sauces. Completing gourmet dishes such as mushroom rissotto and sauces for sometimes 3,000 people, serving he Emmy Awards, Granmy awards, Oscars, and catered to celebrities at their homes.
I finally trained cooks under me to learn skills I picked up over the years when my heart called me to move in a different direction. They were like family and it was painful to leave.
Working on the Ocean
in 2015 I said my goodbyes to Hollywood and went opposite direction up to Ventura. Went out on the Island Spirit sportfishing boat out to the Channel Islands and I was hooked!
I decided there was nothing else i wanted to do but to learn to catch, the food that i clean, cook and serve. Being the only galley chef working 17 hour days on the day and overnight boat cooking multiple meals for 40 people Really tested my indurance, while workinganother dream job!
I remember Captain Bundee teaching me the ropes of the boat, how to gaff a 40lb yellow tail as they get to the surface, Gaff!! I would have to run grab the gaff, and hook fish pull it over boat,
Bundee said " you work good under stress" "A Hard Worker." I had no choice but to give it my all, I had to keep up these guys, they trained me, I knew I had it in me from Wolfgang puck days!