Allysia grew up watching her mother and grandmother prepare dinner for her family each night. A creative at heart, Allysia's first passion was for music, particularly R&B. Allysia decided to explore another creative outlet, cooking, to try something new and hopefully give her mom and grandma a break from cooking each night. Allysia got this opportunity when she interned at Sprouts Chef Training at Mago restaurant, under mentor and Sprouts Board Member, Chef Mark Liberman. During her internship at Mago, Allysia got a lot of experience prepping ingredients. She sliced and pitted avocados, deveined shrimp, and peeled mushrooms. She also got the opportunity to do some plating, highlighting a tostada plate she got to decorate with sour cream and herbs. In addition,

Allysia practiced setting up a mise en place to help the restaurant's baker, Issac, measure out ingredients to make chocolate truffles. While kitchen work can quickly become repetitive, Allysia enjoyed that Chef Mark and the other kitchen staff embraced her love of music and even offered to let her be the DJ of the kitchen to make the work go by faster!A moment of her internship Allysia particularly enjoyed was when she got to bring a finished dish out to customers. Chef O'rian accompanied her and helped explain the dish to guests. Allysia liked the satisfying feeling of getting to set the beautifully plated meal in front of the excited dinner guests.When Allysia is not cooking or listening to R&B, she likes to play basketball and organize her space. Allysia hopes one day to be a music producer and write beats for R&B tracks. She is grateful for her internship at Mägo for expanding her horizons and giving her a new creative outlet. Whether it's beets or beats we look forward to what comes next for Allysia!