She Chose The Kitchen - Chef Dee Bardo - 2026 July - Emerald Coast Woman Magazine - Magazine - Page 18
She Chose The Kitchen - Chef Dee Bardo
T
he culinary kitchen at Northwest Florida State
College is the kind of room that smells like
possibility.
Stainless steel gleams under bright overhead lights.
Burners wait to be turned. Cutting boards stand clean
and ready. On the day I visited, Chef Dee Bardo was
already in motion. The smell hit me first, something
rich and savory with a whisper of citrus, the kind
of fragrance that makes you stop in a doorway. She
moved through that kitchen the way someone does
when cooking is simply breathing. Precise. Unhurried.
Completely at home.
It is worth pausing on that detail. This is the same
kitchen where she sat as a student not long ago.
She graduated from this program magna cum laude.
Now she teaches in it.
That single fact contains an entire arc of perseverance,
faith, and quiet determination. But to understand
what it means, you have to go back much further
than culinary school. You have to go back to a family
table in Iligan City, Mindanao, where a little girl was
learning the most important lesson of her life.
Food is a love language.
18 | She Chose 吀栀e Kitchen | Emerald Coast Woman
