Sidney Rubenstein was in Hawaii for a semester with the Culinary Institute of America when he decided that being a restaurant line chef wasn’t for him. 

The 2020 Stonewall Jackson High School graduate had been cooking since he was 13, but after getting some real-world experience at a few restaurants, he decided to look into becoming a personal chef instead.

He reached out to several members of his favorite NFL team, the New York Jets, and was delighted when he favorite player, quarterback Zach Wilson, responded.

“I just decided to send it out and I got lucky,” said Rubenstein, a 20-year-old recent graduate of the CIA in Hyde Park, New York. “I like to put myself out there a lot.”

After that, Wilson told his teammates about his chef, and Rubenstein started catering Thursday night dinners for the Jets’ offensive line.

Now living in Chatham, New Jersey, Rubenstein said he’s much happier than he was when 17 and doing his “externship” in Hawaii.

Other restaurants where he’d worked weren’t so bad, he said, but the particular ones he found in Hawaii put him off linework. A big reason for that was lack of feedback, he said.

“The chef will never tell you it’s better than him,” said Rubenstein. “I couldn’t do it anymore.”

Being a private chef is totally different.

“I always wanted to do private cheffing,” he said. “I like…