Chef Mark Noguchi’s classic story about his cook Kelley Pittman is about the day they met at Ma‘o Organic Farms in 2011, where she was a farmworker.

“With some people, you know immediately — they exude that energy that makes them stand out,” he said.

Noguchi was breaking down a 300-pound marlin for the farm’s 10th-anniversary celebration and, in his usual fashion, was anything but quiet while doing so.

“I heard a loud chef on the other side of the farm,” Pittman recalled. “I went over and started helping him.”

“The part that got to me was that after everyone left to shower to get ready for the event, Kelley was like, ‘OK, chef, what’s next?’” said Noguchi. “I told her we were done and that she could take a rest, but she said, ‘Please, I’ll sleep when it’s done.’ That’s what chefs say — the ones who succeed.”

That drive led Noguchi to hire Pittman in 2014 at Lunch Box by Pili, the restaurant for Hawaiian Airlines employees. It was behind his urging her to apply for a spot in the James Beard Foundation’s Women in Culinary Leadership intern program.

On Monday she was notified that she was selected.

“I didn’t really expect anything,” Pittman said. “But I’ll take any opportunity I can get. I’ll do whatever I can to expand my knowledge.”

Pittman will do just that when she spends six months in Boston, working and learning from chef Matt Jennings of Townsman restaurant. She is filling one of 22 positions offered by 19 mentors. The program provides paid internships to help aspiring female chefs build leadership and management skills in the kitchen and in restaurant management and entrepreneurship.

Pittman, who grew up in Waianae, says she’s had a lifelong passion for cooking. “It started with the Easy-Bake (toy oven) and being in the kitchen with Grandma. Working on the farm took me beyond just appreciating food; it helped me to know where it comes from — and that can benefit the way I cook.”

At Lunch Box, where she feeds employees in the corporate offices, she takes requests, and her menu features items such as beef and luau stews and loco mocos for the local workers, kelaguen for folks hailing from Guam, and salads for the “urbanized retro people.”

“What don’t I cook?” she said.

Noguchi says Pittman has already earned the respect of his peers.

“Chefs love and respect Kelley. When they talk about her, you only hear praise. That says a lot about her character,” he said. “She’s too young for us to see where her creativity will take her, but she will be instrumental in culinary in Hawaii.”

Pittman is candid about not yet knowing what her ultimate goals are in the profession.

“I want to learn it all,” she said. “I’m just 22, so I have so much time to let everything soak in. When it’s my time, I’ll be able to run a kitchen and teach my chefs, or run a culinary program.

“Whatever it is, it’s not going to stay within me. There’s no such thing as Grandma’s secret recipe. I’m going to pass it on.”