I live in a city with several great culinary schools and programs. A fine city, bubbling over with early twenty somethings, with a warped dream of culinary life.
This has everything to do with the current food culture. The idea of going to college, with the goal of landing a low hourly paying second shift job, is a bit absurd.
Being a cook is the only career where a high end salary, along with fame, is millions of dollars. While the low end can be $9 an hour... Or nothing at all.
Many great kitchens have waiting list of eager cooks willing to do free tryouts, called stages (pronounced stah-ge').
I am often asked if I've seen some show on the Food Network. Most times I haven't. Not because I'm a hater, I just don't watch that channel very often. I wasn't inspired by this "foodie" culture.
I got a job after high school, where I met a chef. This man had been to culinary school is 1970's. This man had stories, and was willing to share knowledge.
He rekindled an interest sparked as a child in being a chef. One that a suspender wearing Cajun on PBS first stoked. Saturday afternoons, after Pee Wee's Playhouse, I would watch this old man Justin Wilson. His red suspenders, blue shirt, and functioning alcoholism, were beyond entertaining. Every time he added Chablis to something, he took a sip. His Cajun accent seemed foreign, his cooking seemed like voodoo. I was mesmerized.
Then one summer afternoon I saw a show called "Great Chefs of the World", on cable. Smoothe jazz and a comforting narrator, framed chefs from places like Austria or France. They would be in real kitchens, talking in their native language. The narrator would say whatever they were demonstrating. The techniques and ingredients they used were out of this world to me.
It occurred to me then, there is something more to cooking than the nightly dinner mom cranked out each day. A sacred guild full of secrets, that artist called chefs keep closely guarded.
I wanted in.
When I met my first chef in the kitchen at 18, I saw my chance to enter. The first authentic dish he taught me was fried rice. One lesson I'll never forget... Serve red beans and rice with a spoon.
I was getting folded into the secret society of career cooks.
Trust me when I say I've learned and hopefully will continue to learn more everyday about my craft. I smile every time I see a hurried kid, with fresh whites on, power walking to his job uptown. Likely he has spent all morning learning and having the fear of God instilled in him by a culinary instuctor. The next 8 hours he'll spend getting yelled at by a Honduran line cook for not having hot fries up. It's a beautiful thing.
Regardless of how much tuition one pays, it does not buy you a ticket into this life. Price of admission is eagerness and a thick skin. As Justin Wilson would say, in a barely understandable Cajun accent... " I Guarantee!"
Great Chefs cooking show
Justin Wilson cooking show
This has everything to do with the current food culture. The idea of going to college, with the goal of landing a low hourly paying second shift job, is a bit absurd.
Being a cook is the only career where a high end salary, along with fame, is millions of dollars. While the low end can be $9 an hour... Or nothing at all.
Many great kitchens have waiting list of eager cooks willing to do free tryouts, called stages (pronounced stah-ge').
I am often asked if I've seen some show on the Food Network. Most times I haven't. Not because I'm a hater, I just don't watch that channel very often. I wasn't inspired by this "foodie" culture.
I got a job after high school, where I met a chef. This man had been to culinary school is 1970's. This man had stories, and was willing to share knowledge.
He rekindled an interest sparked as a child in being a chef. One that a suspender wearing Cajun on PBS first stoked. Saturday afternoons, after Pee Wee's Playhouse, I would watch this old man Justin Wilson. His red suspenders, blue shirt, and functioning alcoholism, were beyond entertaining. Every time he added Chablis to something, he took a sip. His Cajun accent seemed foreign, his cooking seemed like voodoo. I was mesmerized.
Then one summer afternoon I saw a show called "Great Chefs of the World", on cable. Smoothe jazz and a comforting narrator, framed chefs from places like Austria or France. They would be in real kitchens, talking in their native language. The narrator would say whatever they were demonstrating. The techniques and ingredients they used were out of this world to me.
It occurred to me then, there is something more to cooking than the nightly dinner mom cranked out each day. A sacred guild full of secrets, that artist called chefs keep closely guarded.
I wanted in.
When I met my first chef in the kitchen at 18, I saw my chance to enter. The first authentic dish he taught me was fried rice. One lesson I'll never forget... Serve red beans and rice with a spoon.
I was getting folded into the secret society of career cooks.
Trust me when I say I've learned and hopefully will continue to learn more everyday about my craft. I smile every time I see a hurried kid, with fresh whites on, power walking to his job uptown. Likely he has spent all morning learning and having the fear of God instilled in him by a culinary instuctor. The next 8 hours he'll spend getting yelled at by a Honduran line cook for not having hot fries up. It's a beautiful thing.
Regardless of how much tuition one pays, it does not buy you a ticket into this life. Price of admission is eagerness and a thick skin. As Justin Wilson would say, in a barely understandable Cajun accent... " I Guarantee!"
Great Chefs cooking show
Justin Wilson cooking show
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