01/08/2001

-Got to the restaurant before the chef and started on the Pate a Choux. Felt very independent this week. Finished the pate a choux before the chef arrived and moved onto baking off the galettes and brioche. Made the fig tarts and the apple tarts again.

-Got to the restaurant before the chef and started on the Pate a Choux. Felt very independent this week. Finished the pate a choux before the chef arrived and moved onto baking off the galettes and brioche. Made the fig tarts and the apple tarts again. Next Saturday the Chef will be teaching me a bunch of new things and I will be going in Wednesday to work the hotline. Gonna try to get in twice a week (one for pastries and one for hotline). Since my entry is a little short this week, I put together a list of a few things that have worked too help me prepare for culinary school. Take a Trip- I was having trouble narrowing my school choices so I went to check them out in person. Just a single day orientation/tour can help to eliminate schools and cities that don't work for you. I visited 4 schools, two I liked. One was good but too expensive, and one I thought was just ok. That was an easy way to eliminate two of the four. A decision between the remaining two schools was tough because I liked things from both, but Johnson and Wales won out in the end. I would not recommend attending a school you have not visited, especially if it's in a city you are not familiar with. To me, the city atmosphere/restaurant scene plays an important role in the entire experience. If your budget does not allow for a $20k+ school and/or you want to stay close to home, check local community colleges. I was surprised to see how many of them had Culinary programs. The cost was usually slightly above whatever the college normally charges per unit. Survey- As I started contacting schools I was finding that every school considered themselves the best around. I quickly learned that making a decision based solely on information from the school was going to be impossible. That's when I thought "Who would know better about hiring based on school reputation than Chefs?" So before I decided to randomly visit schools (which I could not afford anyway) I used a survey to help me narrow my choices. I sent a brief survey to Chefs in seven large cities, which included both cities that were close to a school I was interested in and cities that were not. I sent out 56 questionnaires asking Chefs whether they would hire one Culinary School grad over another based solely on the reputation of the school they attended (with grades, experience, everything else being equal). Of the 56, I received 31 back (55%) with responses. 70% replied with a "No Preference Given Based on School Reputation". The remaining 30% was distributed evenly between 3 schools. This survey worked great for me because I was not limited to a certain region. I would go back East as soon as stay West if I thought the school was worth it. If you know which part of the country you want to do your schooling, you can narrow your survey to that area asking for opinions on local schools. Not only did I get the advice I was looking for, I received plenty more. I received contact information, a few good words of encouragement, schools to consider that were not on my list (J&W was not on my survey but came back as suggested a few times and that is where I will be going in the Fall) and I even had two well-known Chefs offer me internships and a job if everything worked out. I'll be keeping those notes and holding one of the Chefs to it someday. This may also help you to eliminate schools, saving you from spending money on an unnecessary visit. Read- I recommend "The Making of a Chef" and "The Soul of a Chef" by Michael Ruhlman, "Becoming a Chef" by Andrew Dornenburg and Karen Page and "Kitchen Confidential" by Anthony Bourdain. These are all entertaining and inspirational books that gave me a little taste of what I can expect in school and beyond. Some of these books are available here on Cheftalk. Volunteer- Look for experience wherever you can find it. If you can't find a paying gig, volunteer at a restaurant. I have had a paying job for the past 7 months. I will have one, and if everything works out, two non-paying gigs in early 2001. Just before I landed the paying gig in June I began looking for other ways to gather experience. I was going to start working at a food shelter doing prep work, but the restaurant job came around. I also tried to volunteer at Sur La Table as an Assistant for their cooking classes, but never heard back. If you have a Home Chef store in your area, they offer cooking classes where you can sign up to assist. On the tortuous retail side, I worked at Williams-Sonoma briefly to learn about equipment, make a little side money and take advantage of the generous discount they offer employees. You can never have too many toys. Get Feedback- After you start working get as much feedback as you can from everyone around you. In my case, too much feedback is better than not enough so you can decide which to weigh heavily and which to disregard. The info I will use the most is the feedback I got from my Chef during one of the last nights at my restaurant. He said "Stay busy." Even if you don't have anything to do, find something to do. There is always something to do. And by him telling me that, I now know the Chef sees more than you think and little things like cleaning the slicer or freezer when the pantry is slow can be enough to put you ahead of others on the line. These are just a few things that have worked for me. You can always find similar advice on the Cheftalk "Culinary Students" bulletin board (http://www.cheftalkcafe.com/forums).

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