The Class, The Classmates, and Me: An Introduction

The Class:

"Food Preparation Skills", a class offered by a local community college, is taught by an executive chef of nearly twenty years. It is a beginners class covering a variety of subjects; the students enrolled are expected to read through the 4th edition of "On Cooking" by the end of the semester. The class only meets twice a week, but for four hours at a time.

The Classmates:

Most of my classmates would prefer to be manager rather than chef, and nearly all have had much experience in the culinary industry already. Here I will briefly describe the assigned captains of "team one" and "team two" and the members of my team, "team three". I will expain exactly what I mean by teams in a later blog.

Captain of team one is in his twenties and has only had a restaurant job for the last three months. He mainly works with the place's specialty dish: pizza. He is just starting culinary school, and has been cooking at home for quite some time.

Team two's captain is only 19, though he has held a restaurant job for about a year. He hopes to become a chef, and is in the middle of getting his degree.

Team three-

First there's a 21-year-old who defines himself as a "music artist" who hasn't bothered furthering his education until now because he thought his talents could get him by. Why decide to take culinary classes? According to him, because the place where he was working would yank him into the kitchen and make him chop veggies ...and he took a liking to it.

Then there's a young "farm gal" who is manager of the local hotel/restaurant where she has been working since she was 14. She is just finishing up her associates degree and, like most in the class, wishes to manage or own a restaurant someday.

And then there's Me. At 17, I'm the youngest of the whole class and I've had the least experience working in a real professional kitchen. Homeschooled and finishing up senior year this year, I am taking this class in order to "get my feet wet" before jumping head-on into a schedule filled to the brim with classes. I plan on pursuing my degree at another, better community college starting in the fall of '08. I would like to be a chef or personal chef for a while, but would very much enjoy food photography or food writing. I am currently the captain of "team three".