View Single Post
  #8 (permalink)   Report Post  
Posted to rec.food.cooking
jmcquown jmcquown is offline
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 6,726
Default Culinary school opinions

notbob wrote:
> On 2006-02-03, TigBits > wrote:
>
>> people happy with my food, run a tight kitchen and hopefully have a
>> little bit of fun while doing it.

>
> You should do a Google groups archives search. This subject has been
> flogged to death over the years by this and other food groups. The
> consensus is, if you've got money to burn, go for it. Go to a
> prestigious cooking school. But, it will get you only a slight edge
> on all the other hard core chef wannabes that can't afford to go or
> went to other less high profile schools like college and community
> college programs. What's the count now? Over one thousand cooking
> schools in the US, alone. Your starting wage in the real world will
> still be at the burger flipper/fry cook level and you'll still have to
> put in several years apprenticing to tempermental chefs to get real
> world experience and build a resume. You have to remember you are
> competing with people who want to be chefs so badly, the will
> apprentice for free.
>
> You say you have restaurant experience already. YOu may want to
> consider cutting to the chase and using it to find a beginning
> position under an established chef and starting there. Save you a lot
> of time and money.
>
> nb


No joke, nb! Nothing says experience like experience. No way would I think
I could walk in with a degree and command a great salary and work less than
75 hours a week.

I can't tell if the OP means he/she is willing to work that many hours *or*
if he/she is ready to stop working those types of hours. News which is not
news - professional chefs work incredible hours and until/if you run your
own restaurant you aren't free to just come and go. You're there overseeing
everything from morning to night.

Purely IMHO, age 35 is a bit late to be getting into the professional
cooking game. The OP mentioned Emeril and Rick Bayless; they didn't just
spring from the foam and come out cooking. Whatever your opinon of these
folks and those who went before them, they put in a lot of hours in the
school of hard knocks before anyone ever heard of them.

Jill