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Bob (this one)

wrote:
> Sheldon wrote:
>
>>TigBits wrote:
>>
>>>Hi group-
>>>
>>>Due to some recent major changes in my life, I'm debating a complete 180
>>>degree change in my career, and I'm seriously contemplating a degree in the
>>>culinary arts. I'm 35 yrs old.
>>
>>I know this is going to sound horrendously brutal but it's the truth,
>>you are too old... by at least 15 years, more like 20. The truth is
>>that at your age people go to culinary school to pick up a few pointers
>>to improve their homemaker cooking skills some but will never be any
>>good as a pro.

Utter nonsense. I've employed more than a few cooks who began their
culinary lives in their 30's and older. One graduated from school at 51.

>>If you've had years of professional cooking experience
>>previously and want the degree to add to your resume then go for it...
>>otherwise you'll be wasting your time and money, because I seriously
>>doubt you'll last a week at any job above burger flipper.

From your extensive experience in food service...? Moron.

Your serious doubts are worthless since you have never worked in a
restaurant, never operated one, never owned one. Outsider looking in.

>>To first
>>enter the culinary field at 35 to become a professional cook is
>>tantamont to taking your first ballet lesson at 35 in hopes of becoming
>>a prima ballerina. For either ideally one must begin at about age
>>five.

Absolute idiocy. Five, indeed... for culinary skills. Ridiculous.

>>You can be the best home cook of everyone you know but put you
>>in a professional kitchen you'd not know up from down.

Um that would be the reason to go to school. You obviously wouldn't know
that, never having been to culinary school.

>>Home cooking is
>>as different from professional cooking as night from day... the reason
>>many food tv celebrity cooks appear so clumsy and inept is because they
>>are pandering to home cooks, when in fact they themselves stink at home
>>style cooking. People who cook for a living rarely cook at home, and
>>they laugh at all the rage in expensive designer kitchens, because
>>none, absolutely NONE are designed for professional cooking.

Poor empty-shirt Sheldon still doing that poser thing. Sound and fury
signifying...

>>Sheldon
>
> And all this is based on personal experience???

Of course not. He's one of those armchair experts.

Here's the real deal. Go for whatever pumps you up. If it's a passion,
follow it. If it's not, walk the other way. Foodservice is hard,
demanding work, decently paid if you're higher up in the order of
things, and long hours. Suggestions:
1) read "kitchen confidential" by Tony Bourdain. Read "The making of a
chef" and "The soul of a chef" by Michael Ruhlman. See if it resonates
with you.
2) go talk to lots of people who are doing what you see yourself doing
after graduation. Don't just pick their brains, wring them dry. It's a
life-change you're talking about.
3) see how important it is to you to be working in a kitchen by taking a
part-time job in one. Any job. Any kitchen. Work there three months. Get
used to not seeing your daughter.
4) Read this column I wrote about opening your own restaurant. Lots of
it applies if you just want to work in the field rather than owning:
-------------------------------------------
You don’t really want to open a restaurant
There is this notion abroad that, because you can cook a good dinner at
home for some friends, you can operate a restaurant. Let me say this
clearly. Unmistakably. With no room for misinterpretation. You’re crazy
to even entertain the notion.
Seems a bit harsh, wouldn't you say? I mean, we're reasonably bright
people and we should be able to deal with something as simple as a
restaurant. It isn't rocket science, exactly. How difficult can it be?
This from George Orwell in his novel, "Down and Out in Paris and London:"
"... would be the fearful noise and disorder during rush hours. It is
something so different from the steady work in a shop or a factory that
it looks at first sight like mere bad management. But it is really quite
unavoidable ... by its nature it comes in rushes and cannot be
economized. You cannot, for instance, grill a steak two hours before it
is wanted; you have to wait till the last moment, by which time a mass
of other work has accumulated, and then do it all together, in frantic
haste. The result is that at meal times everyone is doing two men's
work, which is impossible without noise and quarreling. Indeed, the
quarrels are a necessary part of the process, for the pace would never
be kept up if everyone did not accuse everyone else of idling. It was
for this reason that during the rush hour the whole staff cursed like
demons."
Got it? Restaurants are no place for civilized people to work in. Let's
paint a small picture here. It's based on the past few weeks in a
kitchen where I'm the chef and a couple decades that qualified me to be
doing it. (Chef, in classic terminology means he's the guy who runs the
kitchen - the head cook, final culinary authority, and the person who
manages the operation. Nowadays, it too often means someone who only
cooks and, while that's certainly an honorable profession I've spent a
good portion of my life doing, it isn't the full meaning.) .
In the kitchen, every kitchen, a kind of system develops based on the
needs of the kind of business it is. People come to restaurants and
clubs to dine. That assumes they want their food soon. Along with
everyone else who just walked through the door. The servers cruise
serenely through the dining room (the good ones) and attend to the
diners while the kitchen staff takes raw and partially-cooked foods to
the final state for delivery to customers.
Step with me through the swinging doors to the kitchen. The first thing
you notice is the noise. Kitchens are loud because of the velocity
everyone moves at. Pans bang against stovetops, spoons against pot
walls. Dish machines hiss and splash and steam up eyeglasses. Empty
saute pans thrown into the metal bucket for the dishwasher to come pick
up. Whisks beating a kind of musical time to the soprano notes from the
deep fryer and the kerchunk as the ice machine drops another hundred
cubes. There's a rhythm to it all and it's a fast, hard, loud one. Cooks
and prep people barking orders to each other.
Then the wall of heat hits you. Kitchens are very hot. In the middle of
a meal service time, it can get over 100F back there. You stand facing a
deep fryer with 50 pounds of fat at 365 degrees Fahrenheit. Next to that
is the charbroiler and the surface grates can get up near 800F. The
flattop grill is cooler, just 350F. The burners on the stove - 8 of them
- for saute pans to finish the vegetables and entrees. Odd double
boilers with hot sauces and broths, steam softly hissing out of the
bottom pan. The overhead range hood roars as it tries to suck hot air
away from the cook line faster than it can be heated.
There's little small talk. People are telling each other what needs to
be done and they offer status reports. It doesn't sound polite. Everyone
speaks loudly because of the background noise and they usually sound
angry because they're almost shouting. If you don't have a
well-developed sense of urgency, the whole process looks like anarchy.
In fact, it's more like a raucous ballet on a wet, slippery floor.
Tickets are coming in faster than they can call them. As each
arrives, the cook calls out to the others what's on the ticket so they
can do their parts. What kind of salad. Which appetizer - "app" in the
trade. Soup? Entree? Accompaniments? Special requests or needs? Got it.
Next ticket.
The language is abrupt and without the social lubricants. No pleases
and thank yous in the heat of battle. You won't hear, "Bob, may I please
have two New York strips medium rare, a baby filet medium well and three
ribeyes medium. I also need two snapper specials and would appreciate
the four pasta carbonaras as soon as you can get to them. Thank you."
"Certainly, Gary. And the grilled portabella mushrooms are nearing
completion and should be done in less than five minutes."
What you hear is this machine gun shout, "two newyorks midrare... baby
filet midwell... three ribs mid... two snappers... four carbonaras."
Forty-three words compressed to thirteen. And so it goes. "Gary; ports
in 5." Nineteen words to 4. And it shows no sign of letting up since
there are a bunch of checks hanging up to be done.
But in the meantime, a server just rang in three tables within two
minutes. Since he couldn't take the orders that fast, it's obvious he's
been holding them and is counting on the kitchen to cooperate in getting
the earlier tickets done so they could ship them first. He's screaming
for apps on a ticket with a time stamp barely two minutes old.
It's too, too easy to get caught up in the frenzy of the moment. The
biggest trick is to know when to sprint and when to stop to regroup.
Taking that small second's pit stop to make sure everything is covered.
Doing it all on the fly, the passion carrying the process. Shouts and
seeming rudeness the hallmark of the moment. And when it's past, to
revert to the normal, seemingly rude discourse that's still somehow
respectful of the others that made the process a team exercise. The
smiles that say "We did it again and we did it well."
Anyone who belongs in the kitchen will learn those lessons. Everyone
else needs to content themselves with enjoying the results of the process.
So, this restaurant you want to open...