Skipping Culinary School. A Guide.

podcast #2 is up.

So you like to cook.  You harbor dreams of owning your own restaurant some day.  Something small, rustic, neighborhoody.  Your friends tell you how great your food is.  Their compliments are nice, but in the back of your mind is the nagging voice that keeps on telling you that tough times lie ahead.  You've got a lot to learn...and almost zero money for school.  Well friend, help is here.  This is your skipping culinary school guide.

The first thing you need to do is mentally prepare yourself for whats to come.  Things are going to be hard.  You're going to push your mental and physical limits, usually far past your breaking point.  You will have almost no cash; so whether this endeavor means saving your pennies, or getting some financial help from family, just know that whatever you spend will be far less than what going to school will cost you. 
Mainly though, you need to submit to many things at once;  those that will teach you, your desire to have some me time, and the urge to talk back when you don't like the way things are going for you.

For me, culinary school was all about learning the vocabulary of the kitchen.  It was about having a knife in your hand every day.  It had nothing to do with becoming a chef, or making up recipes, or discovering your own personal style.  Mimicking this is fairly simple:

1. Buy either the Cordon Bleu or CIA textbook.  Read THE WHOLE THING.  As you go through the book, practice the cuts, recipes, and techniques.  Buy bags of potatoes and carrots and onions and dice and julienne and brunoise.  When you've completed your reading and are starting to feel comfortable with the knife, you'e ready for the next step.
2. Gather your tools.  You need an 8" chefs knife.  Stick with Wusthof.  You'll also need a bread knife, a paring knife, a peeler, and a microplane.  Pick up Becoming a Chef by Andrew Doreneburg and Karen Page.  It's a little dated, but the overall idea of the book is good.
3. Pick a restaurant you like, and go to the back door.  Ask the chef if he/she will let you hang out for a night.  Let them know that you will do anything:  peel garlic, wash lettuce, sweep the floors.  If they let you hang out, and you like it, make it your sole purpose in life to become a stagiere in that restaurant.  Offer to work for free.
4. Once your stage has started, don't give in to your urge to just work the 8 hours then go home.  You need to put in extra work.  Stay during service.  Watch the cooks on the line.  Offer to help anywhere you can.  Around this time you need to pick up On Food and Cooking by Harold McGee.  This book is not for reading cover to cover, but more as a reference.  If you're making vinaigrettes, read his chapter on emulsions.  If you're making stock, read his chapter on gelatin.  There is a section in that book that corresponds to every facet of the kitchen.  Your understanding of the science in cooking is important.  It's not magic.
5. If you've put in a couple of months, sit down with the chef and ask them for a review.  What do you do well?  Where are you weak?  When does the chef think you'll be ready to give the line a shot?  Don't let yourself get stuck in one place.  Chances are that if you're doing a good job, they'll want to hire you on anyways.
6. Read The Making of a Chef and the Soul of a Chef.  Kitchen Confidential is great and all, but it is not required reading.
7. Take everything that you've learned at work and start cooking at home.  Go to markets.  Cook for your friends and family.  Read local restaurant reviews.  Don't be tempted to watch Food Network--by this point it's time to cut that tether.
8. Self evaluate yourself every day.  Go back and re-visit all the books you read in the beginning.  If you're not astonished by your progress, you need to get back to basics.  Learn every day, and never settle.  Don't get caught up in the lifestyle of a cook...learning is your only purpose now.
9. Around the 6 month mark, branch out on your days off and stage in other kitchens.  If you or your family had money saved for school, take that money and save it for a trip to New York, or San Francisco, or France, or Spain.  This will not be a vacation--it's strictly business.  Arrange a stage, or a series of stages.  Again, don't get caught up.  This is not a vacation.

Coming up as a cook is hard, but if you can dedicate yourself and focus, the way up will be rewarding.  You'll look back on these early days with a smile.  Just realize that the learning never stops.  Things never really get easy.  There are always more books to read, new techniques to absorb, new flavors to taste.  With this guide though, you have a 12 month jump on the kids in school.



notes:

• go here and subscribe to our podcast.  face it, it beats listening to Rhianna.
• first Joey Santiago from the Pixies replied to my tweet, and now he's following me.  the word i'm looking for is motherfuckingawesome.
• expoing with a sore neck sucks.
• the cookies luis brought.  perfect.
• sometimes checking the eggs for the pasta dough recipe is like looking into a crystal ball.
• the lover's delight from plunder.  worth $1000?
• that guy at work that you don't like?  it would really give him a shine to see you fail.
• i didn't forget the coconut breadcrumbs, I swear.
• dear people in SF:  please stop standing in the street when you're waiting for MUNI. 
• when a guy gets up to go to the bathroom, his date will always check her cell.  it's like a rule or something.
• if you're wearing sunglasses at night, you're probably a dbag.  unless you're mc peepants.
• heads up:  i put salt on the fries so you don't have to.
• my iphone cover is made of rubber.  and it costs thirty dollars.

quotes and conversations

"He's all cookin' like Gilbert Grape and shit!"
-Mongoose. 

"I'm gonna sell this motherfucker, and put a fried chicken salad on the menu."
-Chef, who might someday turn Nopa into a Cheesecake Factory

"I would not want to bone down with seat 2.  He would probably want to put it in my butt."
-Merrell.

Goose:  Yim Yam's in the house!
Me:  It's like The Shining Goose.  Yim Yam never left.

"For a moment, I thought Corey was playing Pussycat Dolls."
-Sophia

Goose:  This bitch thinks she knows everything, and she doesn't.
Merrell:  Are you talking about me?

"Hey dude, if I go into Home Depot without a list i'm in trouble.  I'll come out of there with a nailgun and a cashier."
-Corey.

"Smokin' blunts with French people is just as cool as it sounds."
-Ponder.

"I'm gonna run a bath and do like the yellow pages.  Let my fingers do the walking.
-Corey.

"I don't respond to shithead anymore."
-Corey.

Me:  Edward!  How was the weekend?
Eddie:  It was alright.  A little weird.
Me:  How so?
Eddie:  My girlfriend's mom gave me a massage.





from top:  bourbon at noon, gibraltar, tecate, nopalito salsa's, flowers from Violet, a case of Asahi, prep list, iced tea, ponder, editing the podcast, corvina, fettuccini, chips, no hands Amy, eating, plate lunch family meal, no!, may I please have an espresso this big?, your station should be this clean, foil chicken, anti cca sticker