Courtesy of the Little Mexican Cooking School

I received a telephone call from a FOOD JOBS book reader who has just lost her job and doesn’t know what to do now. She wanted something new. She had worked as a caterer, recipe tester, food stylist, freelance magazine food writer and cookbook editor.

With these skills, I suggested she consider becoming a teacher in a cooking school. Her topic could be any one of the specialties or she could actually teach a course on FOOD JOBS!

In fact, I started out as a cooking school teacher in Greensboro, North Carolina. I demonstrated a complete meal in each class, but told little stories about the ingredients I was using. Many came more for the stories than the cooking class itself. I later expanded these tentative steps into a course that nestled comfortably beneath the umbrella of gastronomy.

If you want to teach, but not cook, maybe you would like to consider the endless and ever expanding topic, ‘Food in the News’. The advantage of offering these subjects is you can be in charge of your own material and develop your own course guide.

I’m teaching FOOD JOBS* and get a huge amount of satisfaction from the classes and the enthusiasm of the students.  The best part is that I learn something new every day.

Professional cooking schools are thriving everywhere. So are community colleges. Many high schools also include hospitality courses in their culinary curricula.

With the help of ShawGuides, my caller can easily locate a Culinary School at the Arts Institutes, Cordon Bleu cooking school or other professional, avocational cooking school or a community college wherever she wants to live. (She would like to move from her current location to a warmer climate in another part of the country.)

I sent her a sample course guide and advised her to adapt it so that a Dean of Education could see exactly what she had in mind. Her proposed syllabus should also include a brief outline for a series of six (or more) classes. Here below is such an example:

Syllabus Sample Template

CATALOG COURSE DESCRIPTION: FOOD CAREERS

This Food Careers course will introduce the extensive range of career opportunities. The classes will help participants evaluate their own unique skills and encourage them to explore the many paths open to them. There are literally hundreds of job opportunities available to today’s graduates.  They need only bend down and pick up the prospect that is most appealing.

SAMPLE APPEAL TO STUDENTS TO TAKE YOUR FOOD CAREERS COURSE

The reason you decided to acquire an education at XXX Culinary School is to find a career in the food field. There is almost nothing more important than developing a sense of direction and ultimately being in a position to choose a path that will lead to a richly rewarding life. Together, we will examine many specific fields within the hospitality industry.

It is essential to understand the factors that contribute to the success (or failure) of a food business. You will be encouraged to track economic, political and demographic trends as they impact the hospitality industry and exert a strong influence on our current and future food choices.

You will also discover the importance of thoroughly researching a company before applying for a position. You will receive practical guidance to write a result-oriented resume and cover letter, and learn how to develop positive interviewing strategies. Class discussions will include the art of negotiation and emphasize that acceptance or rejection of a specific offer is limited not only to the size of the salary or the number of benefits: there are other important matters that must be taken into consideration too.

COURSE OBJECTIVES

At the end of this course you will be in a position to define your goals and begin to take practical steps to plan your future career. You will be able to :

• Describe the difference between a job and a career

• Develop a strategy for job hunting

• Identify the advantages and disadvantages of working in each sector of the hospitality industry

• Identify the most influential publications and reliable web sites within each sector of the hospitality industry

• Identify food trends and extrapolate probable trajectories of each trend

• Evaluate the impact of changing consumer choices

• Evaluate the impact of changing economic conditions

• Compose a personal portfolio of your work

• Outline a plan to market your business and build client referrals

• Understand the vital importance of networking

• Prepare a business proposal

• Describe the steps necessary to achieve your personal career objective

• Describe the economic and demographic reasons that justify an entrepreneurial objective

• Assess the business impacts of the “green” revolution

INSTRUCTOR

Add your name here and summarize your background.

Sound easy? It still takes effort. If this course of action appeals, you still have to put yourself out there and do the heavy leg work. But once you have a focus and a goal in mind, the hard work turns into a matter of steps to follow down a virtual yellow brick road.

Please contact me if you have a question about your own career.

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Will Write for Food by Dianne Jacob

I’ve met many students who want to write about food and I  try my utmost to be encouraging. It’s always been difficult to earn a decent living as a writer but I can’t remember a time when it has been more challenging.

Even so, there are doors that are open a crack and with a little ingenuity and masses of determination it is possible to push them wide open.

It is important to know, what exactly, a food writer does. Scott Jones, Food Editor of Southern Living and a CIA (Culinary Institute of America) grad describes it well: “Writers research, write, edit, proofread, and check facts (including testing recipes) in jobs such as: newspaper columnist, cookbook author, and restaurant critic. As a food editor for a publisher, you’ll review cookbook proposals and take an accepted book from contract to print. Editors also work for magazines, newspapers, and television shows, setting the content and style of their food section or programming. In this field, you’ll need strong writing skills, knowledge of culinary principles, and familiarity with current consumer and industry trends.”

That all sounds good. So, let’s look at the bad news first. The prospects of landing a job as a syndicated newspaper writer are slim and getting slimmer. The possibility of finding work as a regular newspaper columnist are thin and getting thinner as circulation and advertising numbers shrink, and few funds can be found for opinion pieces. Many resort to simple seasonal recipes with text, recipes and photographs provided free by commodity boards. Cross off newspapers as a potential employer unless you decide to become a hard food news journalist where hyper-local is the current trend.  This job has to be undertaken by a local writer.

How about food magazines?  As we all know, Gourmet is gone. The bad news here is though a fortunate few manage to secure freelance writing assignments. They are a precious few and they are, (sorry to say), often big names or “known” to the food editor. So forget about FOOD & WINE, Bon Appetit or Saveur and the other giants in the field.

This brings us to all the good news. The familiar food magazines do not provide the only home for your writings. Go to any of the major booksellers, and scan the incredible number of magazines that offer opportunities you may not have previously explored. Look at local publications too. Often the chamber of commerce or real estate groups publish their own (sometimes very handsome) magazines as do medical groups and other special interest organizations. And don’t forget about food blogs for food magazines.

Wegmans is just one of the many excellent supermarket publications, and then there are the huge number of trade magazines: FOOD ARTS, Chef magazine and Chef Educator Today, Nation’s Restaurant News, Restaurant Business, Restaurant Hospitality, Tea Times, Mushroom Growers, as well as catering and specialty food industry publications. Check online to find the names of the astonishing number there are.

There are other ways to dip your toe in the food writing world. There are food writing courses and coaches and writing programs to choose from, though I highly recommend New York University Steinhardt Department of Nutrition, Food Studies and Public Health.

But whichever direction you decide to travel, you must write regularly. The difference between a writer and a professional writer is the professional never gives up.

There are three reasons a writer becomes successful; no one knows what they are.

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The conventional culinary job is no longer simply peas and beans and carrots, rather it encompasses an enormously vast array of  options. One can become a chef in a restaurant or a personal chef for a family; a food historian or a food folklorist; a recipe writer or a recipe tester; a flavor maker or a public policy food fighter…

Yet more options open up after you’ve attended culinary school. Which cooking school you apply to is a personal choice largely determined by your particular goals. High-profile schools offer more in terms of visits and cooking demonstrations by superstar chefs, but smaller schools may provide more nurturing environments and are less of a financial burden.

Where the school is located, what times of day or evening classes are offered and how large the classes are also very real consid- erations for many would-be culinary students. Unlike traditional colleges, culinary schools attract students of all ages. Some have special needs that are not always anticipated by other institutions of higher education.

Many professional schools have three divisions: culinary skills, baking and pastry, and hospitality management. Students at some, (though not all schools), are able to combine programs. A degree program can extend for anywhere from six to 38 months with tuition costs varying from $10,000 to more than $70,000. In all cases, financial aid is readily available.

The schools with larger endowments, like The Culinary Institute of America and Johnson & Wales, often have more highly qualified and experienced faculty, better-equipped kitchens, a more extensive library, and even, sports facilities. These schools, and others in major culinary metropolises, may offer student housing, indicating that  they attract students from around the world. They also tend to have higher tuition fees than smaller, non-residential schools.

There are many factors to consider before enrolling in culinary school, and prospective students are urged to take their time before making a decision about what is best for them.

An Associate of Occupational Studies (A.O.S.) degree from a top-tier school is believed to carry more weight when seeking employment, but this is not necessarily so. Great students with good attitudes are offered terrific jobs, no matter which school they attend.

You may prefer to enroll in a small school where there is a strong focus on the individual and a small class size. In the culinary program at Paul Smith’s College in Lake Placid, New York, for example, there is a 14:1 student to faculty ratio. Teachers, mentors and advisers are always on hand. The college has a magnificent library, and its lakeside campus, nestled in the magnificent Adirondack Mountains, is an excellent destination for winter and summer sports enthusiasts.

Community colleges in every part of the country offer degree programs in culinary arts. In addition to more affordable tuition, they allow students to live at home — another cost-saving consideration.

Remember that culinary school should be viewed as an investment and a beginning. There is still much hard work ahead. One more piece of advice: as you scan ShawGuides for suggested schools and begin to apply for culinary school, ask someone at the reference desk of your local public library for the Occupational Outlook Handbook. It lists all kinds of information you would need to know, (including the salary) of just about any occupation you can imagine.

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Chinese Characters for Eating Is Heaven

A couple of days ago I asked my Facebook and Twitter friends to tell me about interesting, unusual or weird food jobs. Right away I received two responses. This isn’t a lot admittedly, but I was happy to have heard from both of them. I told you about Rick Barger and his truffle tasting dog. Here’s the other from Valerie Saint-Rossy.

The conversation began: “Regina Schrambling urged me to tell you about a food class I teach.” Little could I guess that Valerie’s food job would be so wonderfully unusual. Ahh, it is so! Valerie’s class description and fuller background is below.

Chinese Characters for Chinese Food Lovers: Introduction to Reading Characters & Ordering From the Chinese Menu

Do you ever wish you could order the same dishes that the Chinese do in a Chinese restaurant, or be able to read the Chinese-only menu? Enhance your experience of Chinese food and learn about Chinese foodways with this introduction to the study of Chinese characters through food vocabulary.

In no other culture is this truer: to learn how to read is to learn how to eat. Why? Because food names in Chinese say so much more. Aspects of Chinese culture enter into even the most common names, so you cannot help but learn about its history, culture, art, and even its economics when you study Chinese food words.

The student learns how to copy and look up characters by analyzing and identify their parts, called radicals (similar to an alphabet). The student will learn approximately 50 characters that appear not only on menus, but also on signs, stores flyers, and packaging. By the end of the class the student will be able to recognize characters and names of dishes on menus. The student will also know how to look any new character using the Chinese character glossary, The Eater’s Guide to Chinese Characters by James D. McCawley.

I later asked Valerie how she developed this unique food job. What was her background? She explained that her food job passions began in infancy, that several streams intersected. She spent her childhood in Taiwan and India, where “exotic cooking was home cooking for her.

The second stream: since 2002, Valerie has been a freelance book editor, with specialization in cookbooks. It seemed only natural when she undertook a Chinese food project: making an index for the classic 3-volume Chinese cookbook called Pei-Mei’s Chinese Cook Book. (It doesn’t have one).

Over time Valerie’s original idea of teaching herself the Chinese characters for food words, characters, and the names of the dishes she loved grew more sophisticated. “I widened the scope of my food research. In 2004 a long out-of-print Chinese food glossary, (The Eater’s Guide to Chinese Characters), was republished. I realized that with the book I could teach other people what I had taught myself.”

The third strand: NYC is a Chinese food town, so Valerie approached NYU’s School of Continuing and Professional Studies with the Chinese Characters for Chinese Food Lovers idea and they signed the class up. Moreover, friends and colleagues in NYC would call Valerie all the time: “whatever ingredient of type of restaurant you’re looking for, Valerie can tell you where to find it in New York.” (Valerie’s favorite eateries are all ethnic formica-table joints. She admits that her refrigerator is filled with the unidentifiable. Yet she is petite and weighs 108 lbs! Oh, if only i could say the same.)

To enroll in or find out more about Valerie’s private Chinese Characters for Chinese Food Lovers 12-week class, do contact her at vsaintrossy@gmail.com or 718-852-8485.

I love hearing from readers about their food jobs, though like many bloggers, I wish more people would share their experiences. Sometimes just a single idea will provide a spark that will help someone embark on a new path. I heard somebody say, “There is no such thing as a self-made person.” I agree.

Valerie’s lovely story reminds me again that we are interconnected and enriched when we share our food passions and food jobs. Every one of us is a sum of all the help we have received along the way.

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Barbara Beery, Owner/Founder of Batter Up Kids & Entrepreneur

Most of us may have thought we were headed along on a straight career path when we realized the winds of change were blowing in another direction. We could choose to drown or tack in another direction. Barbara Beery, founder/owner of Batter Up Kids, has been able to use her experience as a teacher to follow some interesting new culinary opportunities.

Barbara Beery founded Batter Up Kids, a cooking school and culinary program specifically for kids, in 1991. She is one of the pioneers of connecting kids, cooking and the Internet as a teaching tool. The evolution of Barbara’s business has led to many other successful ventures, including the launch of Kids Cooking Shop, her innovative website just for kids’ cooking products. She also is the author of 11 children’s cookbooks, including three best-sellers, which have sold over 300,000 copies! Her newest title include Pink Princess Cupcakes is coming out in March 2010. Barbara also has been a spokesperson for such national companies as Sun Maid Raisins, Uncle Ben’s, Borden’s and Kellogg’s Rice Krispies.

I asked Barbara how she developed her unique FOOD JOB, and this is what she said:

Q: Before you founded Batter Up Kids, you were a elementary and pre-school teacher. How did you make the transition to cooking school teacher?

A: I had taught elementary school and pre-school for about 6 years before beginning Batter Up Kids. Teacher is the “key” word. After having years of hands-on classroom experience and having learned child behavior patterns and classroom discipline, I realized I had the ability to teach kids anything! I think I would have been far less successful had I not had a strong background in teaching. I also loved to cook, so it seemed a natural to combine the two passions.

Q: Did the business evolve slowly or did you quit your job to teach the culinary programs?

A: It was really an evolution over three years. I developed the cooking school concept and would teach cooking in the afternoons when I finished my pre-school teaching job.

Q: Before you launched Batter Up Kids, did you get or have any formal culinary training?

A: No. My mom was my teacher and she was a wonderful cook and ALWAYS encouraged me to be by her side in the kitchen. At the time, I didn’t think I needed culinary training. Rather, I needed plenty of recipes that were easily adapted to kid-friendly recipes. I subscribed to every cooking magazine on the market and went to libraries. I checked out loads of kids and adult cookbooks.

Q: A business name can serve as a selling tool. How did you come up with the name Batter Up Kids?

A: The original name of the business for the first four to five years was called “Now We’re Cooking.” When I took the next step to get a nationally registered trademarked name, that name was taken. I asked my own three kids to throw out names (pardon that pun) and somehow the name and the phrase Batter up Kids just struck the right note. I loved the play on words. It was just a fun name that caught people’s attention and made them think….what is this business?

Q: Do you see any trends in what kids want to cook most?

Pink Princess Cupcakes by Barbara Beery, Photo by Zach Williams, Reprinted with permission of Gibbs Smith

A: YES…sweets! Pastas and homemade breads and pizzas; fruits and veggies must  be presented in clever ways, but hands down cakes, cupcakes and desserts always draw the largest class numbers.

Q: I see that you are transitioning the business from cooking school programs to culinary products for kids. How did this come about?

A: After 18 years of teaching kids how to cook, I had developed a keen awareness of products and supplies that work best for kids in the kitchen. I spun this experience around and spent over a year going to markets and trade shows for houseware, giftware and toy fairs and found hundreds of kid-friendly, user-friendly products for kids and ‘tweens. I also realized that it was time to change the business model. It was a very exciting move. I felt strongly that a “Williams-Sonoma” type of online shop for kids with time-tested cooking demos would be a great business.

Q: What advice would you give to anyone who wanted to start a business, teaching kids to cook on a small or local scale?

A: LOVE what you do. I still work 50 hours a week and feel like there is always more that I should be doing! Start the business venture off slowly so as to limit your mistakes, and have loads patience and faith. You need to love to teach children as well as have a keen understanding of what it takes to teach one successful class. From there, you need to continually create new programs.

Developing a well-thought through lesson and lesson plan takes time and experience; it does not instantly happen. To execute one 90-minute class involves 2 hours of preparation, 90 minutes of class time, and 1-2 hours of clean-up. Everything must be carefully executed to enable the kids to get the hands-on experience and joy in the kitchen!

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Chef Neal Foley of The Kitchen Garden Company

When I initially wrote FOOD JOBS, I wanted to show that using one’s innate skills to follow one’s culinary passion would lead to finding life’s riches. I insisted on including personal stories, (much to the despair of some), to demonstrate that even the most fabled culinary success is often meandering yet deeply rewarding.

The culinary community is one woven of many story threads that should be shared, from the Farm City so elegantly described by author Novella Carpenter to self-described accidental agrarian and gastropodist, Chef Neal Foley, and everything in between.

Is there such a food job as an accidental agrarian, you ask? You decide. Neal is a person of many culinary talents. He is a chef, a farmer, a teacher, a podcaster, a philosopher. His story begins with The Kitchen Garden Company.

The Kitchen Garden Company (KGC) began as a catering company but evolved into a private chef services and consulting business more than anything. Since forming the company six years ago, the hobby of growing vegetables and raising animals for ourselves merged into raising crops for use in the business and selling pigs, chicken, duck and rabbit.

Normally, throughout the growing season, we ‘successionally’ plant vegetables not only for home use but in response to demand for private dinners. So, if I know I will be feeding 10 people a month or more down the road, I will plant lettuces, radishes, etc. ready to use. Then I pull in whatever else is growing in the gardens–fresh herbs, edible flowers, perennials like sorrel, rhubarb, berries….whatever is in season and suits the menu.

In addition to cooking, we also raise pigs and sell them on the hoof–essentially raising them for someone else. The rules allow us to sell the animal living. The customer pays for slaughter and butchering and ends up with some exceptional meat–either a whole or half hog–for a very reasonable price. Along the way we raise a pig or two for ourselves, and use them to demonstrate on-farm slaughter and home butchery techniques as well as sausage making and bacon curing.

While we have always raised chickens for eggs, we’ll sell any extra to help pay for the feed. Our own eggs remain free, but we have occasionally raised chickens for meat. When grain prices skyrocketed I got into raising meat rabbits because they grow quicker on less food and are easier to process. I can only legally sell the rabbits I process as dog-food to customers. There seem to be a lot of happy dogs out there. But we eat quite a bit of rabbit ourselves. It is a lean, protein rich meat which is very cost-effective and simple to raise.

Culinary Training

From an early age my mother had taught my brothers and I how to cook, but it wasn’t until I was out on my own that things really took off. I began collecting cookbooks and inviting friends over to test my creations. As an impoverished college student I knew all about stretching the budget to entertain in style. I went to a rural university and lived off-campus away from town so I didn’t dine out much. Cooking was a matter of feeding myself and saving money as much as it can be at times now.

Over the years I’ve had many restaurant jobs from dishwasher, to waiter, to salad and cold-food prep cook at the Faculty Cafeteria in college. An injury to my back ended a career in construction which was just taking off, so I began to look for other things I enjoyed doing. With the settlement money I received, I went to Ballymaloe Cookery School in Ireland. (I had lived in Ireland for a short while years before, and I welcomed the opportunity to return.) Ballymaloe is a small, but world renowned culinary school versed in the basics. It is also centered on an organic farm. While there I also had the opportunity to work at several restaurants. I gained knowledge and improved my skills and speed.

When I returned home I had the confidence to begin The Kitchen Garden Company and cook in private homes. We had already been farming–raising chickens, pigs, cattle–for years. But my experience in Ireland had changed me. There, everything we cooked was fresh; I knew the producers and shopped at year-round farmers’ markets. I realized I should be doing the same, here with my own business. It has taken sometime to realize this vision and it hasn’t always been a welcomed thing, but times are changing, as they say.

Becoming An Accidental Agrarian & Teacher

Over the past four years my vision has really taken shape. Immediately after returning  from culinary school I began doing some teaching in kitchen stores and the like–simple stuff like how to make a quick, easy home cooked meal for company after work, or cooking for students. I also began offering in-home cooking school parties where I’d show up and teach a host and his or her guests how to make some dishes which they would eat afterward. It was immense fun.

Upcoming 2010 New Year's Duckfest at KGC- See: The Gastrocast for Details

I also began podcasting as another way to share my knowledge and experiences with food. It didn’t take long before my life began slipping into shows: the daily chores; raising animals; haying; the whole rhythm of having a “smallholding” on a small, ‘self-sufficientish’ farm. The more I included in my show, The Gastrocast, the more listeners responded.

Along the way I began to realize the state of the food system, if not in the U.S., then the world. I began sharing food-related news items which interested me and that I felt might be of relevance to listeners. Thus, the Gastrocast became “the cooking show about food, farming and the politics of what we eat.” This has had a continuing resonance with my audience and has spawned three blogs: one related to the show; one which is a gateway to the show,  my food and agriculture-related writings; and a third which is just agricultural in nature.

In all of this there has never been a plan, but rather, a loose jumble of ideas. Through the years,  I have managed to find my niche. That has helped me focus on where I need to take my cooking, my farming and my work in bringing all this to the public.

What The Future Holds

Because I currently live on a small island I have kept my business purposefully small. I rely on word of mouth advertising, plus what The Gastrocast can provide in audio, video and web presence. When I started out, I took almost any job that came my way. I gained experience; learned what worked and what didn’t. For a while I was a private chef in a mansion in the Madison Park neighborhood of Seattle. The money was great but the travel and time away from my family and farm eventually took its toll.

The lessons I learned there, my work in various restaurants and in Ireland continue to carry me forward as I focus on building an on-farm cooking and farming school. There are many shapes this venture might take, but the core philosophy behind the idea is to get people in touch with where food comes from, be they chefs, home cooks or students.

If we can all learn where ingredients begin, help produce them ourselves and learn how to treat them with respect, then we can spread this knowledge to others and gain back some of what’s been lost in the past 40 years of industrialized food. I really think that people who cook for themselves and their loved ones, who raise their own food–even if it’s a small head of lettuce, a couple of carrots or a bug-chewed, giant head of cabbage–achieve an incredible sense of accomplishment that follows them the rest of their lives. Working with our hands and with our senses is very important to who we can become as people. This is what I want to convey through my future work.

We are currently in the process of selecting a site which would provide an adequate farm landscape that enables us to continue to be self-sufficient and raise food for ourselves, The Kitchen Garden Company and others. We also want it to be a venue for events, workshops and dinners and classes. Once we find the spot, we can think about training culinary students and staff and building the new venture. The great thing about the podcast, the websites, and now Twitter, is that I can share my message from where ever I am, and attract a new audience as I go along.

Advice to Others

I guess I would stress getting out there and sharing your passion in an honest way. Meet with farmers, producers, cooks of all kinds and find out what’s motivating people and sharing your thoughts and feelings as you build a network around you. Once that network begins to grow and spread, you have something to build on. Don’t be afraid to ask for advice or to contact people who have ideas you believe in or people that inspire you.

Neal’s story continues. You can visit him at http://kitchengardens.net or http://agrari.us and use the contact form, follow him on twitter– @podchef, or email him at podchef@gmail.com.

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Celebrity Chef Wolfgang Puck

Dear Culinary Student,

It is estimated more than 70,000 of you are currently enrolled in professional culinary schools nationwide. How can you stand out from the crowd? How can you find a fulfilling career that will engage all your abilities? What are the possibilities you will become the next celebrity chef?

You have as good or better a shot of reaching your goal as the next person.

Look around! Look in front of you. Look behind you. Look at someone on each side of you. There is no one quite like you. You are unique. Now all you have to do is go to school to learn why and how things work. Once you know the fundamentals, you can reach whatever goal you set for yourself.

Everyone starts from a different point and is bound for a different destination. You are not competing with everybody else who may be vying for the same job you are seeking. Your only competition is with yourself.

Your road is there waiting for you. You just have to find it. Your horizon is limited only by your ability to envision it.

Besides my personal favorite, FOOD JOBS: 150 Great Jobs for Culinary Students, Career Changers and Food Lovers, one of the most popular resources is The Guide To Cooking Schools, compiled by ShawGuides. It lists more than 800 culinary programs worldwide, 358 of which are geared towards professional training. The courses are listed with such detailed information as: the type of instruction; faculty credentials; tuition costs; student profiles and status of accreditation. ShawGuides also offers a free job-matching site.

Yet this is only the beginning. If you are lucky, your culinary path will match The Road Not Taken poet Robert Frost described.You must be prepared to take a risk. Many risks, in fact.

As I like to say, if you don’t ask for what you want, the chances of getting it are close to zero.

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Courtesy of horizonproject2008.wikispaces.com/Connecting+

Yesterday I was invited to give a talk at the 2009 CIA (Culinary Institute of America) alumni reunion. There are 39,000 alums of this school. Other colleges, associations and businesses have even more thousands of graduates, members or past employees.

At our meeting, there was a chef who had graduated from the second class of students soon after the CIA was founded in 1946. There were young and younger chefs who had gone on to become hospitality industry leaders, culinary entrepreneurs, managers, humanitarians, even one who has recently organized a soup kitchen near his home.

No one, (or no one I met), was hustling or trying to sell anything. Instead, everyone was interested in getting to know others in the field; in reminiscing and sharing the interests and experiences they all have in common. They were all inspired by President Tim Ryan‘s visionary (and audaciously exciting) plans for the future of the institute.

I was thinking about the commitment of time that it takes to attend this and similar meetings. And the commitment of money too. There was a very small fee that surely couldn’t possibly have covered the cost of the many marvelous meals and wines and the cost of travel and lodging.

I was also reflecting on the value of this undertaking which turns out to mean different things for different people. For some it is undoubtedly a passive experience in which friendly words are exchanged that may have little impact or long-term value.

For others, there are friendships to be renewed, and new opportunities to be explored. It is the friendships that are the most important part and the piece of the pie that must be savored slowly.

Networks are not about taking but giving. Not so much about talking, but more about listening. For this reason, it would be good to consider changing the word itself from “networking” to “connecting.”

It is the connections that lead to results. We all prefer personal references: a referral to a dentist, a doctor, a car repair shop or a plumber. A personal recommendation of a book, a movie, a restaurant or party planner carries far more weight than a review from a stranger.

Indeed when it comes to measuring our personal self worth, we could ask ourselves whether it can be counted in terms of possessions or measured in the ever-widening circle of our friends.

Margaret Wheatley said, “Relationships are all there is. Everything in the universe only exists because it is in relationship to everything else. Nothing exists in isolation. We have to stop pretending we are individuals who can go it alone.”

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An Original: Chef Instructor Jacques Pepin courtesy of United Artist/Everett

It’s one thing to be a great cook and quite another to be a great teacher.

To become a teacher the first thing to do is to take an examination…of yourself. By this, I mean, literally figure out who you really are. For instance when we buy a camera, we are really buying are memories made tangible. When we reserve a room in a hotel, we are buying a good night’s sleep.

The legendary restaurateur, Joe Baum said, “People don’t go to a restaurant to be fed, they go to be served.”

All this is a preamble to saying that a culinary teacher has to figure out just what kind of instructor to be. Do you want to be respected and loved or admired but feared? Chef instructors who choose to yell at students and belittle their clumsy efforts do so because they truly believe this is the only way to teach and to learn. Perhaps because this is the way they were treated when they themselves were young and inexperienced.

Chef instructors at professional culinary schools are responsible for training students and providing continuing education for experienced working chefs. They provide practical, hands-on instruction in cooking and also: in purchasing; cost control and budgeting; menu development; product utilization; time management; ethics and professionalism. The job entails developing a curriculum, writing lesson plans, grading homework and class assignments, administrating tests and examinations and evaluating students’ performances.

Classically trained chef instructors draw from their hard-earned experience to teach others. A minimum of five years experience working as an executive chef in a restaurant kitchen, bakery, catering company or other branch of the hospitality industry is usually mandatory. As part of the interview process, prospective instructors may be asked to prepare several dishes and demonstrate their ability to convey knowledge to students. They may have no formal academic qualifications, although people entering the field now generally do.

A successful chef instructor (like the beloved Jacques Pepin) must be able to solve problems and maintain discipline in the classroom. As with all teachers, chef instructors acknowledge that classes vary one from another. A significant indication of the chef instructor’s competency lies in his/her ability to transform the bad or bruised apples into polished chefs, not just make the already shiny ones shinier.

In other words, a good teacher combines the attributes of sainthood with the benign affection of motherhood or Attila the Hun.

As the world shrinks, the interest in different cuisines expands. We travel more easily than ever before, and while all this movement has created a cross-pollination of food cultures, it also has spurred interest in learning about “authentic” cooking customs. Destination cooking schools and culinary tours for food lovers are a growing business. Schools are thriving in France, Italy, Germany, Switzerland and China and Japan and many other countries.

As the advertisement says, You don’t have to be Jewish to love Levy’s rye bread.

A chef can teach the foods of the Americas anywhere in the world; even on a cruise ship where passengers are treated to cooking demonstrations while sailing the oceans blue. Once docked, a chef may be engaged to conduct a culinary tour of the region.

Another opportunity for a chef instructor is to conduct a culinary walking tour. One such program in Manhattan limits the class to 20 people. The fee also includes lunch and is $65 per person.

Avocational classes remain the most popular cooking lessons in the country. Not everyone interested in food has the time or inclination to go to a professional cooking school, so the next best thing is to take a few classes. Some avocational culinary schools teach a wide array of topics and attract the same students, class after class. They also offer a few professional level classes as well. Their students may go on to work as caterers, cooks in gourmet stores, food writers, travel tour guides, food stylists, personal chefs and private cooks. Others just go home and throw fabulous dinner parties.

People who teach cooking have a passion for it. They love the creativity, the give-and-take of the class, and the interest their students bring to every session. They get their ideas from any number of sources and they shape them into cohesive classes. Not everyone who teaches cooking is brilliant at it, but those who are usually cultivate a loyal following.

Cooking school teachers must keep up with the times. Last year’s pasta class will be this year’s whole-grain class. A course on roasting morphs into one on slow food cooking. The public is fickle and tastes change.

For occasional work, both Sur La Table and Williams-Sonoma stores offer hugely popular cooking classes conducted by chefs and cookbook authors. Historic sites and homes like Williamsburg and some museums offer cooking classes too. Then there are chefs with an academic background who may consider teaching a class on such topics of as Shakespeare in Love (with food).

Darra Goldstein, a professor at Williams College, says she decided to offer a new course to pique student interest. She named it “Topics in Russian Culture: Feasting and Fasting in Russian History.” It is designed to teach Russian culture through the prism of food. In the 200-odd-year history of the College, this was a groundbreaking course. The college had never before listed a regular class in food studies.

She says, “Because I also wanted my students to experience food as pleasure, I supplemented the class meetings with extracurricular events. We celebrated the Russian pre-Lenten Butter Festival with an all-you-can-eat blini dinner and went on a mushroom hunt, for which the students prepared by reading Tolstoy’s evocative passage on mushrooms from Anna Karenina. We were thrilled to find an abundant patch of morels!”

The seminar concluded with a four-course Russian feast. Each student researched and prepared a traditional dish, and the results were impressive. In addition to the familiar borscht and pirozhki, they enjoyed a 19th-century cold beverage made from pounded pistachios, homemade kvass (an effervescent drink made from fermented black bread), eggplant caviar, a large pie with four different fillings straight out of Gogol’s Dead Souls, and varenki, Ukrainian sour-cherry dumplings.

Clearly a chef instructor or a cooking school teacher can choose to teach and travel along many paths.

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For if you are thinking about starting a new career, you are taking a huge risk. Simply reading these words is a measure of your bravery, your sense of adventure and your willingness to take charge of your life.

Whether we know it or not, we are all taking risks all the time. Even if we are classified as full-time employees, we are really free-lancers. The axe hangs over our head by a slender thread. The only security we have is our ability to transform our knowledge and experience into stepping stones to the next opportunity.

Rather that thinking about permanence and security, we should all be thinking about — indeed hoping for change. Change is the only constant in the continuum of our life.

If you stop pedaling, you’ll fall off your bike. If you keep going, no matter how slowly, you will eventually arrive at the place where you want to be. If you stand still, there is an illusion you are coasting but in fact, you are falling back.

Decisions  Decisions

Like it or not we have to keep making decisions. Should I wear this or that? Should I buy this car or that? Take this apartment or that? Go to this movie or that? Go out. Stay at home. Should the meat be well done, medium or rare? Blue cheese or Thousand Island dressing? Smooth or chunky? Small, medium or large? With or without? On and on goes the list of questions — and answers.

One of biggest difficulties is there are too many choices. It’s a little like thinking you want to write a cookbook on the chicken dishes of the world. If you have such a mad idea you will drown. It’s much easier to settle for the Chicken Dishes of Detroit.

As much as one-third of the culinary student community are career changers in their mid- to late-thirties and older.

They come from all walks of life. They are former airline pilots, lawyers, advertising executives, engineers, scientists nurses and entertainers. They previously worked in offices, schools, hospitals, and even in prisons. Some have served in the military and civil service. Many have already worked in restaurants and decided the in-depth education from a cooking school will advance their career options.

What they all share is a passion for food though not necessarily for cooking.

Once you decide to go to culinary school, you almost immediately have to decide whether to specialize in culinary programs or baking and pastry arts. Be sure to examine the options available at several schools before making the decision to choose one rather than another.

Working in a restaurant, (or owning one), is a dream job for many people but remember that it ranks as being among the most stressful things you can do. It is far more grueling to work in a restaurant on a Friday or Saturday evening than to be a member of the surgical team in a hospital operating room.

The good news is the hospitality industry is the 2nd largest employer nationwide, providing work for over 13 million people. The even better news is: there are literally hundreds of job opportunities available that will enable you to expand your existing life experience and lead you to a brand new career that you may not have known existed.

The bad news is that as you embark on the journey finding a unique food job, there is no map to guide you. No star to point the way. You must create your own true compass.

More good news, there is a job for you. You just have to find it. Look how many different loves we all go through before we find the one true keeper.

And being fired from the first food job is not as important as how you react. The former White House Pastry Chef Thaddeus Dubois one said, I left [the White House] as I arrived: fired with enthusiasm!”

Words from the Wise?

The former U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfield observed: “There are known knowns, there are things we know we know. There are known unknowns. That is, to say, there are things we know we don’t know. But there are also unknown unknowns.  Things we don’t know we don’t know.” Sometimes that’s what career searching feels like.

Thinking Ahead

Deciding to change your career, or embark on a new venture or just change jobs is a major undertaking. It means thinking ahead and anticipating where you want to be in the short-term. Not the long-term future. Because you will probably change your mind and change jobs several times. Most people do.

Remember: you’re in charge.

You are willing to exchange your time for someone’s money but you are not a prisoner.

You can figure out how to leave a job if you are miserable. Otherwise, you risk being unhappy and becoming a WOMBAT — a Waste Of Money, Brains And Time.

Or, to quote Bobby Kennedy once more, “All of us might wish at times that we lived in a more tranquil world, but we don’t. And if our times are difficult and perplexing, so are they challenging and filled with opportunity.”

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