Food Jobs Book Blog: Irena Chalmers, Food Writer, Culinary Speaker, Career Change Mentor » food science & technology http://foodjobsbook.com 150 Great jobs for culinary students, career changers and food lovers Wed, 08 Sep 2010 15:17:07 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0.1 Dead Already http://foodjobsbook.com/2009/09/dead-already-an-appreciation-for-sylvia-schur/ http://foodjobsbook.com/2009/09/dead-already-an-appreciation-for-sylvia-schur/#comments Wed, 09 Sep 2009 16:23:29 +0000 admin http://foodjobsbook.com/blog/?p=1488 Oh dear. I’m beginning to be afraid to read the newspaper. Three deaths within a few days; Sheila Lukins, Cafe des Artistes and today, as reported in the New York Times, Sylvia Schur. Dead.

Relativity (1953) by M.C. Escher

Relativity (1953) by M.C. Escher

I first met Sylvia in her gorgeous townhouse with the sun roof perched on the top floor. She was a major figure in the food world back then. Her business was thriving. There were many slim young women looking frantically busy and racing up and down stairs like an M.C. Escher drawing. Barbara Kafka was at that meeting and so were several others who became lifelong friends and acquaintances.

I was invited to the gathering on the strength of having written dozens and dozens of little single subject cookbooks. Several million of them were sold in so-called “gourmet” shops at the beginning of the right worshipful Julia Child era.

I learned the purpose of the meeting with Sylvia and Barbara and six other women was to create a new organization to be named Les Dames d’Escoffier. It was the brainchild of Carol Brock who was then food editor of The New York Daily News. The charter was to stipulate a membership limited to 100 carefully vetted women who earned their living as food or wine professionals.

Carol Brock was the first president of the group. Sylvia, the second. I was elected the third president.

Sara Moulton was then president of the Women’s Culinary Alliance, a vibrant gathering of young women. This organization had no limits on membership and no rules beyond getting together to expand their food knowledge.

I proposed to the Board of Directors of Les Dames that we merge the two groups. My idea had been we “old broads” could lend our mentoring acumen to the young folk. The suggestion received a unanimous and resounding NO vote.

I stayed with The Dames for a while, but ultimately decided to join the founding members of IACP (International Association of Culinary Professionals). This organization started with a handful of cooking school teachers and grew to an association of nearly 4,000 mostly women from 39 countries. Its numbers have declined in the last couple of years but it remains a powerhouse of media-minded professionals.

Les Dames meantime maintained its original exclusivity and has also become an international organization.

Sylvia’s was a wise voice throughout the expansion of women’s roles in the food industry. I greatly admired her.” The only fault she had was always, always being late for absolutely everything: meetings, dinners, events of all kinds. I once waited for her for an hour and a half in a restaurant to which she had invited me for dinner. I left as she was arriving, breathlessly hurtling through the entrance. She seemed astonished that I was so p…d off.

We never arranged to have dinner together again though we stayed in touch for several years. Whenever the phone rang after 11:30 P.M., I always knew it was Sylvia calling about an urgent matter.

Looking back, it seems in character that she stayed on earth late enough to celebrate her 92nd birthday. She really was a grand old “dame.”

]]> http://foodjobsbook.com/2009/09/dead-already-an-appreciation-for-sylvia-schur/feed/ 0 Job for A Supertaster! http://foodjobsbook.com/2009/08/job-for-a-supertaster/ http://foodjobsbook.com/2009/08/job-for-a-supertaster/#comments Fri, 21 Aug 2009 14:49:57 +0000 admin http://foodjobsbook.com/blog/?p=1347 Coffee Tasting Chart

Coffee Tasting Chart

You might think it would be a gift from the Godz to be a supertaster but there is a distinct downside to this genetic endowment.

If you are a supertaster, you’ll hate sugar and all sweet foods and most fruits and vegetables. For a  supertaster, tasting broccoli is like tasting it multiplied by a factor of 10. So if you hated broccoli at the outset you would hate it 10 times as horribly.

To be a supertaster, regular milk tastes like heavy cream. Supertasters don’t like fat or greasy foods because they contain large molecules that press heavily on the nerves found in their taste pores. Supertasters are thus deprived of the joys of KFC, and even an occasional banana split. (This is no small tragedy.)

The American Association of Advanced Science tells us that the tongues of thin people are more likely to be packed with thousands of taste buds, the exact number of which is genetically determined like inheriting curly hair or brown eyes. Having a bunch of extra sensors on your tongue can be compared with having extra mini microphones in your ears. Sure you can hear what that person is saying about you, but you might not like what you hear.

Humans are unable to control appetite, unlike all other creatures on earth. Almost everyone can detect sweetness in 1 part in 200, salt in 1 part in 400, and bitterness in 1 part in 200,000. Odor can be detected by taste buds even when diluted to 1 in a trillion. The bad news here is that 64% of everyone’s taste buds are lost by age 30. The good news is that our ability to taste outlasts all the other senses. If it tastes good we keep eating it.

If I read on the menu that the lasagna had four cheeses, I could be totally fooled. I wouldn’t be able to tell if it had three or five. A supertaster would be able to identify each cheese and every herb or spice and every other nuance of flavor.

A sommelier can differentiate between literally hundreds of wines. A chef is as dependent on taste perception to earn a living. A great chef is as skilled as a great painter in arriving at a taste palette to please the palate.

Nestle and Cadbury employ chewing gum tasters. A good living can be had by tasting cheese, olive oil, coffee, tea, ice cream, cookies, strawberry jam, barbecue sauce, chocolate, yogurt and dozens of processed foods.

There has been a boom in employment for research chefs who develop tastes. And they now have an association to call their own. It is the Research Chefs Association or RCA. Nation’s Restaurant News trade magazine reported: “You may think it’s fairly intuitive to bring chefs on board when you’re make food but doing just that has become standard practice. More and more chefs are being hired by big business because the companies need a culinary edge as they walk that fine line between being able to mass-produce foods and keeping with what’s going on in the culinary world.”

You can make a lovely juicy salary as a supertaster–providing you first choose your parents carefully.

]]> http://foodjobsbook.com/2009/08/job-for-a-supertaster/feed/ 0 Water Works http://foodjobsbook.com/2009/07/water-works/ http://foodjobsbook.com/2009/07/water-works/#comments Thu, 23 Jul 2009 19:58:13 +0000 admin http://foodjobsbook.com/blog/?p=1173 martini_glass

Here’s some astonishing news: a small town in Australia has just voted to get rid of water. Bottled water. The riled up community has declared that all the bottled water on all the shelves in all the places that it is sold, has got to go.

This declaration may be the beginning of another great rethinking of our priorities. What’s starting as a tiny trickle could become a tidal wave, a ‘just in time’ return to common sense. The idea of getting rid of plastic bags began like this with a few voices and several fingers pointing to the environmental impact of hauling water from one part of the universe to another. The cost of littering the landscape with millions of non-biodegradable plastics is pretty much incalculable.

The odd thing is most of us can’t tell the difference between bottled and tap water. This is possibly because bottled water comes mostly from municipal supplies. Some folk think if they dip their crust of bread in virgin olive oil and drink bottled water, they will live for ever. Only plastic bags and bottles live for ever. There’s absolutely no health benefit from drinking straight from a bottle.

The Archive of Family Medicine discovered nearly 1/4 of bottled water from Cleveland had significantly higher levels of bacteria, yet it can cost between 250 and 10,000 times as much as a glass of water from the faucet. Add the cost factor.

Ounce for ounce water in a plastic bottle with a fancy label costs more than gasoline. We’re spending $15 billion a year on it.

I’m not a believer. I don’t believe Wayne Enterprises’ claim that drinking their product, Holy Drinking Water, will be “a daily reminder to be kind to others.”  Nor can I entirely swallow the marketing message from the bottled water sold under the brand name of OM (OMMMMMMM). Its “manufacturer” says the product contains enough energy to  promote a positive outlook that is reinforced with the striking of a very large gong (GONGGGG) that causes Tibetan bowls to vibrate. (Ummmmm)

This whole deal with bottled water, though, has gotten terribly out of hand.

Here’s some good news: Americans flush 4.8 billion gallons of water a day. New urinals contain a few wood chips. No water. No odor. Nearly 100,000 are already in use. Each waterless urinal can save enough water to fill three swimming pools a year.

Here’s some more good news: Japanese scientists are now able to convert seawater into drinking water and produce electricity by exploiting the difference in temperatures between the surface of the sea and the depth of the ocean. The technology depends on producing condensed steam. It has no environmental impact, and costs less than $1 to produce 250 gallons–roughly the same cost as producing (rigorously tested) city tap water.

You might have noticed, in the unlikely event you go to a bar and ask for a glass of imported water, the bartender adds a couple of ice cubes made from water that came right out of the tap.  Add a wedge of lime and it’ll cost you as much as a martini.

Here’s something else to think about: It is said that French people drink wine rather than water. This is because frogs live in water and if you drink the stuff, you will eventually die while making little croaking noises…

Could this also be true?

]]> http://foodjobsbook.com/2009/07/water-works/feed/ 1 Way to Go: Dining Aboard Queen Mary 2 & Meeting the Executive Chef http://foodjobsbook.com/2009/04/way-to-go-dining-aboard-queen-mary-2/ http://foodjobsbook.com/2009/04/way-to-go-dining-aboard-queen-mary-2/#comments Mon, 20 Apr 2009 18:24:41 +0000 admin http://foodjobsbook.com/blog/?p=934 Queen Mary 2

Queen Mary 2

There is a story told about the eminent French chef Jean Troisgros.  (He was the Ferran Adria of his day, dazzling food folk with his innovative dishes.) Three food writers from the United States were among those who set forth to worship at his multi-starred restaurant. They rhapsodized about their first course: a heavenly composition of Foie Gras with Haricots Verts and Warm Vinaigrette. They adapted this lovely composition for their readers. Thus in translation it became: Bologna with Frozen String Beans and Thousand Island Dressing.

I mention this because I just experienced the real thing: an Atlantic crossing on the Queen Mary 2 (QM2). Sailing, it seems, is rather different from cruising and the QM2 is the most magnificent ocean liner of them all. It is therefore only appropriate to arrive in formal attire to dine in a setting of unparalleled elegance and luxury.

I was so fortunate. I was introduced not only to the Queen (Queen Mary) but also met the charming Executive Chef, Karl Winkler. Naturally, my first words were to ask how he got his job. I am describing my grand adventure to illustrate just how many opportunities there are in the foodservice industry.

Chef Winkler is Austrian, and before ascending to his current exalted position, he’d worked in restaurants throughout Europe, London and New York. He has 33 years experience in the hospitality industry as does his Executive Sous Chef, German-born Klaus Kremer.

I love facts and figures so here are a few:

  • There are 150 chefs and 60 sommeliers on board, who are assigned to one of  the eight restaurants.
  • Each venue has its own chef de cuisine.
  • The Britannia restaurant alone serves 1,200 meals for each seating.
  • The Queens and Princess Grill caters for 400 guests.
  • In addition, there is the Todd English restaurant, the Lotus (Asian food), The Carvery, (traditional English roasts) and the Boardwalk Cafe.
  • A galley reportedly caters excellent food for the ship’s officers and crew.

The sheer quantities of food for a 6-day transatlantic crossing are quite staggering. These are the quantities food that is consumed:

  • 50 tons of fresh fruits and vegetables
  • 12 tons of meat
  • 8 tons of poultry (chicken, duck and turkey)
  • 2 tons of cheeses and dairy foods
  • 5,000 gallons of milk
  • 2 tons of sugar
  • 12,400 eggs
  • 20 Kg Russian caviar

No word on the quantity of Veuve Cliquot and other champagnes ordered but 6,000 cups of tea are served every day, and 8,000 linen napkins are laundered every day too.

Seawater is converted into fresh water for drinking, cooking and cleaning. The demand for water is extraordinary, equating to 79 U.S. gallons per person per day.

Aboard ship, the constant activity is eating…breakfast, lunch, afternoon tea, dinner and late night munching (french fries at midnight). Super food is available all the time. If anyone is feeling a little peckish between meals, there is 24-hour room service that arrives, with a smile, almost instantly.

The service is beyond brilliant! Nothing is too much trouble. If, for professional reasons, we wanted to sample four extra dishes, the request is fulfilled without even a hint of a raised eyebrow.

So, I asked, “what happens to all the leftovers?”  “Ah! Good question.” Vast quantities of food are indeed left over. They are carefully scraped into a giant centrifuge that dehydrates it, while spinning the oils and fats into a separate container that later is sold to pet food and other processors. The compacted food is tossed overboard, and eagerly devoured by school of fishes that follow the ship!

Naturally, I had to ask if Cunard, owner of the QM2, takes interns (or is the term ‘extern’?). The answer, in this troubled economy is a reluctant “no, not now.” How about applying for job in the kitchen or as a server? A recent advertisement in India received 20,000 application for 60 positions. The fortunate recruits sign a contract for varying lengths of time. Round the world cruises last for 90 days with 30 days off.

Applicants must have experience in the hospitality industry though the length of time required varies. Those whose resumes pass initial scrutiny are invited to two interviews conducted in their home country. (Many employees are from the Philippines, Mauritius, India and other places while remarkably fewer are from the United States, United Kingdom, France or Germany as these nationals are less willing to spend long periods of time away from friends and family for extended periods of time.)

The 24-day Treasures of Civilizations voyage from Dubai to New York cruises the Arabian Sea to dock in Salalah, Oman before crossing the Gulf of Aden, the Red Sea, passing through the Suez Canal, then on to Alexandria, and Cairo in Egypt. It’s then on to the Mediterranean Sea to Athens before proceeding through the Aegean to Rome, Cannes, France, Barcelona, Spain, across the Straits to Gibralta, and finally crosses the Atlantic to stops in Paris and Normandy before Southampton and then to New York.

Other cruises explore the Mediterranean, the Caribbean, Northern Europe (the Voyage of the Vikings), the British Isles, the Baltic countries, Norwegian glaciers and the ports of Spain, Portugal and the Canary islands.

The passengers are hooked for ever!  So, seemingly are the crew who spend their professional lives almost totally at sea.

Have you ever held a culinary or foodservice job like the ones described above? Any thoughts to offer?

]]> http://foodjobsbook.com/2009/04/way-to-go-dining-aboard-queen-mary-2/feed/ 2 Mentor Minute: Scholarships Found In Broad Daylight http://foodjobsbook.com/2008/11/mentor-minute-scholarships-found-in-broad-daylight/ http://foodjobsbook.com/2008/11/mentor-minute-scholarships-found-in-broad-daylight/#comments Wed, 19 Nov 2008 10:47:12 +0000 admin http://foodjobsbook.com/blog/?p=286 Money is tight these days. Yet scholarships for culinary school can be found. It takes digging and perseverance. A scholarship or grant may be waiting for you right now. But no one is going to hand it to you. Unless you ask for it, you have virtually no hope of grabbing it.

“Concentrate on researching the organization that offers or administers the kind of scholarship you want,” advises Dan Traster, former academic director of culinary arts at The Art Institute of Washington in Arlington, VA. “For instance, the National Restaurant Association promotes the entire restaurant industry, and does so by considering applicants who want to be managers, dieticians and marketers as well as cooks and pastry chefs.”

I know this is true as I’ve written many, many reference letters for students seeking additional scholarships and grants while they were still in school. It may seem obvious but it bears repeating: when you apply for scholarships:

  • Read the fine print. It is important to show you are really serious about continuing to stay or switching to the culinary field, won’t change your mind and drop out if you find the work too hard or if it fails to live up to your expectations. Don’t waste your time applying for a scholarship for high school grads when you already have a bachelor’s degree.
  • Check the scholarship deadlines for applications and allow plenty of time to meet them.
  • Look at more than one school and study their scholarships and grant programs carefully. Ask what kinds of scholarships they offer; how many are available, and what you have to do to get one.
  • Follow the instructions on the application form carefully, and answer every question. Reviewers say many applicants are refused simply because the applicants left some questions blank.
  • Be realistic. If you are asked to write an essay  describing your goals, it is best to say that you are starting out and hope to find a job as a line cook in a restaurant rather than suggest that you want to start your career as a consultant Chef Thomas Keller or Emeril Lagasse.

“In other words,” says Traster, “focus on an achievable goal and explain how the scholarship will help you to meet the goal.”

You may want to go to Italy to study food of a specific region.  That is a reasonable and understandable purpose and there are organizations that offer scholarships for just such a purpose. You may receive a grant that will give you enough funds to stay alive while working as an unpaid intern in a food television show or segment.

Scholarships are available but you have to work hard to get your hands on the big prize money. Grants and scholarships have recently been offered by these culinary organizations:

]]> http://foodjobsbook.com/2008/11/mentor-minute-scholarships-found-in-broad-daylight/feed/ 0 Something Smelly http://foodjobsbook.com/2008/11/something-smelly/ http://foodjobsbook.com/2008/11/something-smelly/#comments Mon, 10 Nov 2008 22:24:31 +0000 admin http://foodjobsbook.com/blog/?p=253 As recently reported in the New York Times, researchers and artists at the New York Academy of Sciences are meeting to embark on a series of stimulating and highly recommended talks devoted to the Science of the Five Senses. The central idea is that if we had a better understanding of the signals our bodies send to our brains, might we take more pleasure from them?

The December program will be on smell, which can signal not just the presence of food and potential loved ones and cherished memories but also of predators and, well, yes, sewage. Rockefeller University olfactory researcher Leslie B. Vossall will join scientist Avery Gilbert, who, as consultant for the perfume industry and author of What the Nose Knows: The Science of Scent in Everyday Life, appears to qualify for the role of artist. Among the topics they will cover: can smells trigger memories; does body odor really attract mates, and if so, why do we cover it with perfume? What makes some of us insensible to certain scents?

Here’s something to remember. In the brain, the centers of memory and the location of the genes that translate smell sit side-by-side like two peas in a pod.

Do you remember that story of Proust and his little cake? He wrote, “As soon as I had recognized the taste of the piece of madeleine soaked in her decoction of lime blossom which my aunt used to give me (although I did not yet know and must long postpone the discovery of why this memory made me so happy) immediately the old gray house upon the street, where her room was, rose up like a stage set to attach itself to the little pavilion opening onto the garden which has been built out behind it for my parents.”

I mention this as a serious warning. If your beloved, knowing how you love to cook, begs you to make some lasagna just like Mom’s, you must, (I absolutely emphasize must), refuse to do so. No matter how insistent the pleading.

The reason is, no matter how well you prepare the dish, it will never be right. This is not because it doesn’t taste fabulous, but because the total memory can never be conjured into reality.

You’ll never ever be able to match the way the light streamed through Mom’s kitchen window and bathed the lasagna in sunlight. Nor will you be able to serve it on that old yellow plate with a daisy in the center. Your version will always be judged inferior.

Suggest a bowl of spaghetti instead. You’ll be glad you did.

]]> http://foodjobsbook.com/2008/11/something-smelly/feed/ 0 The Wizard of Godz http://foodjobsbook.com/2008/09/the-wizard-of-godz/ http://foodjobsbook.com/2008/09/the-wizard-of-godz/#comments Mon, 15 Sep 2008 22:00:11 +0000 admin http://foodjobsbook.com/blog/?p=33 Yesterday I watched Heston Blumenthal, chef of the Fat Duck restaurant, give a cooking demonstration at the StarChefs International Chefs Congress in Manhattan. It was mind blowing. It’s one thing to read about Heston and his work, and an astonishment to actually see him in action.

“Eating is a multisensory experience,” he says. And by George he’s right. He says his cooking is all about contrasts of texture and flavor. It’s based on knowledge:  knowledge of anatomy and physiology and psychology and magic.

In the brain the centers for taste and memory are anatomically very close together.  Heston knows that. He also knows our own personal taboos and prejudices have a profound influence on our food preferences.

So he creates a seafood composition in a shadow box, (a kind of deep picture frame). In went a base of sand (tapioca), and on it he carefully places three kinds of seaweed, an oyster, a razor clam, a sea urchin and a coverlet of ethereal white frothy foam. There’s a garnish of artfully arranged crystallized and fried anchovies. O.K. sounds good?

Sound is the operative word. To experience the full impact, enter the magician. The diner wears a couple of seashell microphone headphones. While savoring every tiny morsel, the conscious mind is enveloped with cries of seagulls and experiencing the sounds of waves crashing on the beach. Incredible!  Transported to the seashore, the fish leaps from the icy waters, leaving a faint briny taste hovering on the lips.

What’s fascinating about this is an experiment in which the same seafood dish was accompanied, not with the sounds of the ocean, but with the grunting of pigs and the cackling of chickens. Not surprisingly everyone hated the food. Some even spat it out. (But the same folk loved the bacon and egg ice cream with the farmyard symphony resonating in their heads!)

Eat a potato chip wearing headphone-enhanced loud cracking sound and it makes them wonderfully crispy.

Chef Blumenthal engages experts from many fields to help him achieve the singular sensations he seeks. For a Christmas dinner, his objective was to recreate the very innermost essence of the moment, not just the taste and the smells of Christmas, but the feeling of Christmas, the emotion of Christmas, the memory of Christmas. Where to begin?

Why in the Middle East of course, to procure gold, frankincense and myrrh, and then on to Siberia to get a bucket of reindeer milk. Then, have a consultation with Christophe, the Parisian perfume expert who analyzed each component into its molecular structure. And then the real task begins.

How to incorporate the other flavors of the season: nutmeg, roasting chestnuts, orange, whiskey… and how to serve the composition?

Why in the form of a sorbet-that-doesn’t-melt encased in a tabletop crackling fire over which is suspended a bouquet of roses that release their fragrance? The sights and sounds and smells of Christmas are formed into a scoop of sorbet and served from a wooden teaspoon carved from the myrrh tree of course. Of course!

Why did no one think of such a thing before? (The miniature scoop of sorbet melts in slow ecstasy in the mouth.)

A cup of tea? Split in half vertically with one side hot and the other cold?

Pour liquid nitrogen over macerated apples and billowing clouds of fragrant apples suffuse the brain.

Chefs are transforming themselves into artists, magicians, and creative geniuses. Some accept interns, sorcerer’s apprentices.  Just a word of warning: don’t mention the words, “molecular gastronomy.”  Molecular gastronomists hate this term. You can understand why.

They are more accurately described as Wizards of Godz.

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