Bocuse d'Or Award

This past weekend, a most important culinary competition was held at The Culinary Institute of America (CIA) in Hyde Park, NY. Twelve finalists–five of whom are CIA alumni–competed for the honor of representing the U.S. in the prestigious Bocuse d’Or World Cuisine Contest, that will be held January, 2011 in Lyon, France.

The competition takes place only every two years, and was established in 1987 by world-renowned French Chef Paul Bocuse. It is the preeminent international culinary competition in which teams of one chef and one commis from 24 countries compete for top honors and international acclaim. (It is the equivalent of winning the gold medal at the 2010 Olympics-winter or summer.)

These 12 finalists had a mere three hours to do the early preparation work on Friday prior to the final contest that was held Saturday. They had five-and-a-half hours to complete one Scottish wild salmon platter and one American lamb platter. The chefs were required to make a total of 12 servings for each platter, which also had to have three garnishes.

At the competition’s end, James Kent, 30, was chosen as winner. He is currently employed as the sous chef at Eleven Madison Park in New York City.

Jérôme Bocuse, the son of Paul, is a chef and a CIA graduate. He serves as a judge for the cooking contest along with other chef luminaries including Thomas Keller and Daniel Boulud.

Yet, I think I am safe in saying that none of the 800 spectators at the CIA knew about a (prior) dinner that was staged at a rented villa in the south of France.

The hosts were a couple of wealthy New Yorkers. The guests included the legendary Paul Bocuse and nine famous multi-starred French chefs. The hosts had dined in the various chefs’ restaurants for many years. They would leave generous tips at the conclusion of each meal. Thus they were remembered — vividly.

One year, the New Yorkers decided to turn the tables and invite the illustrious chefs to a “home-cooked” dinner at their rented villa. The main course was roast lamb.

Paul Bocuse was invited to carve the lamb. He walked slowly to the head of the table. He grasped the carving knife. He rested the fork on the surface of the lamb. A moment passed. Then another…

Sadly, he shook his head. “Madame,” he murmurred, “C’est terrible.”

“What?!,” wailed the hostess. “What’s terrible?”

“Ah, Madame…,” replied Bocuse mournfully. “You see, when the little lambs are in the field, the flies come. The lamb uses his right hind leg to brush away the flies. The right leg therefore gets more exercise than the left leg so it is more muscular. The left leg is more tender…”

“Madame,” he explained (with a twinkle in his eye), “you have chosen the wrong leg.”

The assembled chefs roared with convivial laughter.

The dinner was a huge success.

Paul Bocuse, (now 84?), lives on while all who know him tell stories of his genius, and his legendary sense of humor.

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The Culinary Institute of America (CIA) has posted a very helpful guide for students seeking scholarships.  Here is the list of the web sites but it is better yet to go to the CIA website for more detailed information.  Remember many scholarships are lost because the applicant decides not to answer every single question on the form.  If you don’t know an exact answer, make a shot at it anyway.  It is better to try than to avoid the issue.

• www.fastweb.com
• www.mach25.com
• www.finaid.org (general scholarships and ones for students with disabilities)
• www.collegeboard.org
• www.supercollege.com
• www.freschinfo.com
• www.cookingschools.com/financial-aid
• www.srnexpress.com
• www.collegeanswer.com
• www.scholarships-now.com
• www.acfchefs.org
• www.eatright.org
• www.aiwf.org
• www.ccapinc.org
• www.theculinarytrust.org
• www.ifec-is-us.com
• www.ifsea.com
• www.jamesbeard.org
• www.restaurant.org/states/
• www.restaurant.org/careers/scholarships.cfm
• www.womenchefs.org
• www.iefa.org (for international students)
• www.scholarships.com
• www.Chef2Chef.Net
• www.finaid.org/otheraid/ld.phtml
• www.miusa.org/sild/index_html
• www.cfscholarship.org
• www.primaryimmune.org/services/scholarship.htm
• www.scholarships-now.com
• www.supercollege.com
• www.studentscholarshipsearch.com
• www.financialaidofficer.com
• www.findtuition.com
• www.thesalliemaefund.org/smfnew/sections/apply.html
• www.thepointfoundation.org
• www.parentsinc.org/finaid – (students with disabilities)
• www.financialaidtips.org

Good luck!

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Tim Hsu, CIA Culinary Student

When I went to the FENI (Foodservice Educators Network International Conference), I learned that enrollment in professional culinary schools is soaring. This is true despite all the talk about how difficult it is to get a student loan. This led me to wonder: who are these students?  Who is going to culinary college and cooking school?

I decided to ask the students in my Professional Food Writing class to tell me about themselves and what made them decide to pursue a career using their interest in food.

I’ll periodically share a story with you. Today I’d like to introduce you to Tim Hsu, who recently enrolled at the Culinary:

“Once upon a time a boy named Tim thought that a six figure salary and job security was the path to happiness. So he studied and worked hard for many years to become a doctor. When he was finally able to tell his Chinese immigrant parents, who had sacrificed much to provide a quality education for their son, that he had been accepted to the medical school in Galveston, TX, the sigh of relief that followed could be heard several towns over.

Unbeknownst to his parents, who lived far away in China, Tim had been dabbling in the kitchen during his college years, and found himself watching the Food Network channel almost religiously.

He loved food and cooking—so much so that the night before he was to take the MCAT (the SAT for medical school), he had a mental breakdown; instead of studying, he filled out an online application to the CIA (Culinary Institute of America). He never submitted it.

Still, Tim had an ominous feeling he was making a terrible mistake by leaving for medical school without exploring the culinary career path. He asked the medical school to delay his matriculation and kept the real reason for doing so from his parents under the guise of “needing to take a break.”

After knocking on every single kitchen door in Austin, he got lucky and found a chef who was a CIA alumnus, desperate for a pantry cook. So Tim spent the next year working in a real commercial kitchen at one of the busiest hotels in the city.

During his stay, he met many cooks and chefs who all had their two cents to give about the industry. It ranged from a passionate “I love my job! I can’t think of doing anything else!” to a portentous “You’re still young—get out while you still can…” In the back of his mind, Tim had both of these thoughts at some point while working there.

A year passed, and he still could not decide. Every time he tried to sit down and think about it, he would become so exhausted by his own indecision brought on by his dreadful fear of failure and insecurity that his mind would shut down. He would escape by sleeping inordinately.

At the behest of his worried parents, he decided to quit and attend medical school. After all, how many people in the world have the opportunity to become a doctor?

The next fifteen months were the worst fifteen months Tim ever experienced in his short life.

They consisted of: infinitely boring lectures and fruitless hours of studying textbooks that did not interest him; sleepless nights agonizing over whether to stay or to leave; pages of insomnia-driven essays on what to do with himself; months of clinical depression, several therapy sessions, dozens of pills, and one deep contemplation of ending it all. Worst of all, he had the constant feeling of being lost with no hope of finding a way out of his dilemma—”money and security” or “passion and dreams”? Needless to say, it was a dark, dark time.

Sensing that all was not right, Tim’s parents moved back to the United States for several months in an attempt to support their son at school. Not wanting to disappoint the two people who gave him so much, Tim instead placed more pressure on himself, adding to the stress of being a good son.

In an unrelated cosmic string of events, in September 2008, Hurricane Ike blew through Galveston. It decimated the medical school, leaving hundreds of students displaced and homeless—Tim included.

His energy now completely depleted and with stress hormones at near-toxic levels, Tim experienced something he had never felt before: a total lack of motivation to do anything at all. Banned from returning to the island by the mayor of Galveston until it was deemed habitable, Tim moved in with his parents. He simply no longer cared about anything. In the weeks that followed, he slept, he ate, and then slept some more.

Then one day, Tim’s parents finally intervened. They came into his room while he was lying in bed staring at the ceiling. They took a good look at him, then said, “Tim, you used to be a happy kid. Now, you look miserable. You need to do what makes you happy.”

All Tim’s friends could have told him that, but for his parents—immigrants who knew what it is like to have little and to struggle, who came from a culture that values security over dreams, who were his strongest advocates for staying in medical school—for them to actually admit that…well, it meant something. The following day the ban on returning to Galveston was lifted, and Tim went back to his apartment to salvage what he could.

The place was utterly destroyed. His apartment had received two feet of ocean water. Any possession that had touched the ground had been washed away and anything left out exposed to the humid air suffered a blight of multiple varieties of hazardous molds and fungus.

Grim-faced, Tim looked around and saw his book shelf. In the most bizarre yet profound moment of clarity and enlightenment, his eyes were opened.  On the shelves below the top shelf, he had placed his heaviest and most expensive books:  medical textbooks, all now completely damaged by the flood. On the top shelf, he had placed his most cherished and valued books: cook books, the only books that managed to survive the flood’s purge and mold damage.

He had finally found the answer he had been seeking all these years, and it only took a Category 4 hurricane to find it.

Three months later, Tim withdrew from medical school and attended the Culinary Institute of America where he is writing this very story. After years of struggling with the question, he finally decided that pursuing dreams were more important than money and security. Although he has no idea how the story will end, he is certain of one thing: he will not regret the path he’s now taken.”

Will you share your story too? What factors led you to decide  to enter the food world?

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