Yes! — It is possible to spend hundreds of hours in the classroom and thousands of dollars as a student in a professional culinary school and, upon graduation, have not even the faintest glimmering of an idea about a future career.

Meet Ms. Puzzled.

I tried and tried to delve into the recesses of Ms. P’s heart to help her arrive at a possible career path. Not a flicker of interest in any of my ideas lit her fire. In despair, I suggested she take a look at the list of 150 professions at the beginning of my book, FOOD JOBS. I asked her to cross off every option that didn’t interest her.

When next we met, she declared: “Ice Cream!”

Hmmm! Have you noticed that when you go on vacation, there is always one store that has a line outside? It’s the ice cream shop.

The Soda Fountain by Norman Rockwell

Maybe it is nostalgia for a Norman Rockwell ice cream parlor with its green marble counter, the brass foot rail and two kids perched on swiveling stools sipping a soda with two straws. Maybe it’s a longing for homemade, hand churned ice cream. Maybe its simply almost everyone loves ice cream.

Here’s another fascinating fact: Each American consumes a yearly average of 23.2 quarts of ice cream, ice milk, sherbet, ices and other commercially produced frozen dairy products.

Ice cream worldwide sales are anticipated to reach $65 billion this year. The category is dominated by Nestlé which owns Haagen Dazs and Dreyers. Unilever owns Breyers and Ben & Jerry’s, and Baskin-Robbins is a unit of Dunkin Brands.

So Ms. P has decided to open a small ice cream shop at the seaside.

She did some research yet she is much more interested in Heston Blumenthal’s idea of bacon and egg ice cream. But what got her totally lit up was a web site posting about Chin Chin‘s that bills itself as Europe’s first nitro ice cream parlor, “Chin Chin is half confectionery, half mad science lab.”

Now Ms. P is dreaming of  opening her own place; one that will combine the past and the future of ice cream, and a couple of eye-catching flavor names.

When it comes to food names, Ben & Jerry takes the prize for originality. The company employs a Primal Ice Cream Therapist whose task it is to dream up new flavors. This is no laughing matter.

When the chocolate chip cookie dough flavor was launched in 1991, it was a breakthrough in the ice cream business, and Wavy Gravy and Cherry Garcia launched the enterprise into the stratosphere which just proves what Ben & Jerry said all along: “The ‘90s are the ‘60s standing on your head and we are all the same person trying to shake hands with ourselves.”

The next step is to read The Perfect Scoop: Ice Creams, Sorbets, Granitas, and Sweet Accompaniments by David Leibowitz.

Then, she must dream up a name for the business and speak to the bank. She could offer to the loan officer the  information that the average number of licks to polish off a single scoop ice cream cone is approximately 50. That should clinch the deal.

Finally I whispered a word of warning for Ms. P., who has morphed into Ms. Determined: when the tourists go home and the school bell rings and Jack Frost nips, it may be necessary to switch from Ice Cream to candy apples, hot cider and warm winter soups with homemade bread and hand churned butter.

Or she could locate her store in a location where the sun shines every day.

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.

Karen Berner, Food Editor, photo courtesy of Gloria Dawson

There are very few people I know whose career paths have moved in a straight line. The real constant is how they have matched and used their innate skills with their passion and possibility. I find these people the most interesting, don’t you? Take Karen Berner, for instance.

Karen is a successful food editor of websites and print, who combined a Fine Arts degree, an editor’s eye for accuracy, and a former IBM technical writer’s ability to communicate clearly and concisely. And, she changed careers to pursue her passion for food. Here, below, in her own words, is Karen’s recipe for success:

My path to the food-editorial world was somewhat unconventional. A career-changer at 37, I decided to pursue my secret dream of becoming a professional chef by enrolling at the Culinary Institute of America (CIA). But once there, I quickly realized there were many other interesting careers related to food outside of a restaurant kitchen.

My initial thoughts of happily toiling away behind the line changed when I was given the opportunity to do studio and test kitchen work for a food website geared to both professional chefs and cooking enthusiasts. It was the perfect fit; I’d be intimately involved with food, but this type of work would also tap into my creative side, one I still like to nurture every day.

Culinary Institute of America

My beginnings in the food world were humble. I started out working part-time in the CIA cookbook department, dealing with recipes for every cuisine under the sun. This job quickly led to producing food content and recipes in a test kitchen for a website. Here, I further honed my recipe development and editing skills as well as food-styling and photography abilities.

Working at a website, you’re often called on to wear many hats. So, I soon took on the responsibility of interviewing celebrity chefs. I’m sure their insights and contributions inspire many a student and food lover to follow their culinary path, myself included.

I later was able to transfer my skills to print media, working on the well-regarded Art Culinaire magazine for professional chefs. I essentially was doing the same work I handled for the website but took on more writing assignments. I also learned the tools necessary for putting a magazine together, including dealing with the pressures of deadlines and scheduling. My experience interviewing chefs came in handy; I was able to contribute to the popularity of the magazine while feeding the growing appetite for the inside scoop on celebrity and up-and-coming chefs.

I’d like to think that everything I’ve done up to now – writing, website work, technology knowledge, line cooking, recipe testing, teaching, and even experience as a private chef – has ultimately contributed to what I do today and aspire to do tomorrow.

Many have asked me what skills have made me a successful food editor. I think this can be boiled down to seven:

1. Keeping on top of food trends that you know will interest your readers.
2. Being able to purpose recipe and content that’s useful, approachable, friendly, and will appeal to a mass audience.
3. Strong writing and editing skills, and the ability to adapt to a magazine, cookbook, or a website’s established voice, tone, and style. (Think Martha Stewart vs. Rachael Ray.)
4. Strong management and organizational skills.
5. Great contacts in the food industry.
6. Solid recipe writing skills and the ability to edit ornery recipes when they’re problematic.
7. Being able to look at a recipe and troubleshoot what might be wrong with it before you’ve had the chance to test it.

Experience is key and critical to success, but it’s not always enough to land your dream job. Networking (whether via the latest social media venues or simply by getting out there and shaking a few hands) and perseverance are just as important.

Although I’ve worked in many parts of the food industry, I’m most comfortable in a kitchen, where I’m developing and testing recipes, whether for magazines, websites, or cookbooks. Having a solid recipe and ingredient base knowledge opens many a door. Why, I’ve even judged the famous Pillsbury Bake-Off baking contest. What a hoot!

I’ve also had the opportunity to teach the fundamentals of cooking to food enthusiasts and found this to be extremely rewarding.

I’m happy to share that after many years in the industry I still enjoy what I do — it’s challenging.  It’s never the same from day to day, and I get paid to eat. Not too shabby.

But it is important to keep growing, to keep dreaming up the next adventure. If I have my way, my next food adventure will be working on a TV show as part of a culinary production team. I think my test kitchen, food-styling, food photography, management, directing and editing skills will be a value add to the production.

If you’d like to contact Karen, you can reach her at kbern57@hotmail.com.