Culinary School

Before I start writing about what it is like inside the kitchens of a Culinary School I want to make one thing very clear- Just because it is food, does not mean it is easy. In fact, after my first day I somewhat envied my boyfriend and all of the other 9-5 professionals because unlike culinary students they get to sit at their desks. But we'll start from the beginning..

After getting changed in the locker rooms, we headed up to the kitchen to find black knife cases on the center of each station. There are four stations on an island and each station consists of a gas burner, an oven, a flat top, a small work space large enough for a cutting board and two shelves underneath. After everyone picked their station we were finally introduced to our Chef Instructors and from here on out, anytime we spoke with the Chef's it would be in the proper respectful manner, "Yes Chef", "No Chef", "Chef may I please..." etc. etc. etc.

As all of us students stood at our stations listening to every word the Chefs said as they went through the importance of showing up to class, always and I mean always being in full uniform when in the kitchens (don't even think about sliding off that apron), sanitation and even the proper way to stand. They reminded us that we needed to save our backs so it was important that we stood correctly, plus it looked more professional. The Chefs also encouraged us to make mistakes. After all, we were in school, and in the first level, and the best way to learn is from mistakes. Finally we were able to open up our knife kits and unexpectedly found that they were filled with much more than just knives. They had all of the essential kitchen tools; whisks, wooden spoons, spatulas, a pepper mill, vegetable peelers, kitchen sheers, melon ballers, a knife steel and any other tool you really needed to cook with.

Each day lunch is prepared by the level four students and consists of a starch, vegetable, protein and salad. We had a half hour break for lunch which we ate lunch standing at our stations.

After lunch, the chefs came back and told us that we would be doing knife work. Before we could actually pick up the knife the Chefs went over the proper way to hold the knifes and the different types of cuts that we would be working with. After we learned the basic cuts we were sent off to practice on carrots. There were some students who cut the carrot perfectly according to the instructions given, there were other students who cut the carrots before peeling them and then were some students who just cut themselves. After we finished practicing, we were going to have our first cooking experience in the classroom by learning to properly cook our vegetables the "french way" (which in layman terms means it can have no resistance or bite, basically stopping the cooking process right before it turns to mush). We grabbed a saute pan and filled it up with water, brought it to a boil and added salt. Now let me just take a minute to talk about salt and butter. The amount of these two ingredients that go into professionally cooked food is alarming. If you want to eat healthy stay home and cook your own food because I can assure you that you are eating way more than your daily recommended dose in one dish. In the restaurant when we would make breadcrumbs we would take 1 quart of cubed bread and cook it in 1 pound of butter. That was the ratio. One quart of brioche bread cubes to one pound of butter. I honestly don't know how those little cubes ever got crispy with all that butter but they did. And with each breadcrumb I tested my arteries slowly clogged-- but my stomach sure was smiling. If you are going to make breadcrumbs at home I suggest heavily adapting that ratio.