I teach you everything.....

[peachcreek]

So there is a 2 year culinary school that is run through the School of Applied Technology here in town. During this last spate of hiring for my busy season lo and behold! A culinary student applies! First time in six years! So I have had the pleasure of hanging out with a 'young culinarian". She is actually OK. SSssllloooowwwwwww. But hey, they don't teach them that "time=money" do they?
What comes to mind is the old joke about the angry chef bellering at the young cook "I teach you everything I know. And still, you know nothing!"

 

[athenaeus]

Considering that you have declared biased when it comes to culinary education I think that you have done a very brave thing to hire the lady Peachcreek
Give her a chance and don't forget what wise Socrates has said " I am getting old learning something new everyday"

 

[chiffonade]

She is actually OK. SSssllloooowwwwwww. But hey, they don't teach them that "time=money" do they?

I give you credit for hiring her in the first place. Going from culinary school to a professional kitchen setting is like exiting one world into another. Culinary school is just like any other college from Harvard to the best med school...You sit in a classroom and even with hands on learning, you don't know if you can actually apply your knowledge until you're dumped with both feet into corporate America/the operating room/the professional kitchen. I went to culinary school and while it taught me the mechanics of what to do in a professional kitchen, there was NO WAY to prepare for the frenetic pace.

If she hangs around long enough, she'll pick up speed by sheer necessity. We all do .

 

[culinarian247]

It is instances like this that really make a school like New England Culinary Institute stick WAAAAAAAAAY out (almost wish I went). The majority of schools spend more time in lecture than practicum. I'm suprised Pete didn't say anything (unless he hasn't seen the thread). If you do read this, Pete, I wanted to know if you had any insight on NECI's bachelor degree program. If so let me know.

 

[peachcreek]

Wow. Being in cooking school must be like being a kid again. Like living in Busytown... You live in a world where it is OK to spend a day making a pie or watching someone do a task. Then some schools have the subsidized restaurant, where they must give them the idea that giving away a 5 course dinner with a 6 to 1 staff to customer ratio is what is expected of you.
Hey. I could start a new business. You spend $500.00 to come work in my kitchen for a week and I will entirely disspell all romantic notions of the cooking industry. After a week with Peachcreek, the surly cook, you will either be "cured" or convinced that foodservice is for you!

 

[culinarian247]

You're on PC!!!

By the end of the week you'll wanna pay me NOT to leave.

 

[kaliflower]

SLOOOWWWW? Spend a day making a pie? Not Hardly!

The Chef yells "Speedy, Speedy, People. Get a move on.

The other night our Banquet Prep class worked giving a banqet
to movers and shakers and politicans both local and statewide.

The purpose of the banquet was to allocate more money for technical colleges, of which Savannah Tech. is one. We worked our Buns off from 11 am till 11 pm we had to serve from a crowded tiny ratshole kitchen. Only a couple of snafus and believe me nobody was going slowly. We had 70 people there and the meal went on from 8 to 10. People came by the kitchen to say the meal was good and my husband (who was out in the car waiting for me to get out) said that people were still exclaiming outside in the parking lot, about the food and how incredible the service was from that itty bitty kitchen.

Don't most culinary students work in the restaurant field in some function or another. It's had to believe that there is anywhere when slow in the order or the day.

 

[peachcreek]

An update. I have had my intern for about a month now. I still haven't gotten through to them much of anything- last week I had them do made a list of prep duties they felt they could do quickly and that seemed to do O.K. So today I come in to see them starting to cut onions, painfully slow albiet somewhat sloppily and I'm sure that I was making them a little nervous as they slicing away. I watched for a minute as they made their way through an onion and and then I stopped them. I told them to go look at the clock on the wall and watch the second hand. I started in on the onoins and had the pile done in 50 seconds. My intern about took a dump right there. I think I finally got through to them.

 

[kuan]

Two words... chop faster!

Kuan

 

[white_gryphon18]

I'm always afraid that when I'm chopping I'm gonna lose a finger to the knife!

white_gryphon18

 

[kaliflower]

In the Garde Manger class I am currently enrolled in we cater sometimes 3 events in a day---(example, coffee, pastry and breads, special butter spreads juice for 50 in the a.m./ lunch for the same 50 which is probably sandwhiches potato salad fruit bowl cake/ and lunch for 20 4th graders chicken drumsticks, fries brocoli caserole and homemade ice cream sandwhiches) Chef believes in education by doing. Some of us already work in the food business, but want to go further. I personally have gone from working a sandwhich line in a bagel shop to being the person that makes the bagel dough, and then became baker as well. All this and prep too. As my bosses actually imported a baker to teach them to make authentic bagels and as we are the only shop in this area to make fresh bagels, I have a highly original job! I work my buns off I love it.

 

[peachcreek]

Actually, my new person is a real live graduate of our auspicious ISU Culinary Program. And not only that, the head of the class! Wowwie! A newly-minted chef! Hoo doggie! Out to set the world on fire (and probably over-cook the food in the process)......Nothing a lobotomy won't fix right up......Or as I say-"They have themselves a $10,000.00 sanitation card!" I was told yesterday that the reason they were slow on the line was because at school the line was set up so differently........Now about those onions, maybe they were different in school, too.

 

[athenaeus]

Peachcreek with all respect.

You sound as if you have something against graduates of culinary schools.

If that is the case, why you hire them?

 

[kuan]

Athenaeus, you've never been to Idaho have you?!?! LOL!!

Kuan

 

[peachcreek]

At least after all these years I still keep trying and hire these folks to see if anything has changed. The intern told me today the reason she went to culinary school was because it was easy and planned someday to get married and figured learning how to cook could'nt hurt. Only in Idaho......

 

[athenaeus]

No, I have never been to Idaho That's why I rather make questions than doing assumptions!

Peachcreek, still. They drive you crazy my friend!

Let them go and hire someone you can teach him/her the way you think right!

 

[kuan]

Heh Ath... you should come travel the American Midwest sometime. It DOES have its charm. I used to work in a small town. I did many interviews. Here's a snapshot out of a typical interview:

Kuan: How much experience do you have?

Interviewee: Been cooking all my life, about 35 years.

Kuan: Tell me what you know about sauces.

Interviewee: Well, at our last job, we made both kinds. White AND brown!

Kuan:

 

[peachcreek]

Last week I had a person come in and apply for a job because they had volunteered in a shelter/soup kitchen before and that we must be doing the same thing!

 

[athenaeus]

I think both of you made your point clear...

 

[cajunjoe]

that's how we all started somehow, cooking, yeah I like that how hard can it be, let me find out more. At some point reality does set in, but at some point the bug hits you too. Come on now, we do it for the love of cooking. Don't we? I know I'm not doing it for the money. Are you?

When I was at a four star restaurant, I went through two weeks of having my nine pan full of sliced chives thrown into the stock pot, because they weren't perfect You know what I can now slice a pound of chives and each slice is identical, no chunks.

At the same time, it's only food. We're not trying to save the world.

But then again, a culinary grad, it's now your personal responsiblilty that they learn about it. haze. haze. haze.
They leave a dirty knive out overnight. freeze it.

Sure we place our own challenges in front of ourselves. Is your responsibillity to nurture. Probably not. But then again they came to you to learn and work.

Good luck and have fun with 'em.
who knows you may learn from them