Dear Mr ECH/30 cent solution

[Sir Squid Diddimus]

since you are a boner-fried chef and all, do you have any advice for someone w/ no formal culinary training who's interested in teh culinary arts?

squid- wants to be an iron chef one day, yo

[Akara]

i realize that I am in no way, shape, or form NEAR qualified to respond to the name of mr ECH, however, as someone who was considering Chefitude as a trade skill (I still want to open my own bar/restaurant some day)...

you could look at your local community college, for starts. I know mine has an awesome culinary program. then, what you wanna do is get real good grades and stuff so youc an get to a prestirious school, like on the East Coast or something... even travel the world getting awesome culinary ideas to make you stand out and be unique, and then... well, take your dreams from there!

Akara:
Making up interesting words, such as prestirious...

[East Coast Hustle]

umm...

no.

there are 2 paths:

1) go to culinary school, learn useless shit like how to make ice sculpture, get yourself horribly in debt, and be instilled with the (patently false) idea that food is art and chefs are artists. This will make you a useless poser who will go through a series of "externships" (read: terms of indentured servitude where you are worked to death with little or no payment in return for something to put on your resume that no one will read). Eventually you will get burnt out by being everybody's unpaid bitch and you will get a job being a corporate shitheel at TGIF or Olive Garden selling boil-in-a-bag food to suburban yahoos for 35K a year and half-price meals.

2) go get a job as a dish-bitch or a busser or a prep cook at a decent but unpretentious local restaurant. show up on time every day, observe what the people around you are doing, work hard, and be the one they turn to when a garde-manger or a fry cook doesn't show up for work after a weekend bender. keep your mouth shut and learn basic shit like knifework, temping cuts of meat, timing sauces and broiler plates, etc. and if you're smart and work hard, you should be able to find a decent sous-chef or lead line position in 2 or 3 years' time. If you still enjoy the work by then, you'll be in position to learn directly from the head chef how to run the day-to-day business of a restaurant.

[Thurnez Isa]

one of my ex's took path one

she now works for tim hortons
for the last 8 years

[Akara]

she did say she wanted to be an iron chef. that sounds like a lot of artsy-fartsy stuff to me... lol

[Payne]

umm...

no.

there are 2 paths:

1) go to culinary school, learn useless shit like how to make ice sculpture, get yourself horribly in debt, and be instilled with the (patently false) idea that food is art and chefs are artists. This will make you a useless poser who will go through a series of "externships" (read: terms of indentured servitude where you are worked to death with little or no payment in return for something to put on your resume that no one will read). Eventually you will get burnt out by being everybody's unpaid bitch and you will get a job being a corporate shitheel at TGIF or Olive Garden selling boil-in-a-bag food to suburban yahoos for 35K a year and half-price meals.

2) go get a job as a dish-bitch or a busser or a prep cook at a decent but unpretentious local restaurant. show up on time every day, observe what the people around you are doing, work hard, and be the one they turn to when a garde-manger or a fry cook doesn't show up for work after a weekend bender. keep your mouth shut and learn basic shit like knifework, temping cuts of meat, timing sauces and broiler plates, etc. and if you're smart and work hard, you should be able to find a decent sous-chef or lead line position in 2 or 3 years' time. If you still enjoy the work by then, you'll be in position to learn directly from the head chef how to run the day-to-day business of a restaurant.

I read a couple Anthony Bourdain books.

The image you create above reminds me of them.

Are you actually Anthony Bourdain?

Or is he just a poseur?

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Speaking as a mother,

If you have a job and stuff to do with your time besides being abused in a low-paying restaurant job, buy "Fundamentals of Italian Cooking" (because it is a well-written and enjoyable book that covers many basics that can be extrapolated to any cuisine) and then just start cooking shit. Pay attention to how things taste together and how things react to being heated in different ways for different lengths of time. Start a little herb garden or windowbox so you have a good variety of different fresh herbs at your fingertips for experimentation. Watch cooking shows. Talk to your friends who like to cook, and have them over for dinner parties where you and a few others cook together.

Don't get hung up on expensive specialty ingredients. Learn to achieve similar, tasty results with less-expensive substitutes. Expensive ingredients are wonderful for special occasions, but IMO real mastery in cooking is when you can make a delicious dish out of $5 worth of whatever's-in-the-fridge. Learn to modify a dish until it no longer resembles the original recipe, but is still delicious.

Mostly, just have fun.

[Sir Squid Diddimus]

umm...

no.

there are 2 paths:

1) go to culinary school, learn useless shit like how to make ice sculpture, get yourself horribly in debt, and be instilled with the (patently false) idea that food is art and chefs are artists. This will make you a useless poser who will go through a series of "externships" (read: terms of indentured servitude where you are worked to death with little or no payment in return for something to put on your resume that no one will read). Eventually you will get burnt out by being everybody's unpaid bitch and you will get a job being a corporate shitheel at TGIF or Olive Garden selling boil-in-a-bag food to suburban yahoos for 35K a year and half-price meals.

2) go get a job as a dish-bitch or a busser or a prep cook at a decent but unpretentious local restaurant. show up on time every day, observe what the people around you are doing, work hard, and be the one they turn to when a garde-manger or a fry cook doesn't show up for work after a weekend bender. keep your mouth shut and learn basic shit like knifework, temping cuts of meat, timing sauces and broiler plates, etc. and if you're smart and work hard, you should be able to find a decent sous-chef or lead line position in 2 or 3 years' time. If you still enjoy the work by then, you'll be in position to learn directly from the head chef how to run the day-to-day business of a restaurant.

a friend of mine took path 1 and ended up at red lobster, now she's at some other restaurant that used to be a ruby tuesdays.
so obviously that is not the path i want to take. and i believe everything you say about externships, debt, etc...

i know a lot of basic kitchen ... uh... stuff.
always watching food tv, i do cook pretty well and i enjoy doing it. i mostly enjoy watching my friends and family go "Mmmmmmmmm"

i may have an opportunity coming up as well.
a friend of mine is looking into opening a diner (since we don't have any greasy spoons in our area) and southern fried comfort food is my specialty. she's had my food and loves it, so we'll see on that one.

thank you though for clarifying what happens with culinary school. i had a hunch it was like that, but thought that my friend was just a bad example cause she's lazy and has a poor work ethic.

she did say she wanted to be an iron chef. that sounds like a lot of artsy-fartsy stuff to me... lol

oh come on.
i was obviously joking   

[Triple Zero]

Speaking as a mother,

trying to push another meme, Nigel?

how things react to being heated in different ways for different lengths of time.

this is very important.

i had never expected that to make so much difference until i read "Cook & Chemist" (dunno if it's translated to english, the book is Dutch, even though the title isn't) about the chemical reactions behind it.

cooked onions taste different than boiled onions, which taste again different than onions which have been roasting next to your meat in the oven for 2.5 hours. same for mushrooms, same for nearly everything. the important factors are temperature and duration here. it helps if you apply some basic physics to it.

another important thing to realize is that some aromas are better soluable in water, and others are better soluable in oil and alcohol. most "interesting" flavours are oil-soluable, btw, but these are also often the most volatile ones. that's why it helps to have a drop of oil or butter in a sauce or something you're cooking, to "capture" the flavour.
a good example is orange zest. the bitter flavour dissolves better in water, while the orange aroma dissolves better in oil. you can use this fact to separate them, puree orange zest, water and oil, let it sit for a while, filter/sieve and somehow get rid of the water layer.

[Sir Squid Diddimus]

<--my hero ~siiiiigh~

i don't know if you guys have the alton brown show in dutch-place, but he is awesome. he shoes you not only how to do things but why things do the things they do and what happens if you fail. it's vurry educational. plus he's hot.

btw- i don't often boil things unless it's pasta or eggs.

[hunter s.durden]

Speaking as a mother,

trying to push another meme, Nigel?

Speaking as a complete gaywad, I think it's a keeper.

[Triple Zero]

btw- i don't often boil things unless it's pasta or eggs.

stew? soup? sauce? potatoes? beans? carrots? broccoli? babies?

[Bu🤠ns]

http://anonym.to/http://www.mediafire.com/?my3wrrolqzb

CS: i've just started cooking (mondays mostly) and i found this book to be indespensible for using as a guideline for whichever dish i'm preparing.  it basicly gives a broad overview of things like temperature, meats, spices, etc and a very general way to use them

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Speaking as a mother,

trying to push another meme, Nigel?

You can never have too many memes!

[Sir Squid Diddimus]

btw- i don't often boil things unless it's pasta or eggs.

stew? soup? sauce? potatoes? beans? carrots? broccoli? babies?

babies!?

cmon man, those are for roasting. like game hens.

when i think of boiling the first thing that comes to mind is that "pudding" stuff that's tied up in cloth and boiled ... and...  bleich

i forgot about mashed potatoes n stuff
never boiled a carrot. if it goes in a sauce or soup it gets simmered till it's soft, but i usually roast those with the babies.

http://anonym.to/http://www.mediafire.com/?my3wrrolqzb

CS: i've just started cooking (mondays mostly) and i found this book to be indespensible for using as a guideline for whichever dish i'm preparing.  it basicly gives a broad overview of things like temperature, meats, spices, etc and a very general way to use them

thanks, i'll take a look at it.