As some you you may know, I have had formal culinary training, and worked in the restaurant biz for a time. So I have plenty of knowledge about the reality of this business.
I see ads on TV for various culinary schools, and too many of them try to make it look very glamorous…as in, go to our school, and you can be the next Emeril and have your own cooking show and a restaurant/merchandise empire. So, many starry-eyed kids sign up, only to find that it really doesn’t work that way.
The restaurant business is HARD. Very freakin’ hard. Even if you get top grades in culinary school, and graduate at the top of your class, that doesn’t make you qualified for celebrity chef-dom. Nope, far from it! You still have to work your ass off for years before anyone even lets you run a kitchen, never mind give you a cooking show on PBS or the Food Network.
I went to Newbury College in Brookline, MA for my culinary training. They are not one of the schools that advertise on daytime TV offering you false promises. I found them to be very realistic as to what you can expect job-wise after graduation. You are lucky if you get a job cooking on the line, which is hard, grueling work, and if you work had and are any good, you might eventually get to be a sous chef. Only after many years of busting your hump will you ever get to really be a *chef*, as in , running your own kitchen. Okay, so Emeril got to be executive chef of Commander’s Palace in New Orleans just four years after he graduated from Johnson & Wales in Providence, RI. But this is the exception, not the rule. And even with this prestigious job, he still had to work very long hours.
If you are thinking of going to culinary school, I urge you to first get a copy of Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain, and read it. Twice. I read this book years after I left the biz, and I had to nod my head many times over most of the stuff he talked about. It’s a difficult, stressful job in a restaurant kitchen, and I can tell you from experience that many of my co-workers have had serious problems with alcohol and drugs. I always liked to toss back some beers after work, but things never got as bad for me as they had for some people I worked with. I haven’t kept up with most of them, but I would not be surprised if some of them ended up in drug rehab.
Don’t get me wrong, you can make a decent living at this…just realize that it’s hard work, you work all sorts of hours, most of your time is not your own, and you may hardly ever see your spouse/SO, kids, or pets if you have any.
I gave it all up when I married Mike, because it was just too much. He makes enough money for the both of us, but still, I now have a happy little work-at-home gig that brings in some extra cash. I’m happy to just be a home cook again, and write about it sometimes, right here on this blog.
Go to culinary school if you really want to, but please be sure that this is what you really want to do, and if so, do it with your eyes wide open!
