Who are professional chefs here? Who are just cooking junkies?

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I am a chef. Got my training in the 70's. Also worked fast food when I was a teen(burger joints and a famous chicken place as a manager-not kfc)

Started cooking at the age of 8 thanks to my mom:).

My baby brother( 50 yrs old) graduated from le cordon bleu in jan 09.

cooking runs in the family.

im 54 now and i love to cook.:chef:
 
I would have gone with whichever paid more. Firefighters here don't make much.:wacko:
love and enjoyment of the job is much more important.


But I make more than enough(firefighters here are paid well), and have 100X's the retirement benefits I would have as a chef, not to mention job security.
 
I have been cooking since age five. I'm a culinary mutant. I've cooked in professional three and four star kitchens yet I no longer work in the industry. I love food first and foremost. Cooking in my opinion is a byproduct of the flavors food can present.
 
I just have OCD(Obsessive Cooking Disorder).LOL
I have never wanted to be a chef for a few reasons:
I want to cook, what, when and how I want to.
I like "Home cooking", not some small amount of food piled on top of each other on the center of the plate surrounded by colorful sticky gunk and herbs in some artistic way. To me that is not a Chef, but a Artist.
I hope I have not insulted anyone. That is just how I feel about the subject.:)


Tis not an insult but rather a refreshing look on the subject of "refined french cuisine" I have come to realize the "piling" of food is not nessicary... the presentation and ACTUAL flavor of the food is what matters. Woe to the one who judges food upon mere presentation and glamour.
 
I think I qualify as both. I have owned and run a small restaurant in SW CO - around 1999-2000. I do catering and baking when requested and am an avid home cook. When I had my restaurant, my friends used to ask "How can you cook all day and come home and watch cooking shows???"

I went to cooking school in NYC at what is now called the Institute of Culinary Education (ICE) but when I went it was called Peter Kump's NY Cooking School. I studied French cooking at Kump - but every other cuisine I know I taught myself. Chinese, Thai, Spanish, Greek, Armenian - etc. I grew up in an Italian household so I learned that by osmosis - and doing. I don't do Indian food. God, I tried to like it...LOL.

I'm thinking of teaching some classes - everyone where I live has a showstopper kitchen and they never cook at home.
 
everyone where I live has a showstopper kitchen and they never cook at home.

What I would do for a showstopper kitchen! Our flat here in Moscow is pretty small so the kitchen is nice but nothing special. I spend so much time in there so when we move back to England the kitchen will be the most important buying point :)
 
What I would do for a showstopper kitchen! Our flat here in Moscow is pretty small so the kitchen is nice but nothing special. I spend so much time in there so when we move back to England the kitchen will be the most important buying point :)

If space is an issue, there are plenty of really great brands who make slim-line or smaller format ovens and stove tops. Be very selective when you choose small equipment like pans and mixing bowls.

When I lived in Manhattan, my "kitchen" was no bigger than a phone booth. The floor (standing) space was 9 floor tiles. There was a small stove - a 4 top that was very slim, special for apartments. (NYC must be their biggest customer.) I hung pans on hooks so as not to take up valuable cabinet space which I used for ingredients.

Use vertical space - that's about the best advice I can give you. My restaurant was so tiny that I had stuff hung all over the walls and my prep table had a football-shaped pot rack attached to it. A great culinary imagination is your best tool and that will fit in any kitchen. :)
 
I'd love to attend cilunary school, I've even done some looking, but I can't seem to shake the feeling that going to school and then putting that education to work would take all of the joy out of it for me.
I have been asked to do some informal stuff ( "nw, you should show us how to do____.") and I may do that to break up the monotony of my husband's deployment. No more parties now that he's gone, so it might be fun for just us gals to get together...... I'm still thinking about it.

My dream would be to use a culinary degree to open my own shop (kind of like Barefoot Contessa), and maybe cater small stuff out of the back. Unrealistic, I'm sure, but fun to think about.:LOL:
 
History

I worked to clean out demo kitchen fridges full of fishy smells, mopped floors, etc. Other duties included set-up for various classes, assisting teachers at/during classes, to gain my own class time. I wasn't a paying student, and these tasks were accomplished at a small culinary school in the Maryland, Washington, D.C. area. Finally, utilizing my earned hours, I achieved my degree. This took me years. Later I worked in the trade for awhile, did some catering, teaching, advising.

As my hero Julia Child said, I never call myself a "chef," but a cook. DH & I moved to the West Coast, which is where we wanted to be, and now I just enjoy myself. The drive to be another well known chef/restaurant owner subsided. Time comes when one needs to be realistic, pragmatic, and that's the way it has to be. Presently, I'm just me; I like to be approachable about my passion for cooking and maybe give back some of my experience! And like someone else said here @ DC I never object to helping someone who looks confused in the grocery store. I seldom if ever mention a culinary education, although I will say my degree looks nice on the diningroom wall.

Pennsy:mellow:
 
"As my hero Julia Child said, I never call myself a "chef," but a cook."

ITA!! While it's flattering when someone introduces me as a "chef," I quickly relay "I cook all the time but the only kitchen I'm running right now is in my home." People try to elevate one by calling him or her a "chef" but unless there's a professional kitchen in the equation we're talking about someone who loves to handle, cook and share food.
 
I worked to clean out demo kitchen fridges full of fishy smells, mopped floors, etc. Other duties included set-up for various classes, assisting teachers at/during classes, to gain my own class time. I wasn't a paying student, and these tasks were accomplished at a small culinary school in the Maryland, Washington, D.C. area. Finally, utilizing my earned hours, I achieved my degree. This took me years. Later I worked in the trade for awhile, did some catering, teaching, advising.

As my hero Julia Child said, I never call myself a "chef," but a cook. DH & I moved to the West Coast, which is where we wanted to be, and now I just enjoy myself. The drive to be another well known chef/restaurant owner subsided. Time comes when one needs to be realistic, pragmatic, and that's the way it has to be. Presently, I'm just me; I like to be approachable about my passion for cooking and maybe give back some of my experience! And like someone else said here @ DC I never object to helping someone who looks confused in the grocery store. I seldom if ever mention a culinary education, although I will say my degree looks nice on the diningroom wall.

Pennsy:mellow:

Pennsy; My degree hardly qualifies me in the kitchen, though the skills I learned earning and using my Eletrical Engineering Technology BA degree has helped me enormously in the kitchen. Engineering is scientific by nature and includes course work in physics, with lots of math, and a host of experimental work. And what is cooking if not a bit of chemistry and physics thrown together with artistic influences? And like you, I love to help strangers in the grocery store who look confused at the produce, dairy, and meat departments.

Informing someone that USDA SELECT printed boldly on a package of meat does not mean that it's specially selected for high quality is a very satisfying thing, especially when the item price is inflated. And giving people ideas of what they can do with the foods in their basket when you hear them exclaim that they don't know what to make for that evening's supper is just as exhillarating, especially when they are appreciative of the help.

I love helping others learn to cook good food. And yes, I've been mislabled as "chef", but quickly explain that the word chef is French for the American word - chief, and means head of kitchen. I'm a cook and dont' want to be the stuporvisor. I want to be the artist/engineer, and maybe teacher.

And for NavyWife; if I could do it all over again, I would go to cullinary school to learn as much as I could, then get a teaching degree, and teach others the wonderful cullinary art of cooking. That, I think, would never get boring. And just so you know, it is said of Navy cooks, that they are sent to cooking schools where they become experts at ruining perfectly good food. So when he's home, give him something good. I spent too many months aboard aircraft carriers myself, and ate some reasonable food, but too often, some very bad food while deployed at sea.

Seeeeeeya; Goodweed of the North
 
Ah, Engineering!

Goodweed:

Delightful message!

I'm married to an electrical engineer, and an ex-navy man (retired). A few years ago, when I got a new Viking stove, he ventured into the kitchen, which for many years was my exclusive domain. He had to try the stove! The stove is gone, but then that's another story. Today he made a great omelet for our "blunch" (translation breakfast/lunch). It turned out very well, and he's been congratulating himself ever since. I coached him somewhat when he first began, and now I just leave him alone. Breakfast is something he likes to do, but hasn't ventured into anything else. He's still my biggest fan and critic, bless him, there is seldom anything I make that he doesn't like. But chicken - in any form that's close to divine. I think he could devour a whole chicken himself, if he wanted to. But, he's quite a restrained "consumer."

I've enjoyed reading your posts and getting a handle on your philosophies regarding life, attitudes and living. Keep cooking and talking.
 
Professional here and a junkie too! I love cooking and all things food.
 
I'm just a cooking junkie though my friend has asked me to go to cooking school with here when she goes, and it's something I've actually thought about for years. I really started off cooking when I moved out of the dorm in college and into an apartment. I started to cook a few little things for myself. Then I got a roommate from Louisiana who had been cooking since he was young. Then I started getting really into grilling, looking at recipes on the internet, and food network. Then I got into waning to cook for other people, especially the ladies. Right now my thing is clone recipees
 
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