School Advice

[franzb69]

The CIA is a great school, congratulations and I hope everything is going very well for you there!

In addition to what other members have already told you, I'd like to just remind you about keeping your mouth firmly closed. I've seen enough guys come in and start talking about their school, how they were taught to do this in such and such a way, etc---no one wants to hear you. We had a guy like that start recently, everyone started calling him Hermione(the girl in Harry Potter), once the dishwashers caught on he didn't last the full week.

just like when i started out training at a prominent hotel here in my country, I kept my mouth shut acted I knew nothing and kept what I knew to myself. I just listened to them and asked them what they wanted. each place has their way of doing things. each recipe is different, even their process on doing certain things will vary quite vastly. just say to yourself that you are starting fresh and you are a blank canvass. only when the chef says he trusts you enough with some responsibility and gives you the freedom to do what you wanna do with said responsibility is then you can do what you want with what was given to you. like in culinary school, only thing you need to say for the most part while being in the kitchen is, "yes chef!".

[Dardeau]

Pay on those loans early and often. Half of my line went to CIA, and they all have big nasty student loan payments every month, on a line cook's salary. If you are going to go into that kind of debt make it worth your while. I've worked with a variety of CIA grads with varying degrees of competence and varying degrees of good attitude, make it worth the time and money spent.

[JanusInTheGarden]

Hermione? That sucks. I'll be sure to keep that lesson in mind. I just finished this weekend with the first half of the AOS degree. I'm about to head off to externship, so some of what you guys are mentioning about keeping my mouth shut will be most apt. I particularly like the idea of thinking about it as a fresh start--ultimately it is. A new kitchen means a new set of ideals, standards, and methods that seem to be working for these guys pretty dang well--who would I be to question them?

Thanks for the tips, y'all! I really do appreciate these little kernels of wisdom from those who started the path before me.

[Dardeau]

Where are you heading for externship? And just curious, did you work anywhere in New Orleans? We may have run into one another at some point.

[JanusInTheGarden]

I'm heading to Blue Hill at Stone Barns for externship. Afraid I haven't worked in New Orleans, my mom lives down there and I spent some summers working in Mellow Mushroom during college. All of my work experience took place in Atlanta.

Where have you worked in New Orleans? I've looked into a few spots down there, I'd be interested in working there one of these years. Any recommendations?

[Dardeau]

Blue Hill at Stone Farms looks beautiful. The food looks nice too, but get outside and farm. That is a huge opportunity. I've been working at Cochon since I moved here to New Orleans. There are a lot of really interesting places to work here, doing fairly diverse types of food. Since you have a place to stay here you should take a stagecation and take some of it in.

[JanusInTheGarden]

Ah I ate at Cochon back in December when visiting my mom. I freaking love those roasted oysters with the spicy anchovy sauce y'all made. Holy jesus those are good. I definitely intend to head back down sometime soon and do some staging around.

[Seth]

See if you can find the one or two teachers who can truly inspire you. It's often not the words but the attitude toward life and the love of what they are doing - then follow them around, sort of like a golden retriever puppy.

[JanusInTheGarden]

Seth, just channel your profile pic?

[panda]

just be prepared to work your ass off, good attitude and willingness to do more than the next line cook will get you entrance through the doors and up the ladder. had an intern tell me 'i did my 8 hours i'm going home', you can guess that persons career is not even going to have a beginning...
as far as training, you're going to learn the most from the chef that you find most irritating which are detail oriented and fusses over EVERYTHING, even down to stuff you would never imagine anyone could give two shits about. some of it might not even make any sense, but it's that mindset and discipline that will help you develop technique and knowledge.
throughout your schooling, experiment when ever you can. i'll tell you this, it's going to be a disaster more often than not, but that's the best way to learn, through trial & error on your own.