Must-Have Gadgets for the Kitchen? Think Again

by William Grimes

EVERY kitchen has one. The ingenious asparagus peeler. The automatic paper-towel dispenser. The whiz-bang electric pepper grinder. 

These are the tools that Gail Simmons, a judge on the Bravo series “Top Chef” and the author of “Talking With My Mouth Full: My Life as a Professional Eater,” calls “the skeletons in the kitchen closet.” Unlike the preposterous gadgets that turn up uninvited beneath the Christmas tree, they were purchased with enthusiasm and high culinary expectations. Now they languish in the drawer or take up space on the counter, where they eventually die of neglect. 

Sometimes the fault lies with the equipment, which is too often overengineered, overdesigned or overspecific. Does anyone really need a kitchen torch with a fuel gauge or a miniature circular saw for cutting pizza? 

Just as often, the buyer is to blame, a victim of unrealistic expectations. The kitchen can be a realm of fantasy, after all, and even seasoned professionals can be seduced by a sexy piece of equipment, especially if it has an exotic accent. 

“When you travel you get caught up in the moment, and taken with the idea that in this particular place a certain tool is really important,” said Christopher Koetke, the vice president of the school of culinary arts at Kendall College in Chicago. 

Fifteen years ago, on a trip to Italy, he bought an automatic polenta maker. Italians use them all the time, but Mr. Koetke has not gotten around to plugging his in. His trips to Japan have yielded nearly a dozen handmade knives, purchased at great expense in tiny shops. Most are in mint condition. “The truth is, only if you’re slicing fish for sushi and sashimi eight hours a day is the investment worth it,” he said. 

Jack Bishop, the editorial director of America’s Test Kitchen, the parent company of Cook’s Illustrated, still regards the French escargot tongs in his kitchen in Sag Harbor, N.Y., with puzzlement. Likewise his authentic Mexican molcajetes.  “I suppose they serve the purpose of reminding me of that wonderful time I spent in Oaxaca,” he said. 

There’s something about a kitchen tool suited to a single task that casts an irresistible spell for many cooks. The Williams-Sonoma catalog, to cite a highly visible example, is a Venusberg of culinary charms, but temptation lurks everywhere.

Dennis Nyback, a film archivist in Portland, Ore., bought a commercial butter slicer at a thrift store. At the time, it seemed like a brilliant acquisition. “It was green enameled metal with stainless blades and had a sort of mass guillotine action,” he said. “A solid one-pound block of butter could be made into a few dozen pats with one fell swoop. I didn’t expect it to change my life, but I did expect that if I ever encountered a one-pound block of butter I would be prepared. That day never came.”

It never does. Meredith Smith, an editor of the food blog Serious Eats, once invested in a pasta-drying rack but has managed to avoid setting it up in her kitchen in Somerville, Mass. “I just don’t make fresh pasta enough to merit a drying rack,” she said. “I’d rather use the back of a chair.”

Julia Collin Davison, of Natick, Mass., the executive food editor of the book department of America’s Test Kitchen, had high hopes for her salmon poacher. They were dashed. “They’re troublesome to work with,” she said. “It’s an odd-shaped piece of equipment that straddles two burners. I’m married to a fishmonger, so I have access to the best, and still I don’t use it.” 

Sara Moulton, a cookbook writer and the host of the PBS series “Sara’s Weeknight Meals,” bought a pressure cooker 15 years ago and soon became disenchanted. High-heat, high-intensity cooking robbed food of nutrients, a knowledgeable colleague advised. Not good. Then fear crept in as she considered the explosive potential of the device in her Manhattan kitchen. “I always told my viewers, ‘This is not your grandmother’s pressure cooker,’ but it still made me nervous. I kept worrying that starch might build up in the vent hole and clog it.” It went into early retirement. “I hold on to it just in case,” she said. “But I really don’t think I’m going to use it again.” 

Ms. Simmons of “Top Chef” acquired the skeletons in her kitchen closet by badly miscalculating the realities of her daily schedule. In pursuing the perfect cup of coffee — just one cup each morning — she acquired a professional-grade espresso maker and a stove-top drip coffee maker for Vietnamese coffee. 

Unfortunately, she forgot to consider the end user. “It’s sad, but the truth is, I almost never make coffee at home,” she said. The dazzling coffee makers are now culinary sculptures in her Manhattan kitchen. 

That quest for the transcendent cup led Sarah McColl, the food editor of the Shine blog on Yahoo, to buy several generations of milk frothers, including a hand-pump model and at least two electrics, before facing facts.

Read the complete article here.

Another Growing Career Path for Chefs??

Hy-Vee Brings in Full-time Chef

America is in the middle of a cooking Renaissance.

People are rediscovering the art of home cooking and the advantage it has on their family - from saving money to healthier meals.

The Empire Hy-Vee, located at 4101 S. Louise Ave., has just made the family dinner a little more attainable. They hired a full-time chef to oversee food displays, conduct food preparation demonstrations, hold classes and act as a resource to shoppers.

"To have a chef is a great asset for the store and the customers," says Jenn Colgan, registered dietitian. "Having that culinary expert available to give people ideas on how to incorporate new things in their meals and recipes" is a valuable service.

Chef Scott Teal started in June.

He is planning to demonstrate new items, highlight food trends and will begin holding classes in August.
"Making your own food is enjoyable and economical. The goal is to push that forward," says Teal of Brandon.

He will incorporate fresh and new ingredients to inspire novice and experienced cooks.  Originally from Brookings, Teal got his training at the Texas Culinary Academy and stayed in Austin, Texas, for 20 years. A cook for 25 years, he has worked in restaurants and long-term care facilities. He's happy to be back in South Dakota, where he still has family.

New produce will figure heavily into his demonstrations and his recipes. For example, there is a new chocolate grape tomato. "It has a more brownish color and is new to the market. We're able to bring that in and expose the item to Sioux Falls cooks."

There will be a dedicated space at the store for his cooking demonstrations. He will show how to make a dish from start to finish. "It will take the guessing out of cooking meals. And people can watch while they're shopping."

It's a natural fit, Colgan says. He's a good resource for shoppers craving contemporary meal ideas or those wanting to try a new food. He will use locally grown food and fresh herbs when possible.

Today's push is to make meals healthier, and Teal "will help us incorporate more variety into our diets," Colgan says. Teal will be creating his own recipes and showcasing the store's recipes.

Read the complete story here.

For Chefs, Cookbooks Paved Path to Culinary Enlightenment

Looking through some cookbooks these days could almost make a person feel dirty.

“I think you’re first drawn to a cookbook because it’s like food porn,” says Matthias Merges, the chef who ran Charlie Trotter’s kitchen for 14 years. “Most cookbooks — you can see the way that Ten Speed Press does theirs and now [visual art and design publisher] Phaidon is in the cookbook arena — it’s all tabletop-beautiful.”

In other words, cookbooks look better every year. They are great lookbooks. But does anyone actually learn anything from cookbooks? Some of the city’s most celebrated chefs say they have.

Merges credits the Time-Life “Foods of the World” series, which he first read when he was about 8 years old.

“When you’re young, you never know the breadth of the food world,” says Merges, who plans to open his first restaurant, a Japanese yakitori-inspired restaurant called Yusho in Logan Square, in late July or early August. “When my brother and I discovered those Time-Life books, it opened up the whole world to us. It was like, what was that show? Wild Kingdom. Or Jacques Cousteau.”

One night, on their parents’ anniversary, the Merges boys decided to make an ambitious dinner, sukiyaki, or Japanese hot pot, combining beef and vegetables in a single pot. Before he started flipping through the Time-Life series, young Matthias had no idea such a dish even existed, let alone how to make it.

Later, in other volumes, he learned how to cure meats and fish. The Indian book taught him that curry was so much more than just a spice in a bottle labeled “curry.” It is a mix of spices, for one, and it also is a stew, and it differs from country to country. All of this, a boy who would one day become a professional chef, learned from spiral-bound cookbooks.

Some professional chefs learned from cookbooks even after the age of 10.

Jason Hammel and his wife Amalea Tshilds own and operate Lula Cafe in Logan Square and Nightwood in Pilsen. Hammel worked as a chain restaurant line cook in graduate school and is basically self-taught. For years he devoured cookbooks, walking around with one particular volume, The French Laundry Cookbook by Thomas Keller, under his arm.

Now, more than 10 years later, he still consults his tattered copy of that seminal book, which introduced him to big-pot blanching.

“The idea is, if you’re going to blanch a green vegetable it’ll be greener and brighter if you use a big pot with a lot of hot water,” he says.

The visual beauty of cookbooks is proof that we eat with our eyes first, and brilliantly green vegetables are much more appealing than vegetables the color of Army pants. But sometimes, even now, Hammel’s cooks crowd their veggies.

“There’s been a million times when I’ve come in and instead of explaining it to them, I just slap down the book with the page open and I say, ‘You need to read this,’ ” Hammel says.

From The Zuni Cafe Cookbook by Judy Rodgers, Hammel learned about the importance of pre-seasoning.

“Salting ahead of time is one of her major concepts and one part of her book that I love,” he says.

Hammel, who calls Rodgers’ book “probably the best-written cookbook that exists,” often gives the book to his cooks to read.

“One cook didn’t give it back,” he says.

Read the complete story here.

Purist Chefs Ban Ketchup, Decaf and Toasted Bagels

At a pea-size Lower East Side bistro known for its fries, the admonition is spelled out on a chalkboard: No ketchup. At a popular gastropub in the West Village, customers cannot have the burger with any cheese other than Roquefort.

And at Murray’s Bagels in Greenwich Village and Chelsea, the morning crowd can order its bagels topped any number of ways but never — ever! — toasted. “It’s really annoying, because a toasted bagel is kind of fierce, right?” Jamie Divine, a product designer and frequent patron, said with a hint of an eye-roll.

New York has spawned a breed of hard-line restaurants and cafes that are saying no. No to pouring takeout espressos, or grinding more than a pound of coffee at a time. No to taming the intensity of a magma-spicy dish. And most of all, no to the 21st-century conviction that everything can be accessorized to the customer’s taste.

“People just assume that every restaurant should be for everyone — I could understand that if we were in a town with, like, 20 restaurants,” said David Chang, whose small empire of Momofuku restaurants is known for refusing to make substitutions or provide vegetarian options. “Instead of trying to make a menu that’s for everyone, let’s make a menu that works best for what we want to do.”

He added, “The customer is not always right.”

This coterie of food purists — or puritans, perhaps — is hardly limited to New York. The chef-owner of the Michelin-starred Chicago restaurant Graham Elliot does not serve decaffeinated coffee at his new sandwich shop and coffee bar, Grahamwich, because, Mr. Elliot said in an e-mail, “we decided to let our inner purists shine through and showcase coffee for what it is — a flavorful, caffeinated elixir.”

Clark Wolf, a restaurant consultant, recalled a San Francisco spot that would not supply salt or pepper because the chef supposedly seasoned every dish perfectly.

But New York has a hallowed history of persnickety cooks: Kenny Shopsin became something of a cult figure for the litany of rules — including no parties bigger than four, and no more than one order at each table of any particular dish — enforced for years at Shopsin’s diner in the West Village, now a small outpost at the Essex Street Market on the Lower East Side.

Arthur Schwartz, a food writer and historian, recalled a restaurant that the New Orleans chef Paul Prudhomme opened in Manhattan more than 20 years ago that also prohibited dining companions from ordering the same dish. “It didn’t last very long,” Mr. Schwartz said, “because in those days we all said: ‘Too many rules. New Yorkers are not going to do this.’ ”

Yet in a city filled with newcomers seeking a sense of belonging, rules can be part of the attraction. “One reason people go to a particular restaurant is they want to feel part of a particular community,” Mr. Schwartz said — even if that community is based on nothing more than a shared appreciation for carefully tended espresso that never touches a paper cup.

“You’re supposed to drink espresso fast,” said Caroline Bell, an owner of Cafe Grumpy, explaining that paper lets the heat dissipate too quickly.

When some customers at the three outposts in Brooklyn and Manhattan became, well, grumpy over the lack of takeout espresso, Ms. Bell instituted a policy meant to be taken more with a wink than with the snarl of the cafe’s logo: Patrons can get an espresso to go, if they pay $12 to drink it from a porcelain cup they can keep. “People actually do that,” she said. “There’s a guy that comes in every day to Chelsea with that cup and gets espresso.”

Some restaurateurs say they limit choices because it allows them to serve items consistently prepared the way they want.

“Cooks are creatures of habit,” Mr. Chang said. “To do this ‘Can I get this with no olives, can I get the salad chopped, sauce on the side’ — some of those special requests are ridiculous. My personal opinion is that a lot of people say they have a special allergy or they don’t like something so they can get better service.” 

Read the entire story here.

Blindness Doesn't Keep This Chef Out of the Kitchen

By Dave Newhouse
Oakland Tribune columnist

A sense of taste, a passion for food, and an inherent capacity for creativity are starting points in the kitchen for any reputable chef.

So what does it matter if the chef can't see?

Laura Martinez, 25, has been totally blind since she was 1, the result of retina detachment glaucoma.

"It's like cancer of the eye," she said.

Blindness is no deterrent for Martinez. She has a natural inclination for cuisine that she hopes will vault her one day into the stratosphere of celebrated chefs.

"But in a different way," she said. "I don't want to copy any of their styles. I want to be different and unique."

Martinez, who lives in Chicago, is a graduate of that city's Le Cordon Bleu Culinary College. She's staying at the Oakland Marriott City Center this week, preparing for Saturday's benefit dinner at the California Culinary Academy, where she'll be cooking for the Oakland-based Blind Babies Foundation.

With Martinez is her mother, Josefina, and Laura's assistant, Rachel Colcyn, 25, who helped her through Le Cordon Bleu. Alicia Cavallo, director of sales and marketing at the Marriott City Center, set up this interview.

"I'm not a chef because I'm blind," Martinez said Wednesday. "I have the passion, patience, desire and energy to do it, and not because I can't see."

Born in Mexico, she moved with her family to Quad Cities, Ill., when she was 9. She first wanted to be a surgeon, then a butcher and a psychologist before embracing cooking, which encompasses her first three career paths.

"I started doing a lot of cooking because I moved out (of home) and I had to learn everything from scratch because my mom wasn't there," she said. "And I liked it. Friends tasted my food and said I should go for being a chef. It was a challenge for me, and I thought, 'Why not?' So I did it."

Though sightless, Martinez has never injured herself cooking. She hasn't cut a finger while slicing meat, fish or fruit. She hasn't burned her hand over a stove.

Still she was told a blind person can't be a chef.

"Finding trust, finding opportunity "... it wasn't easy," she said. "It was hard facing it, hard to get into it, convincing people to give me a chance."

She survived Le Cordon Bleu by "showing my confidence, and that I was serious. I wasn't just playing around like most of the students. They show up for a month or two and then they miss a lot."

For Laura, it was the sauce pan or nothing. Charlie Trotter was the first to believe in her. Trotter, a Chicago restaurateur, hired her four months ago.

"He tasted my food," she said, "and he told me, 'You're working for me. I didn't choose you because you were blind. I chose you because of your talent.' "

Now doing "stash" work, or prep cook, she's "impatient" to move ahead, to create new dishes, to own a restaurant in Miami.

How does she function in the kitchen? Her spices are labeled in Braille. She separates different meats or fish by feeling their texture or by using a keen sense of smell. She doesn't consider herself handicapped.

"If you have the desire and creativity, it doesn't matter," she said. "I know people who have everything, and they can't cook at all."

Read the rest of Chef Martinez' story here.

Chefs Rally to Help Nashville After Flood

(CNN) --Nashville chefs have cooked up plans to keep rescue workers fed and farmers in business and to whet the appetites of tourists to return once floodwaters subside.

"I grew up with the philosophy in my family that when you have a tough time in whatever area of life, a good hot meal makes a lot of things better," said chef Tandy Wilson of City House restaurant.

Though his restaurant was stocked and operational and had planned a "flood menu," his difficulty in getting to the building spurred Tandy to shut down his business and rally his staff to volunteer.

"We got in contact with the Red Cross to see who we could feed. David Lipscomb University had a big shelter in their basketball gymnasium, and we took over homemade bread and pasta with a pork ragu -- it was real good," said the fifth-generation Nashvillian.

But as soul-satisfying as that meal was, Tandy and his fellow chefs knew that with other restaurants having lost inventory and equipment and with the Nashville Farmers' Market under water, there was much more to be done.

Read more about what needs to be done and who's getting it done here.

Like Father, Like Son

By NANCY CHURNIN / Associated Press

Fathers and sons often have powerful bonds

For Rafael and Ruben Torano, there's an extra sweet quality to that bond. Literally. They are both pastry chefs, a profession Ruben aspired to as a little boy as he watched his father conjure his colossal confections.

"When I was 7, I told my mother, 'I'm going to be like my dad,' " recalls Ruben at Charlie Palmer at the Joule, where he is the executive pastry chef. "When I was 10, he taught me how to temper chocolate and passed on skills that I still use now. Seeing my dad in a chef's hat, he always seemed majestic, someone I could aspire to be like."

Rafael, 54, stands beside his son, smiling and wearing his gleaming chef's whites from the Warwick Melrose Hotel, where he is executive pastry chef.

And gazing admiringly at both is Diego Torano, Ruben's 4-year-old son, who has quite a way around the kitchen himself.

"He's already cooking," his grandfather says proudly.

"It makes me nervous," his father says.

Growing up in Puerto Rico, Rafael watched his own father weigh sugar and mix batter for the lavish wedding cakes he whipped up for family and friends as a labor of love. His father, a military man, never baked for a living and Rafael didn't think he would, either. Instead, he joined the Army in 1976 with the intention of becoming a dentist.

Then a man, hearing Rafael talk about how good he was with recipes, challenged him to make a Black Forest cake.

He made it, impressed everyone including himself, and never looked back. He switched his training to become a pastry chef for the Army.

The hours were long in those days — waking up at 3 a.m. and working until 11 p.m. to feed a company of 150. But Rafael loved the work. His father let him know that he was very proud. And he had a saying to get him through that he would later pass on to Ruben: "Face to the wind."

The apprenticeship between father and son did not always go smoothly. There was the time when Rafael was part of a six-man Army team constructing a huge cake with a U.S. flag and all the Army ranks. He was finishing a portion of it at home when Ruben, then 4, got a little too close.

"I was really curious," Ruben recalls. "I stuck my finger right in it. He yelled pretty loudly."
Rafael, grinning now, doesn't deny it. But he just went back to the beginning, working hard as he has always done.

"I fixed it," he says.

And Ruben learned from his mistakes. When he found himself working on an elaborate cake, he made sure his wife kept Diego on the other side of the house.

He made it up to Diego later. He made him a Cars birthday cake. And when he was done, Diego was allowed to crash his Hot Wheels into it.

Diego laughs when his father tells that story.

When Ruben landed his first job working for his father, Rafael promised to teach him how to ice a cake.

"He showed me how to do it really quickly in five minutes," Ruben says. "But I took forever because I wanted it to be perfect. I showed it to him and he wiped off the frosting and told me to do it again. I did it six or seven more times."

Ruben was upset until he understood.

"My father told me anyone can decorate a cake and hide the mistakes. But you need to learn to ice it mistake free. I'm glad he taught me that."

As a pastry chef for the Army and then for fine hotels and restaurants, Rafael's work led to a life of travel for the Torano family — Germany, Georgia, Tennessee. Ruben was born in Fort Hood, Texas. They moved to Dallas when he was 6 and he went to school in Arlington before they were off again to Kansas. But the common threads in their wandering life was always food and music, family and laughter.

When Ruben thinks about what he learned from his father, it is as much about attitude and character as it is about his innumerable baking tricks, he says.

"Sometimes when work is really long and stressful, you take all that life gives you and you roll, but always with integrity. You stick to your word and if you say you'll do something, you do it. Face to the wind."

Father and son talk constantly. Sometimes it is to make sure they don't put the same desserts on the menus at their two establishments. Sometimes it's just because Rafael, who collects cookbooks and incessantly studies recipes on the Internet and the Food Network, has an idea he can't wait to share.

They are both similarly motivated by their work, Ruben says.

"The term my dad tells us is 'instant gratification.' When you give your creation to someone and they love it, it makes you feel good."

And sometimes, if the customer doesn't say the words, they can tell in another way that the dessert was a hit, Rafael says.

"I like when they leave the plate completely clean."

The Top 10 Things Celebrity Chefs Won't Tell You

The Cliff Notes version:

1. “I’m a celebrity first and a chef second.”

2. “There’s absolutely no reason to buy my cookbook.”

3. “Just because I have a cooking show doesn’t mean I’m a chef.”

4. “Sex sells, even with foodies.”

5. “I’m addicted to porn—food porn, that is.”

6. “The dishes I make on TV don’t always work so great at home . . .”

7. “. . . and sometimes they’re just plain gross.”

8. “It might be my restaurant, but that doesn’t mean I cook there.”

9. “My show is one long commercial for my cookbooks.”

10. “Bottom line: My celebrity status is great for business.”


All the details here.

Can You Trust a Skinny Chef?

Chefs Cook up a Weight-loss Solution

By Kelly Carter, Special for USA TODAY

Kristi Ritchey bought into the stereotypical chef image — rotund belly, chin to spare — for a while. She started cooking when she was 16, went to culinary school and nine years later ballooned to 260 pounds and wore a size 26.
"Everyone says 'Don't trust a skinny chef,' " says Ritchey, 27, executive chef at Greenleaf Gourmet Chopshop in Beverly Hills. "Well, you know what? I also don't like being a chef people stared at and wondered if I ate their meal. It was becoming very uncomfortable."

And unhealthy: Ritchey's wake-up call came when a prep cook rushed her to the emergency room. Now down to 150 pounds on her 5-foot-7 frame, Ritchey is among a new wave of U.S. chefs proving that size is not indicative of their talent. Not only are some losing significant weight, but their emphasis on healthier living is reflected in their menus — which means their customers reap the benefits as well.

Since losing more than 90 pounds, including 60 on an 800-calorie-a-day liquid diet, Kevin Hickey, executive chef at the Four Seasons Hotel Chicago, has "definitely added on (healthier) dishes," including a frittata made with egg whites, turkey, tofu, asparagus, low-fat mozzarella and tomato sauce.

He uses cream and butter sparingly. Instead of pan-searing his whitefish, Hickey cooks it in a stew with white beans. The liquid diet has helped him in the kitchen, where chefs agree the No. 1 rule is to taste.

"But I don't have to swallow it," Hickey says.

More...

Should You Attend a Cooking Academy?

When a new culinary school springs up (and there are currently about 750 in the U.S. alone), hundreds of prospective students flock to the campus, hoping they will become the next celebrity chef. But are these aspiring chefs making a wise career move or would they be better off forgoing school and getting a kitchen job in a real-world restaurant? Unfortunately, the answer is not a simple one and depends on the chef's level of experience.

The Novice Chef

With the surging popularity of restaurants helmed by celebrity chefs, high school students are enrolling in culinary schools at record rates. In fact, 38 percent of San Francisco's California Cooking Academy (CCA) applicants in 2004 were recent high school graduates, up from 22 percent in 1997.

Advantages

Most schools offer programs that range from a few weeks to several years and cover all aspects of the culinary arts: baking and pastry arts, hospitality and restaurant management, and wine studies. These schools also provide students with internships in culinary hot spots and the opportunity to operate all aspects of their on-campus restaurants. Needless to say, attending one of these cooking academies can be a valuable experience for a budding chef.

Students lacking either kitchen experience or culinary expertise will get the most out of classes from the second tier of cooking academies. Why the second tier? These often require little prior experience and cover all the fundamentals.

If and when students decide to attend one of these schools, they should steer clear of the common misconception that once you have a diploma, your restaurant career will take off. Therein lies the greatest disadvantage of any academy: unrealistic expectations.

Disadvantages

Many novices don't stop to think about the commitment necessary to succeed in the food-service industry. Even with training, it takes decades for a chef to master his craft. Plus, students who only have school experience will have trouble understanding how strenuous the day-to-day operations of a restaurant can be. Many chefs work 17 to 18 hours per day, 6 to 7 days per week, and finish each night doing the dishes, according to John Foley, a restaurant expert in Northern California and AllBusiness.com's restaurant advisor.

A second big disadvantage is cost. The CCA, for example, charges about $45,000 for just 15 months of instruction, and that's just for an associate's degree. In fact, a prospective student at a first-tier academy can expect tuition prices to be similar to that of a top university.

In some cases, students may amass a mountain of debt from a school that does not have a good reputation. Many cooking schools are built to make money and operate like a business, says Dan Watts, a former purchasing agent with the CCA. Students, he says, should realize that quality often takes a backseat to quantity in such schools, degrading the cooking academy into merely a diploma factory. Moreover, with the arrival of more schools and higher enrollment across the country, the weight a cooking academy diploma once held has been somewhat devalued.

To learn of a school's reputation, students should ask restaurant professionals if they would hire a graduate from the school they are considering, trying to find a consensus. There's also plenty of useful information on the Internet.

The Experienced Chef

A prospective student with an abundance of cooking experience can benefit from a first-tier school, where they will be able to sharpen kitchen skills as well as learn the financial side of the restaurant business.

Advantages

Experienced chefs are more likely to be accepted into a top school such as the Culinary Institute of America (CIA), which, in turn, may help them get a job at a top-tier restaurant. Part of the reason the CIA has maintained its reputation despite the proliferation of cooking academies is its nonprofit status. The school, with campuses in both New York and California, continuously reinvests its profits, building elite facilities and hiring only the best instructors. Also, the CIA and other comparable institutions offer their students the ability to pursue a bachelor's degree as well as an associate's degree.

With years of experience hiring and firing staff, John Foley swears by the graduates he's hired from the CIA. In 1991, Foley hired a Wisconsin dairy farmer turned CIA graduate to be his new chef. "He taught me so much about food, the procedures, the workings of a line, and how to serve 450 people on any given night," he says.

Foley, however, isn't nearly as confident in the CCA graduates he's dealt with. Ten years after that very successful hire, Foley interviewed a CCA graduate and asked, "Where did you learn to cook?" The interviewee answered, "I went to school at the CCA." Foley sighed and said, "Yes, but where did you learn to cook?" The difference in the quality of schools, according to Foley, is that the first-tier schools like the CIA give students incomparable instruction along with a realistic picture of the restaurant business.

While experienced chefs may already have excellent kitchen skills, they may not have the necessary business know-how. Schools such as the Restaurant School at Walnut Hill College teach students how to start a small business. Classes focus on the financial side (accounting, marketing, purchasing) as well as management (human resources, supervision).

Disadvantages

There are few downsides to attending a top-tier school, but the financial burden can be significant. In addition, there's always the trade-off of spending a year or so in school versus continuing to gain valuable experience in the real world. Poor instruction is also a risk, though the more elite schools are almost always staffed by experienced and capable instructors.

Attending a cooking academy can be a smart career move for both the experienced and the novice if the student is realistic about the hard work that follows graduation.

A student's dedication will make or break the journey; a cooking academy degree won't.

Padded Resume Costs Chef TV Show

New York -- Robert Irvine, host of the popular Food Network series "Dinner Impossible," has lost his job following allegations that he padded his resume.

Irvine had claimed that he helped design Princess Diana's wedding cake, worked at the White House and graduated from the University of Leeds. But an article was published in the St. Petersburg Times last week that cast doubt on his claims.

On Friday, the Food Network announced they were not renewing his contract with the show, and released the following statement:

"We looked into the situation and found that, as Robert has already admitted, there were some embellishments and inaccuracies in his resume. The few and minor incidents of the inclusion of these embellishments into 'Dinner Impossible' have been removed. The show is, and has always been, completely accurate in the depiction of the cooking challenges faced by Robert. We will continue airing both old shows and the new season of programs currently in production. We have not renewed Robert's contract for future seasons but will fulfill our contractual obligations.

We rely on the trust that our viewers have in the accuracy of the information we present, and Robert challenged that trust. We appreciate Robert's remorse about his actions, and we can revisit this decision at the end of the production cycle, but for now we will be looking for a replacement host."

At the same time, the network also released a statement from Irvine, who expressed remorse for his actions:

”I was wrong to exaggerate in statements related to my experiences in the White House and the Royal Family. I am proud of my work as part of the Guest Chef program in the White House, the opportunities I had on the Royal Yacht Britannia and my culinary accomplishments, and I should have stood on those alone, without embellishment.

I remain committed and enthusiastic about my work with Food Network and other future endeavors. I am truly sorry for misleading people and misstating the facts.To all my family, friends and loyal fans, I will work tirelessly to regain your trust and continue to use my show and life to benefit the less fortunate."

Serving up Second Chances

BALTIMORE, Maryland (CNN) -- "Heroin, cocaine, alcohol...whatever was on the table, I wanted it," recalls Baltimore native Tyrone Lewis, who struggled with drug addiction for most of his life.

His addictions made it impossible for him to hold a job very long. For a time, he was homeless.
"After a while you just feel ... alone," says Lewis. "That made me want to give up. "

But that all changed when he met Galen Sampson, a five-star chef who offered Lewis the chance to join Chefs in the Making, a culinary training program that offers jobs and education to people who've been homeless, or have struggled with addiction. For Lewis, it was the chance of a lifetime.

"He was offering me a free education," Lewis says. "What he was doing gave me hope."
For many years, hope has been in short supply in parts of Baltimore. While some areas have been revitalized, much of the city is plagued by crime, poverty and drugs. According to the Census Bureau, nearly 23 percent of residents live below the poverty line and the city has an estimated 60,000 addicts.

As a chef at one of Baltimore's elite hotels, Sampson often saw his employees struggling with these problems in their own families. When he met his wife, Bridget, a writer who ran literacy programs in the city, he got involved with her work and wanted to do more. "I was a chef; that's what I was good at," Sampson recalls. "How could I apply what I did to help?"

Sampson had always dreamed of having his own restaurant. So in 2005, he and Bridget decided to create a socially responsible business that could address some of Baltimore's problems. They decided that part of their restaurant would be a training program, and Chefs in the Making was born.

In many respects, Chefs in the Making is run like any other culinary school. Apprentices take classes four hours a week and the rest of the time, they work at The Dogwood, Sampson's restaurant, which also includes a deli and catering business. Students not only earn a living and learn a trade, but they also build a job history.

The program has partnered with other programs to give apprentices additional support; there's even a counselor on staff who meets with them every couple of weeks. For Tyrone Lewis, the restaurant itself is a refuge.

"Here there are no secrets," Lewis says. "Most of us just know we are people who are trying to get our lives back together. "

Sampson admits this unorthodox approach had its skeptics. "A lot of people think we're crazy. We've pretty much put everything that we have into this project," he says. But for Sampson, it's well worth the risk. "To see what our apprentices have been able to do here has been very rewarding. I think we're setting the foundation for something good," he says.

In 2008, Chefs in the Making intends to provide training/jobs to more than 30 people. Apprentices make up about 25 percent of the restaurant staff and Lewis' own situation suggests what potential the program has to change lives. "Ten years from now, I see myself owning a home, maybe owning my own business," he says.

It's a future that he wouldn't have dreamed was possible before meeting Sampson. "A lot of people say they want to help," says Lewis. "Galen actually makes a difference."

DUCK!!

In the debate over foie gras, chefs take out their knives.

BY VICTORINO MATUS

In a Newsweek column last May, chef and restaurateur Wolfgang Puck explained how he would run his food empire from now on: "It's about getting every one of us to eat the right foods," he said, outlining his plans for serving pesticide-free vegetables and free-range chicken, beef and pork. "As for foie gras," Mr. Puck said of the delicacy of buttery rich duck (or goose) liver, "my customers and I can easily live without it."

The classically trained Austrian chef, who earned his fame at Spago and whose products can now be found at both the airport and the frozen-food section, has clearly touched a nerve in, as they say, the celebrity-chef community.

"I think he should stop worrying about cruelty to animals and start worrying about all the customers he's flopping his crap on at airports," says chef Anthony Bourdain, the author of "Kitchen Confidential" and the star of the TV series "No Reservations." Mr. Bourdain elaborates: "He does a lot of business in California. He got squeezed and pressured and phone-called from all angles, and like a good German shopkeeper he folded and sold out the people hiding in the cellar next door. I got no respect."

"A German shopkeeper"? How has a debate over goose liver gotten so nasty? And when did being a chef become so, well, political?

Chefs have always had their opinions. Julia Child's biographer Laura Shapiro writes that, "as she saw it, irradiation didn't pose nearly the threat [to our way of eating] that, say, vegetarianism did." In the 1970s, Paul Bocuse led the way toward simpler dishes with fresh ingredients, launching nouvelle cuisine. And Alice Waters emphasized local and organic foods with her "earth-to-table movement." But the question of whether to serve a dish or not because of humanitarian concerns is a relatively new one.

Banning foie gras has become a rallying cry for animal-rights activists across the country because the delicacy requires the insertion of a feeding tube into the duck's or goose's esophagus for several seconds three times a day toward the end of the bird's life; this force-feeding causes the liver to swell to well over its normal size. California plans on banning foie gras by 2012, and it's already illegal in Chicago. Last month the Humane Society of the U.S. sent the Agriculture Department a petition pushing for a nationwide ban.

But now the delicacy has caused a split among celebrity chefs--some of whom believe their job is preparing food, while others want to use their fame to score political points. In an email, Mr. Puck said his decision was not the result of being bullied. Reflecting on Spago's 25th anniversary, he writes: "I realized that . . . we had built a very successful company . . . and I wanted to use this success as a platform for doing something more socially responsible--something that needed leadership. Removing foie gras is a small part of our larger initiative . . . about values and eating and living WELL." (Mr. Puck's nine-point WELL program stands for "Wolfgang's Eating, Loving and Living.")

Wayne Pacelle, president of the Humane Society, whose organization worked with Mr. Puck on WELL, says the group did not engage in pressure tactics. But Michael Ginor, co-founder and president of Hudson Valley Foie Gras, disagrees: "There was an awful lot of pressure. I know from Wolfgang Puck's own chefs who are friends."

Some chefs view the criticism of foie gras as a direct assault on their tradition and heritage (it has been eaten since the time of the ancient Egyptians). "The intimidation [animal-rights activists] gave me and my staff--this is a big political problem," says Daniel Boulud, New York's four-star restaurateur and host of the TV show "After Hours" (in which the chef throws a dinner party for friends at a different restaurant each week). "Animals are treated here for the purpose of food--I think the duck has a pretty nice life." Culinary elder statesman Jacques Pépin calls the banning efforts "a sham." (Both men are respectful of Mr. Puck but believe, like Mr. Ginor, that he was pressured into his decision.)

Bill Buford of The New Yorker considers the activism of chefs "a good thing because food itself is and always has been more than just a plate of food. It is also history, identity, family, biology, culture, and, yes, politics." Fair enough. But like other celebrities who campaign to save the rainforests or to stop global warming, chefs may eventually push the limits of their fame. And Mr. Puck's customers may decide they've had enough.

On the other hand, Mr. Buford, the author of the best-selling "Heat: An Amateur's Adventures as Kitchen Slave, Line Cook, Pasta-Maker, and Apprentice to a Dante-Quoting Butcher in Tuscany," couldn't care less about the specifics of this debate: "It's a fat bomb," he says of foie gras, "the swollen testimony of a goose that has lived a luxurious life, offered up as an inflated luxury to the people prepared to pay for it. . . . Who cares? Do you? I don't." Clearly, some others do.

The "Glamorous" Life - Reality Check

Don't Just Be A Chef, Be A Glamorous Chef!

(CBS) Dorothy Hamilton is used to fledgling chefs. In 1984 she founded the French Culinary Institute in Manhattan. But even she has been astounded at what's happened in the past five years.

In that short time, she says enrollment has doubled in size. Today there are about 2,000 students taking six month immersion courses at the school.

The story is the same all over the country. Professional cooking schools are expanding and new ones are starting, in part as a tribute to Americans' increasing interest in fine food. But there's another factor, too. Hamilton says the 24-hour Food Network deserves some of the credit.

While early TV chef's like Julia Child helped convince Americans that they could create fine cuisine at home, a later generation of colorful characters such as Emeril Lagasse and the Barefoot Contessa has made cooking seem like a pathway to fun and stardom.

Now many culinary students have stars in their eyes, and who could blame them for dreaming when you watch Guy Fieri? He had worked in the food business for years, already owned four restaurants and then last season he triumphed on a TV competition show.

Now he hosts two Food Network shows himself and is launching a third, but Fieri worries that his success may give some people the wrong impression.

"People that get into it thinking that they're gonna bet all their chips on, on this happening," he told Sunday Morning correspondent Rita Braver. "That's just kind of a long shot."

And it's not just being a TV star that's an enticing long shot, there's also the allure of your own restaurant. Cathal Armstrong is one of those people. He owns Restaurant Eve, one of the top-rated restaurants in the Washington, D.C. area with a six-week wait for Saturday night reservations. He loves his work, but believes there's far too much focus on the glamour of his industry.

"An awful lot of what we do is the same thing all day every day, peeling potatoes and peeling more carrots and cutting more celery, and it's mundane and repetitive," he said. "The kitchen staff arrive between 10:30 and 11 and then they work lunch and dinner service. So they're here until about midnight."

That's more than 12 hours a day, five days a week, at the going rate of about $30,000 a year. So it's no wonder that even as more people want to become chefs, it's harder to recruit good kitchen staffers.

Armstrong says some of the cooking school grads he hired just couldn't keep going. "And have actually dropped out of the restaurant business entirely because of their realization that this isn't the glamorous thing that they expected it would be," he said.

After attending culinary school, Edric Har thought he'd work his way up in the kitchen of a great restaurant, but the pay was too low, the hours too demanding. He now works as a caterer. "While I did love food, and I wanted to be a cook, and that was part of who I was, it wasn't all of who I was," he said.

At the French Culinary Institute, Dorothy Hamilton says that makes perfect sense. Not every one can become a famous chef. "The great thing about our profession is there are hundreds of thousands of jobs every year for cooks," she said. "What you have to have is the right path."

Star Gazing

Food Network personality Dave Lieberman of Good Deal with Dave Lieberman fame will make an appearance at the Castleton Mall Macy's store Thursday, November 8, 2007 at 6 p.m. With his third book to be released in 2008, Lieberman is no stranger to the kitchen. Just in time for the holidays, he'll offer a cooking demonstration focusing on his style of quick and practical cooking - even for a crowd. Afterwards, join Lieberman for a cookbook signing. RSVP to (800) 835-9718 if you would like to attend. The mall is located at 6020 East 82nd Street in Indianapolis.

Indy Chefs' Association Meeting

The November meeting of the American Culinary Federation
Greater Indianapolis Chapter
will be held at 6:00 p.m. on Monday, November 5, 2007 at:

The Garrison
Ft. Benjamin Harrison
6002 N. Post Road
Indianapolis, IN 46216

The host chef is Chef Jim Roberts

Educational session will include information on Chefs’ Certification

Cost: Active Member or Guest - $10.00
Junior Member or Guest - $ 5.00

RSVP: 317-543-9592

For ACF membership information, Contact the
ACF Greater Indianapolis Chapter
1259 Easton Point Dr.
Greenwood, IN 46142
317-882-7998
Or e-mail
Acf.indianapolis@ameritech.net

Or join online at

http://www.acfchefs.org/

Anthony Bourdain on Line Cooking

WHAT MOST people don't get about professional-level cooking is that it is not at all about the best recipe, the most innovative presentation, the most creative marriage of ingredients, flavors and textures; that, presumably, was all arranged long before you sat down to dinner. Line cooking-the real business of preparing the food you eat-is more about consistency, about mindless, unvarying repetition, the same series of tasks performed over and over and over again in exactly the same way.

The last thing a chef wants in a line cook is an innovator, somebody with ideas of his own who is going to mess around with the chef's recipes and presentations. Chef's require blind, near-fanatical loyalty, a strong back and an automaton-like consistency of execution under battlefield conditions...
...Cooking is a craft, I like to think, and a good cook is a craftsman-not an artist...Practicing your craft in an expert fashion is noble, honest and satisfying. And I'll generally take a stand-up mercenary who takes pride in his professionalism over an artist any day.

When I hear "artist", I think of someone who doesn't think it necessary to show up at work on time...Personally, I'd prefer to eat food that tastes good and is an honest reflection of it's ingredients, than a 3-foot-tall caprice constructed from lemon grass, lawn trimmings, coconuts and red curry. You could lose an eye trying to eat that. When a job applicant starts telling me how Pacific Rim-job cuisine turns him on and inspires him, I see trouble coming...Show up at work on time six months in a row and we'll talk about red curry paste and lemon grass. Until then, I have four words for you: "Shut the fuck up."

-Anthony Bourdain, Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly (2000)