So You're a Chef

Welcome to the first day of Culinary School! There is a lot to share, so I’m going to jump right in.

Let me begin by describing my classmates. There are 16 students in the class, all women, all between the ages of 19 and 35. Granted we are racially diverse, there is still a surprisingly homogeneous feel to the class. I was really looking forward to having some middle aged ex-cons in my class, but I suppose the "free-er spirits" and "unconventional" students are in the culinary program. As our instructor informed us, Pastry and Baking arts is primarily comprised of Type-A personalities (so I guess Im the one who will diversify the class, with my apathy for measuring and indifference for recipes).

The first class was spent going over the many rules and regulations I need to follow while at school. The one rule that was drilled in more than any other was that you may NOT miss class. There is NO such thing as an excused absence. I happen to be very lucky that all Jewish Holidays fall out on Thursday, Friday Saturday and Sunday this year, but I’m not exactly in the clear. I quote "Weddings are not excused absences. Even your own." Obviously, I had informed some classmates of my engagement during some locker-room chatting, and so I drew many a pitying gaze at this point. But there is no use in worrying about it until I have to I guess. In a final push to dissuade us from missing class, we were told that every class we miss is worth about $325. Little did they know that I am used to Yeshiva tuition, where every day that I missed coasted about that much :)

Eventually, the rules are explained and our text books are given out. TEXT BOOKS. My favorite is titled "So You're a Chef" but we have two others, with the history of baking and info about the industry. Another has close to a thousand recipes, all yielding fifty servings. The text books are to be studied in preparation for our quizzes, tests, research assignments and practical exams. They aren’t joking around with this stuff.

About half-way through class, our instructor comes in and introduces himself. He tells us his name, but we are to call him Chef. I already knew this from watching "Dinner Impossible" and other Food Network shows. He has a very odd accent. - He is French (was an apprentice baker since the age of 14) then moved to England where he learned English. Except, I think he learned cockney accented English, and has a speech impediment/lisp. This could be a problem farther down the road when I need to really pay attention to what he is saying. He speaks painfully slow but seems very nice. We have him as our instructor for the first quarter of the course.
Chef begins by explaining the Metric System and measuring to us Americans. How many ounces in a liter. How many quarts in a gallon. How many cups in a liter. How likely am I to remember this stuff? He goes over the many different types of flour (fun fact: Flours weight different amounts based on how much protein they contain. Bread flour is about 13% protein while cake flour is only 6%. Quiz. Which is heavier, bread flour or cake flour?)

When class ends I walk up to Chef and explain how I won’t be able to taste everything because I keep kosher, how I know this puts me at a disadvantage but I plan on cooking/baking everything anyway. He seems chill about it, but there is no telling yet how handicap this will actually make me.

This just about sums up my first day. I hope to update you some more after my next couple of classes!

-Chef Baer