Sunday, September 12, 2010

Rachael teaches herself to cook in 6 months or less

I want to learn to cook, learn the fundamentals.  Last night I watched Anthony Bourdain prance around Paris in his 100th episode and pretty much all around blow my mind.  One of the chefs who accompanied him talked briefly of the difficulties of success in this business.  He commented that without the fundamentals to build upon real success is harder to achieve. And then I started to think, this is the stage of my life where I decide if a cooking career is for me and it won't last forever. Sooner rather than later I'm going to have to make the decision if I will stay in food or if I will leave it. Similarly, I am a firm believer that success can be awarded through your own initiative, with or without school. While maybe I would thrive more at an institution, maybe I wouldn't.   Maybe the two years spent purchasing an introduction to cooking could be accomplished while being paid, working, and self education. Maybe? Right now I'm betting on the latter. Chef says that most culinary students don't actually know anything. I believe that smart people in school come out with a wealth of knowledge and connections, though much of this is accomplished through drive. Other people grasp some of the concepts and skills but overall spend too much for an education that goes in one ear and out the other.

As I feel the omnipresent voices in the back of my head nagging me to earn money and pick a career (or could this be mother?), I'm giving myself 6 months to be a full blown foodie to the max.  I'll be doing weekly or bi-weekly homework: self-assigned, researched, executed, and turned in on the blog. I need more than anything to push myself to give a career in cooking a fair shot. I must know that I did everything feasible at this time, where it is most appropriate, where food consumes my life. Whether I decide to stay in food or leave, this séjour will stick with me forever and I will definitely look back smiling with a warm heart on the good times and the rough times involved in this experience: on finally mastering the cheesecake, getting proposed to over a tasty Steelhead, chopping off my thumb, feeling the heat on the line, engaging with people I would have otherwise not had the opportunity to meet, and overall busting my ass. I won't regret one scar.