Re: chefs

Oh believe me Jim there are cooking schools all over the state including at
our local JC.  My only point was that if you are looking for a top notch
school with almost immediate appointment to a fine restaurant you need to go
to one of the top schools.  Same if you are a budding attorney looking to
hook up with a high powered office you need to go to Harvard etc.

Some of the best cooks I ran into never went to school at all.  They grew up
in the business...the long road.  They understood what the business was like
and payed their tuition in sweat.  They are my favorites...typically down to
earth without the airs so common in school trained chefs.

Beef Wellington is my wife's favorite as well.  I make it for her and the
rest of the family every year at Christmas.  Now however they will be
outlawing the force feeding of geese so where will my froi gras come from?

David Franzman
A Touch of the Tropics
www.atouchofthetropics.net
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "james singer" <jsinger@igc.org>
To: <gardenchat@hort.net>
Sent: Thursday, May 20, 2004 3:33 PM
Subject: Re: [CHAT] chefs


> David knows best because he's been there. But...
>
> There are two junior colleges I am aware of in California that have
> chef prep schools and restaurants. One of the schools is Delta
> Community College in Stockton [I took some computer courses at Delta
> and ate in the restaurant whenever my schedule jibed]. At least one of
> its graduates, David Smith, opened a fantastic restaurant in Stockton.
> Maybe the best rack of lamb I ever had.
>
> The other school is in, I believe, Columbia. Up in the Sierra
> foothills. The school has not only a restaurant, but an inn. It also
> has an exemption from the state's alcohol server legal requirement that
> says waitpersons PC for waiter] must be 21 to serve wine. Teens can
> serve wine in this school's restaurant.
>
> I had one of the best five or ten meals of my life there. Even as I was
> having a major marital discombobulation with wife number two, the beef
> Wellington was fantastic. [She thought so, too, incidentally.]
>
>
> On Thursday, May 20, 2004, at 02:14 PM, David Franzman wrote:
>
> > Melody, the restaurant business is another one of those of the haves
> > and
> > have nots.  If you have noticed the cost of going to lunch has changed
> > very
> > little in 20 years or so and wages have remained pretty stagnant as
> > well.
> > The quickest way to the top of the food chain is through one of the
> > elite
> > (and very expensive) schools such as the Cordon Bleu in NY or the
> > California
> > Culinary Academy in SF.  I'm sure you have some in the Midwest but
> > these are
> > the cream of the crop.  The students do the assigned work for the
> > prescribed
> > amount of time, a year and a half I believe, and then do years
> > apprenticing
> > behind top chefs in the field.  Hopefully if the pupil is creative and
> > is
> > willing to work 10-12 hours a day six days a week they will make a
> > name for
> > themselves and then break loose and be offered a restaurant that they
> > will
> > then be top dog.
> >
> >
> Island Jim
> Southwest Florida
> Zone 10
> 27.0 N, 82.4 W
>
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