Tag: Cooks

The Single Requirement to Become a Chef

Has it ever occurred to you that you might have been born to pursue a career in culinary arts? We all have our paths to take and each individual has his separate career to practice. You might have wanted to become a physician yet all roads seem to go nowhere near to it. Or, you might have been wanting to become an artist only to find out that years later, all you want to do is settle down in a monastery and live a spiritual life. There are lots of possibilities and each could propose the prospect of wasting the time you dont have.

Once you get the feeling that you want something then let go of the reins and pursue it, this might be your only chance. So if you are thinking of spending your fruitful years as a chef then do everything you could to be able to arrive to your desired destination.

The key here is commitment. Once you have committed yourself onto something, you are likely to succeed. Commitment is like the shepherd that will drive you towards your destination. It is like the fueling that would deliver you towards the goals you have set prior to your decision to pursue the career.

Without commitment, you would not even stand a few months of works. Being a chef is quite a task and it needs some endurance. One has to endure long hours of standing for preparation of dishes. You might start as a potato peeler or a dishwasher or anything but someone who is preparing the dishes.

And one thing is for sure- being a chef is a hard stuff. It takes lots and lots of dedication.

Education
You need commitment on education. Normally, college ends a person’s education life. After which, everything is about making fortune and making a name in a chosen industry. Your career as a chef however, will require you to attend schoolagain. Yes, either you choose a one-year, two-year or a bachelor’s course, there surely is one path ahead of you.

If dream of making yourself into an executive chef or as head cooks, it is important that you have a number of years of training and formal education. Training alone would not only require you to sweat-til-you-drop but would also require lots of patience and endurance.

Normally, apprenticeship or internship is required if you want to get hired in a priority position. However, if you choose to be employed as a cook or food preparation worker, training comes from everyday work and not specifically from formal educational settings.

Earnings
It is hard to survive a life of a chef if all you are after for is prestige and money. There is not much money in this industry unless you work for some high-end restaurant or if you are the host of a lifestyle program centering on foods.

The median hourly earning of an ordinary chef ranges anywhere from $9-$15, depending on the establishment you are working for.

On day to day basis
The daily life of a chef is pretty exhausting. He has to prepare, plan and create recipes. Personally plan all the ingredients and cook the recipe. Order food supplies on all other necessary supplies and estimate food requirements for specific periods.

If you think you cannot endure these hassles, it is best that you reconsider your options in becoming a chef. However if you have passion for food you’ve got enough endurance to get you going through the toil each day possess, you would only have to brace yourself into committing the best of your years in your career as chef.

Learning How to Become a Chef

In order to learn how to become a chef, you need to first learn about the definition of the word “chef”. Most people would define the word “chef” as someone who cooks professionally for a living. However, you should know that learning how to cook is not the only thing you should do in order to learn how to become a chef. In order to learn how to become a chef, you must learn how to define a chef by the way that he or she sees food.

For a chef, food is not merely seen as “good” or “bad”. In learning how to become a chef, you need to learn about the different factors that need to be in food. You need to learn how to take aroma, taste, texture, appearance and other factors into consideration when creating a dish. In order to truly learn how to become a chef, you need to learn how these factors combine to make something people will love.

In order to learn how to become a chef, you need to know the fact that there are different types of chefs. You need to realize that in order to truly become a great chef, you need to know who you are. You need to be able to focus your skills in a specific area in order to truly improve. Learning how to become a chef requires you to examine yourself and where your interests lie. This will help you determine which types of foods you specialize in.

There are a lot of people who try to become jack of all trades and learn to specialize in different types of dishes. However, in order to achieve mastery, you need to focus. There are a few chefs today who have mastered the art of cooking two or three types of cuisines. Even focusing on such few can be quite confusing since different styles of cooking require one to adjust his or her taste buds often.

In order to learn how to become a chef, you need to learn how to create your own dish. The difference between a chef and a cook is the fact that while a cook follows recipes, a chef creates them. You need to become innovative. In order to learn how to become a chef, you need to learn how to ask the question, What if?

You need to constantly explore different tastes and textures in order to find different ways to improve your cooking. Only by becoming innovative can you learn how to become a chef. Remember that becoming a chef does not end when you are employed. Becoming a chef is a lifetime task. In order to learn how to become a chef, you need to realize that there is no beginning and end to the task. Becoming a chef is a way. The journey is what defines you.

Learning how to become a chef also demands patience. There are people born with the natural talent for cookery but even these people need to study hard. This is because learning how to become a chef can be a difficult road to travail. Some people think that the stirring and slicing involved in cooking is not really that hard to do. But in order to learn how to become a chef, you need to understand that you won’t employ these skills occasionally; you will be stirring and slicing every day of your life. This means that you had better be patient with each task and learn how to do it properly and reflexively.

Education as a Requirement to Become a Chef

How does one become a chef? Many people have asked these and each may have different answers to offer.

A chef is the overseer of all the activities in a kitchen. He is the person that prepares, innovates and cooks food professionally. There are various types of chef careers that one could try looking into. But each has its own requirement. But central among them is- the love for food.

Without the capacity to create and innovate recipes, chefs would be turned into mere cooks. But even the cooks could be called chef if he is working professionally and he is the only one working in the kitchen since basically, chef is the French term for a chief. Thus, the chef in any kitchen is just the manager of every business occurring in it.

So, what are the paths towards becoming a chef?

Well, many would tell you to get educated in the industry of kitchen, garlic and Caesars Salad. You could start with a one-year program from a school that offers culinary arts. However, you also have the choice to enroll for a bachelor’s degree in culinary arts. Which ever way, your only real hope is to have a break or you might end up preparing gravies.

In formal education, you could further have options. Among the many are apprenticeship and institutional training. The latter delves deeper on study program while apprenticeship helps students learn by observing what and how professional chefs do it while being employed.

Apprenticeship seems to be the best option since it will not incur you to spend as much as with enrolling yourself into an institution. Plus you get the pleasure of observing people do some real great stuff like turning ordinary ingredient into extraordinary meals. Through observation, you will be able to really examine if you the vocation for cooking.

This kind of training will also expose you to the core actions of a chef’s life and give you the real element of hands-on experiences. This would also give you the standpoint between choosing if you truly want to pursue culinary arts as a career.

Any school on culinary arts would be able to help you get formal class studies and application. Be sure to check on the credentials of the instructors and the curriculum. Remember that you’ll be paying cash for them, it’s just proper that you get the other end of the bargain.

Your training and education could be your entry towards a chef’s career. It will arm you with tangible proofs of your proficiency in cooking and preparing food. But still, nothing beats passion on cooking and sheer love for food.

After school you will need to have some years of experiences. You might start as a dishwasher or as a help on the executive chef. You might even have tasks such as preparation of utensils or peeling and cutting ingredients.

But that doesnt matter since all you need is to survive this stage. This must not discourage you from pursuing your course of life. Instead, look at these experiences as extra trainings that will help you find better-paying jobs afterwards. This hard training will hone you more to become resolute in pursuing careers.

After years of dealing with this kind of life, you can now actually move into the real business of a chef. As you move up the ladder, you will take with you the education you earned from formal training and apprenticeship, hardwork and achievement.

Be Inspired, Become a Celebrity Chef!

Whoever in the world does not appreciate a well-cooked food? Do you know that those cuisines that you have fallen in love with in the fancy restaurants are prepared and cooked by the well-equipped chefs? It feels utterly significant to you that people appreciate and in fact love your cooking. Now who has the right to become chefs themselves? Who deserves to enjoy the feeling of being appreciated and revered? Everybody does! And if someone has the talent for cooking, definitely he could officially become a certified chef.

Who ever thought that being in the limelight is all what the celebrities could be good at? There are a lot of celebrities who have other careers to busy themselves with. Many of them have long realized that they could excel in other areas and one of which is in the cooking arena. Yes, many of today’s actors, actresses, and directors are in fact good cooks. They have their own specialties as well. Moreover, some of them have taken the right path and have landed themselves in the reputations of great celebrity chefs. Among them are Julia Child, Alton Brown and Wolfgang Puck.

What are the components of becoming a great celebrity chef? They could be the combination of proper timing, talent, strong personality, dependable education, and the will to excel in the field.

One of the best schools, the CHIC or Cooking and Hospitality Institute of Chicago is aimed at preparing the learners in handling several careers that are related to the culinary arts by the use of the influences on food preparation in the areas of the traditional, Midwest, American, and the European settings. Let us take a look at the celebrated great celebrity chefs of all time.

Julia Child lived in the outskirts of Marseilles and Paris right after the Second World War. It was in this time when she took interest in learning the French culinary arts. She took classes at the Le Cordon Bleu and cooked for her family and friends. Her focus was on mystery meats and casserole so the Americans loved her craft.

Alton Brown basically grew up assisting his grandmother and mother in the kitchen. He found a career as a video director and cinematographer but because of his passion for foods, he came up with a niche to expose his culinary knowledge. Now, he is the host of Good Eats of the Food Network.

Wolfgang Puck is a restaurateur whose name could be spotted in several malls. His Franco-Californian attack on food recipes has definitely warmed the hearts of millions of food lovers. He started mastering the culinary arts at fourteen.

There are great differences between the educations received by these well-known celebrity chefs but they agree at one point and that is in terms of sharing a similar passion and the drive to share that passion to the rest of the world. These great celebrity chefs encourage the budding chefs out there to only believe that they could excel in other aspects of life and that learning could not only be confined in one shell.

Becoming a celebrity chef is not a dream that would be hard to fulfill. Equipped with the right components, attitude, and point of view in life, you could also gain a credible reputation for yourself. It is a matter of faith in yourself!

Rachel Ray Cooking – You Can Do It

Rachel Ray cooking is a type of cooking that even a brand new cook can manage. And rather than just end up with something okay, even a new cook can get awesome results right away. That’s because Rachel Ray’s recipes are designed to be easy and fast.

Her 30 Minute Meals is a top television show. It rocketed her to stardom, first on the Food Network as a chef, and then as a product spokesperson, magazine publisher and talk show host. It seems that everyone likes Rachel Ray, and even if they don’t, they know who she is.

There are dozens of top chefs who have shows on the Food Network. They all have best-selling cookbooks, their own cooking tools, their own food items and other things that they sell. All these chefs specialize in something.

One is an expert on making foods for parties, while another cooks down-home Southern food. Other shows demonstrate exotic European recipes. And Rachel Ray’s shows feature recipes that anyone at home can make without needing to go to specialty shops or take cooking lessons.

There’s no one type of food you’ll be cooking with Rachel Ray. She demonstrates Italian foods, American specialties like cheeseburgers, sandwiches, salads, Greek Food and almost every type of food. The only thing she specializes in is recipes that are delicious and easy to make.

Something that attracts people to her show is the ability to create a great meal in just a half an hour. It’s certainly not impossible to make your own meal in 30 minutes. Especially if you open boxes and cans and only have to add a few ingredients to the pre-packaged items.

But this is far from a healthy way to eat. And by Rachel Ray’s advice, if you read the label and can’t pronounce something on it, you probably should not be eating it. Her recipes feature natural foods that you’re familiar with and probably already buy.

Since she feels this way, her 30 minute recipes have ingredients that are all basic and healthful. And by using her recipes to make great meals, you won’t have to deal with harmful additives and the tons of sodium and fat found in pre-packaged foods.

Even in her recipes that might call for a jarred or canned ingredient, it’s easy to make sure it’s super healthy. Just choose the brand with the most natural ingredients. If the recipe calls for prepared pasta sauce, for instance, choose an organic brand, or at least one without things like high-fructose corn syrup and hydrogenated oils.

Rachel Ray’s cooking certainly won’t call for ingredients like that. And a great side benefit of following her 30 minute meals is that you get trained to do it on your own. After you’ve been following her recipes for a while, you’ll have your own ideas.

You may suddenly see how to turn a complicated recipe into something simpler, and faster to prepare. So while it’s fun to watch Rachel Ray cooking on TV, you’ll soon be making your own 30 minute meals without even looking at her recipes.