Tag: Culinary Arts

Your Options at Hand

The need for professional chefs has become popular in the modern world. People now have lesser time preparing meals at home and many mothers have now become essential parts of the corporate community which naturally consume the majority a mom’s time. People now also want meals that are professionally done. Further, eating is not just a fixed part of everyday living but had already become an indispensable part of social life. Thus, it is only natural that innumerable people have already realized the need for people who would specialize in preparing food using art.

Due to the above reasons, working as a chef is becoming a sought-after opportunity. And many people who have the innate talent of using creativity in cooking are now seeing lots of windows of opportunities in the world of culinary arts.

While it may not be possible to succeed in this world overnight, there are various avenues that you could take so that you could advance in this industry.

For most people, there are just three options. One is through climbing the ladder of culinary arts education, second is to become an apprentice of a professional chef and the third is to set up a restaurant and develop from there on.

Well, we all know that the third option is the road less traveled since not most of us have the money to establish a restaurant and learn from the experiences that this could incur. Besides, not all of us are perceptive and skilled enough to do both learning and establishing of a business at the same time. It would either be that the businessman wanting to become a chef in return would specialize in only one field. It would either be that he’ll focus on honing his skills alone or focus on the business part often restaurant and hire professional chefs to work for him. Both are satisfying enough but either one of the two has to be sacrificed.

Some world-class chefs though chose to start in their own kitchens. While there are large discrepancies in the setting of work as chef in fast-faced restaurants and small home kitchens, both could have their individual benefits that could help in training a person towards a career as chef.

Taking the option of educating oneself in culinary arts is normally the choice of people wanting to become a chef. Formal settings are applied and pedagogical structure of education is followed. There are various options in culinary arts education and each school might present its own system.

There are schools offering a Bachelors Degree in Culinary Arts, others may provide certificates on culinary arts education but there are other institutes that offer courses on Associate in Applied Sciences Culinary Arts. If you are truly serious and sure about pursuing a career in culinary arts, your best and fastest option is a bachelor’s degree. However, if you are just testing the grounds it is best to take short courses that could help you explore the world of culinary arts while not taking as much time from you.

There are also programs that could accommodate you if you cannot attend full-time classes. These would allow you to bend your schedule depending on your flexibility. Additionally, there are apprenticeship programs and on-the-job trainings that could also expose you to this industry.

Apprenticeship is also among the popular option. An informal education and training from a professional chef will put you on the more practical side of being a chef. You get to see the reality and you get real and on-the-spot trainings.

A job as a chef could be very grueling but any form of training could prepare you on the demanding task that this career might pose on you.

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.

The Process of Becoming a Pastry Chef

Want to make a name in the culinary arts industry? Well, you have several options and each of which require dedication, self-training and formal training and lots of creativity and love for food, more specifically pastries.

Pastries are not among the hardest to prepare and cook but they are not also the easiest to make. In short, they’re just somewhere in the middle. But this doesnt mean that you can be a pastry chef if you only have the “want”. Without the seriousness for work and the passion on what you are doing, becoming anything that is truly significant would be as hard as pushing a boulder uphill. If you are truly recognizing your need to become a pastry chef, we advise you to continue reading.

Know what you truly want to do
First you have ask yourself if you have the vocation. Cooking is not merely something one does to kill time or to express his love for exploring options on preparing for himself meals that he wants. It is also a vocation, a sort of a calling. As someone contemplating on this option, it is best that you recognize the need for self examination.

You will have to examine your intentions on entering in the world of the culinary arts. If you truly want to take things seriously, you will have to firmly decide what you intend to do. If you cannot establish your real plans, you might find yourself hanging at the end of the string, realizing that you have wasted time on something that you really dont want.

No one would stop you from becoming a pastry chef. It is just that there are lots of options out there both presented by the culinary arts industry and other industries. If you really want to become an expert in pastry preparation then apply for a course in culinary arts major in pastries. There are bachelor’s degrees, associate degrees and other minor degrees that you could choose from. Whichever way you want, be firm. Once you have begun your posit of career, you must decide not to stray away from it unless you have some good reason to support your decisions.

Train, train and train some more
Apart from your dedication on your chosen field, there is nothing that could equal your formal and informal training in relation to your becoming a pastry chef. Training could be vied as an educational aspect or it may be viewed as practical application of what you have learned in schools.

Training would not only let you use what you have learned but it would also help you perfect some components that lack fineness of delivery. After all, practice makes perfect, right?

While there may things that could not be perfected, you still have the option on taking things closer to perfection.

You would only spot your mistakes and imperfections through training. There are lots of pastry chefs who never stop training even after school hours. This training come in forms like preparing pastries at home, reading materials regarding pastries and observing people doing some pastry works. Any kind of training and practices could benefit a learner so long as he is attentive enough on both the essentials and the not-so-significant things that could be turned into specialties.

Discernment and training are crucial components of becoming a pastry chef. It is not all about cooking and preparation of ingredients after all, it is also about taking inward and outward steps that would deliver you from point A to the point B of your career.

The Different Requirements to Become a Chef

Becoming a chef is not really easy. If you have seen the show “Jamie’s Kitchen” then you might have an idea just what it takes to become a chef. People have to go through rigorous training and testing to know whether or not they really are qualified to become chefs. The requirements to become a chef go way beyond a degree in the culinary arts. Here are some of the requirements to become a chef that you may not know about:

1) Passion and hunger passion for food and for life is what is common in all chefs. After all, food is life. Food is the most tangible expression of artistry. In all forms of art, people are made to feel the artist’s emotions. In order to make the food truly delicious, you have to cook it with passion. This is the most basic requirement to become a chef.

Hunger is also needed. You need to be always hungry for challenges. This will help you throughout the rigorous training of becoming a chef. Once you are a chef, the only thing left to do is improve. You need hunger to make sure that the more experience you have, the better your cooking skills become. Passion and hunger have to work hand in hand to make sure that you learn how to cook and you never stop learning. These two requirements to become a chef are inseparable.

2) Efficiency many people tend to overlook this requirement to become a chef. What you need to know is that a chef makes use of raw materials in order to produce something that people will be willing to pay for. These raw materials cost money. A chef has to make sure that the materials used in creating dishes are not wasted in any way. This basic requirement to become a chef will help you make sure that you will get the maximum profit from your expenses.

Efficiency also has a lot to do with time. When working in a restaurant, a chef has to deal with the impatience of people. This means that a chef needs to be able to work quickly. This requirement to become a chef is also very important since most chefs are required to multi-task. You need to be able to manage people efficiently. Chefs are often shorthanded in the kitchen. You need to be efficient to make the most of what resources you have, including help.

3) Creativity not everything goes according to plan. Because of this fact, a basic requirement to become a chef is creativity. A chef must be able to make do with what’s available to him or her. A chef has to look at something and see a hundred different ways to use it in food. Creativity is required because chefs do not merely follow recipes but create them. A common requirement to become a chef in a restaurant is the ability to plan a menu. This means that you have to be able to come up with creative ways to present food.

4) Cleanliness since you will be handling food, a basic requirement to become a chef would be cleanliness. You need to make sure that the food you prepare will not pose any health hazards to your customers. One of the requirements to become a chef would be learning about germs and how to prevent them from invading the kitchen.

Hints to Becoming a Pastry Chef

If you want to become a pastry chef then you should know by now that it is not an easy road to travel. Here are some hints to help you become a pastry chef:

Examine yourself What do you know about making a pastry chef? In order to asses how much you have to learn to become a pastry chef, you need to learn where you stand. Examining yourself should reveal just how much you should learn and how much you want to learn about making pastry. Try to think about how much you want to become a pastry chef: is your desire enough to help you overcome the obstacles you have to face?

Get help If you want to learn how to become a pastry chef, then you should start looking for help. There are different areas you can turn to. Today, the internet provides people with most information about any topic. Through the internet, you will be able to find out what other people think you need to become a pastry chef. You will be able to explore the different meanings of pastry all over the world.

That’s right: meanings.

Some people may think of pastry as having types however, you should realize that all over the world, pastries do not have types. Instead, they have different interpretations according to culture and geographic location. This means that you will need to get the help of different people in order to even get yourself ready for the task of becoming a pastry chef.

You should also try to get books. Many people underestimate the capacity of books to impart knowledge but you should remember that you need every resource you can get in order to become a pastry chef. Besides, not every type of information can be found on the internet.

Train Every pastry chef has trained. What else are you going to do with all the information that you have gathered? In order to become a pastry chef, you need to either enroll in a baking class or apprentice yourself to an experienced pastry chef. Becoming a pastry chef is actually cheaper than training in other culinary arts, at least in terms of tuition.

What you need to understand, though, is that becoming a pastry chef mostly involves science. This is because precise measurements are needed to produce great pastry. It is also true that since pastries are usually made in batches, you need to make sure that each piece of the batch tastes the same with the others. This would make sure that the people eating the pastries would not be disappointed. You need to train your skills in order to truly master the science.

Improve and Innovate Of course, in order to become a pastry chef, you also need to understand the fact that there is art in it. People will get sick of eating the same type of pastry over and over again. You need to find ways to make your creations different. You can be subtle, you can be bold, but you have to be different! This is what it truly means to become a pastry chef. You should never be complacent that you have reached your peak. You need to constantly improve your skills in order to improve your creations.