There's No Crying in Culinary School

It’s Saturday morning at 7 am. I’ve had my second cup of coffee and running around my apartment checking for the 8th time to see if I’ve packed my complete uniform. Chef’s jacket, hound’s tooth pants, skull cap, name tag, apron, 3 side towels, over-ankle socks, and clogs. I ironed my uniform and checked everything last night but you can never be too sure.

I arrive 45 minutes early. I drop off my homework in Sue Baldassano’s mailbox, and walk straight upstairs to my locker and begin to change. Uniforms can only be worn inside school. So yes, if I need to skip out for coffee or some late afternoon snack, I need a wardrobe change.

Again, the outfit isn’t so hot, but this time I’m in a room full of people that look as unappealing in their uniform as I do. I take the same seat at orientation and wait for the rest of the crowd to trickle into the classroom. I’m not the first person to arrive. There’s a few people who commute from upstate and Massachusetts. Perhaps they don’t have culinary schools there, or perhaps it’s a testament to NGI.

Our first Chef Instructor comes in, Barbara Rich. She looks cool with a wrist tattoo and hints of a larger one on her upper arm. I immediately notice that she’s darted her Chef’s jacket. Sweet.

She begins by giving us a little background on her culinary experience. She's been in the culinary world for 20 years and was a former instructor at the Art Institute, now closing. Maybe they lied to people so much about their “part-time” program that they had to close.

Then she begins her tough-love speech. Coming from Catholic school, I love this stuff. She begins by saying that she will unequivocally bust our asses. That the culinary industry, specifically the restaurant world, is a tough place. You get yelled at, you’re busy, you’re hot, you’re tired, and you’re sweaty. She wants to prepare us and wants to ensure that we don’t take any of her ball-busting personally. So there. There’s no crying in culinary school. I heart her.

We start the day with a sanitation lecture. Going through the many possibilities of food intoxication and infection. It’s so gross; I’ll save you the details. Just that if you see a swelled can of mushrooms in the grocery store don’t choose that one. Or off to botulism you go.

Then we meet our knife kit. I hear church bells and see animated forest animals around my knife kit. I love it. There’s the French knife, the Japanese knife, pairing knife, steel, stone, and a bunch of other things that make you feel like you’re a blacksmith. I know there’s no crying in culinary school, but I get tingles up my spine. I must give her a name.

I’ve heard this before, but start to realize how truly physical being a chef is. How you use your body is supremely important. I prepare to begin slicing by making sure my weight is evenly distributed between both legs, my posture is straight, my shoulders are relaxed and I’m looking above the food not across from it. There’s an automatic sense of reverence when you realize how sharp your knife is. I grip the handle and imagine how this instrument will become an extension of my body. But I’m not there yet.

We learn the salad slice, sauté slice, chiffonade, julienne, dice and mince. Then we identify the different names of pots and pans, sauté, sautoire, stock pot… and other fantastically fun equipment like the robotcoupe (pronounced ro-bo-coo). She puts a frozen banana in a juicer, and turns it into a sorbet. It’s so good it almost makes me like show tunes.

It’s a good day. I’m ecstatic and decide to grab some lasagna from the West Side Market and open a bottle of champagne.