If you see me around town these days, odds are that I’ll be doing one of four things: running down to SoHo for school, hurrying home from school to take a pre-internship nap, rushing as fast as my feet can carry me to the Brooklyn restaurant where I’m a pastry intern (although, if you’re up at 5 AM and you’re not a baker, what the heck are you doing up so early?), or dragging myself home post shift. Rinse, wash, repeat.
Yeah, I’m tired, but I’m loving ever single minute of it. I’ve also been a slacker about blogging, even though I have probably a dozen new dishes to share. I’ll get better at time management on my new, glamourous schedule, but for now, I thought you might be interested in seeing a few of the things I’ve done in school, as told in pictures snapped on my camera phone.
Some of this stuff may look a bit unusual to you if you’re not French. My cooking school teaches cooking by employing classic French technique, which gives chefs the backbone for expanding upon all other cuisine. I sometimes get frustrated when I’m piping whipped cream onto the back of a puff pastry swan, because I’m not likely to ever make a puff pastry swan outside of school, until I stop and realize, wow, my piping is really improving, because making swans require four different types of piping that all need to be done in different ways.
Anyhow, the schedule is the only thing about this experience that I’m hating, but I’ll be back to diligently posting soon. Now, I’m late for school and gotta run to the Pastry I classroom, where I’ll be rolling out sheets of 1,000 layer puff pastry all night!
4 Comments
those swans are so cute- very lovely piping.
everything looks great.
I’m not a sweets person but I could dive into something there.
How do you like it at FCI? I’ve been debating about enrolling for the past year and a half but it would be hard to swing with working full time and living about an hour train ride away.
Janine – The FCI has its ups and downs. A lot of it depends on the teachers that you get; their enthusiasm for teaching (or lack thereof) and their skill level can make or break your experience. I’ve had some awesome chefs and some lazy, disorganized ones and it makes all the difference.
Also, you have to be extremely self-motivated to get something out of the program. If you don’t push yourself to read books outside of class, work efficiently, ask questions, the whole experience can coast by and you can wind up coming out on the other end with exposure to a lot of things without really understanding the science behind them – which gives you the common sense and wisdom to become a chef down the road. For me, career services has been the biggest benefit – they are hugely helpful and the reason I chose to go to school in the first place. I could not have gotten in the door at the places I’ve been interning at my age without them.
Before you lay out the bucks to go to cooking school, I strongly urge you to try to intern in a restaurant first (or bakery, or for a caterer, or whatever you goal may be). Cooking school is expensive and there are many chefs out there who learned on the job, without ever setting foot in a culinary school. I don’t mean to sound discouraging, but it’s a lot of money, so make sure that what you think you want is really what you get.
The FCI and ICE both have night programs. I’m in class with a lot of people who work at corporate jobs and commute home for an hour to Jersey. They make it work, so it’s not impossible.
Hope that helps – I could go on and on…
Aw, that stuff looks so familiar. Just a few months ago I was making it! The excellent career services at the FCI is one of the things that hooked me, too, and I got an EXCELLENT internship (which I’ve since left for my first job) at a hot new restaurant through them. Very supportive, helpful people in that office.