The Last Two Years, Part II

So now we are in the summer of 2008. The club was busier than I had ever seen it. Chef Michael was told by the general manager that there was enough money in the budget to hire another person in our kitchen. When I found this out, clearly I applied for the position and vocalized my desire to be a paid member of the staff to Michael. I had been working at the club for over eight months. I spent more time in the kitchen than any of the paid staff. I didn’t mind. I know that I had to pay my dues and work my way up. That’s what apprenticeships are for: to learn and to be abused. I get it. But I had been completely and utterly financially dependent upon my dad for the entire time I worked there. He had to pay for everything, as I had no income. I really wanted the paying job. Now, other people had applied for the position as well. However, I know that Michael had more than one conversation with the manager trying to get me hired. After an interview process, did the general manager decide to hire me, a person who was already fully trained and excelling at the job? No. They decided to hire Tho, a thirty-something year-old man who came from white collar business jobs, who had never worked in a professional kitchen and needed to be trained from scratch. Clearly, I’m all for taking a chance on a neophyte; It’s what Michael did for me. But, seriously? They had somebody more than qualified right in front of their faces, and they turned me down because I was already there, working for free. Hiring him gave them more help in the kitchen but without added cost. This is when I learned my second big lesson about restaurants: They will do whatever they can to turn a profit, even if it means screwing over a dedicated employee.

Here’s the kicker, though. When Tho started, they didn’t give him to Abbey, Allison, Erick, or Michael to train. No No. They gave him to me to train. I couldn’t have been more insulted. The job that I deserved was given to a man who had never even made a vinaigrette was given to me to train. It was after a few days of him asking what a roma tomato is, disappearing during service, and taking rather long bathroom breaks when it was time to clean at the end of the night that I decided it was time to leave The Hawthorns. I talked with Michael at length about the experience and he agreed with me. It was insulting to me and the abilities that I had developed. Basically, I had been screwed over and Michael thought so, too. We agreed that I would finish out the next two weeks and then I would move on.

So, After leaving Hawthorns at the end of July 2008, I needed a job. Now, of course it would have made sense to look for a job in a restaurant, but as my dad put it, “what’s the big hurry?”. I was going to be working on restaurants for the rest of my life, so why not take a job that’s easy and where I can make some quick money. So, I decided to go back to both The Children’s Museum and The Indianapolis Rowing Center. I taught kids about dinosaurs and coached rowers for the next few months. Perhaps it was not the wisest thing that I had ever done. They are both jobs that I love and am so comfortable in. I could very much see myself as a high school teacher and coach for the rest of my life. I got nervous. What if I really didn’t want to cook? What if I was meant to be a teacher? I once again had a heart-to-heart with my parents and we decided that I would try out The Culinary School at Ivy Tech Community College to see if it was right for me.

I enrolled for the spring semester and took a few introductory classes: Basic Food Theory and Skills, Nutrition, Sanitation and First Aid, and Introduction to Baking. I was a little worried at first. If you are from Indy, you know that Ivy Tech does not exactly have the best reputation. I, however, was pleasantly surprised. I loved my instructors. They were all very accomplished chefs and had some really cool experiences to share with their students. Basic Food Theory and Skills was kind of a joke. It was all the stuff that I had learned in the first few weeks at Hawthorns. We learned the 12 basic knife cuts, how to make the mother sauces, how to deconstruct a chicken, how to make stock…the basics. I would always get my work done way ahead of the rest of the class and then get stuck doing everybody’s dishes while I waited for them to finish. Nutrition was surprisingly fascinating. The instructor that I had was so incredibly knowledgeable about both professional cooking and nutrition. We learned all about specific foods and the nutrients they posses. The best part of the class was getting to modify recipes to make them more nutritious. It was so much fun getting to experiment with the ingredients in order to keep taste and flavor, but decrease fat and add nutrients. At the end of the semester, we took an exam and I am now certified in Nutrition from the National Restaurant Association… kind of a big deal. Sanitation was also kind of a cool class. It seems twisted, but I really enjoyed learning about all the diseases and pathogens that can be transferred through improperly prepared or cooked food. By far, my favorite class that semester was Introduction to Baking. Before entering the class I had a huge fear of yeast. Don’t laugh… I know… but honestly, that stuff is intimidating. You have to treat it just right or you can kill it or over grow it. I learned so much in that class every week. It was basically a survey of all things baking. Here is just a fraction of the things we made in that class: biscuits, scones, muffins, coffee cake, dinner rolls, Pullman loaves, wheat bread, sourdough bread, baguettes, focacia, brioche, challah, pain de campagne, chocolate chip cookies, gingerbread, blueberry pie, apple pie, chess pie, pumpkin pie, lemon meringue pie, lemon cream pie, chocolate cream pie, crème brulee, pots de crème, saboynee, puff pasty, Danish, basque cake, chiffon cake, genoise cake, American buttercream, swiss buttercream, and croissants. I not only got over my fear of yeast, I actually really enjoy working with bread dough now.

While taking these classes and working at the museum, I decided that culinary school was indeed the right choice for me and I had not wasted the past two years of my life. In February, I sent in my final application to the CIA. During finals week at Ivy Tech in the middle of May, I got my acceptance letter. I had been accepted to the Bachelors of Culinary Arts and Management program at the Hyde Park, NY campus of The Culinary Institute of America. A few weeks later, I found out that I would be starting on November 9^th. So many of my friends and family want to know what culinary school is like and what kinds of things I will be doing, I decided the best way was to crate a blog that you guys could check at your leisure. So please, check back often, especially starting in November when I plan on updating about every other day.

That pretty much catches us up to right now. I have kept working at the museum four days a week. I’m trying to make as much pocket money as I can because I don’t want to have to ask my parents to pay my incidentals while they already are paying my $30,000 tuition (thanks, Dad!). I also won’t have the opportunity to work over summers since the CIA is year round. I predict that I should graduate sometime in the early Fall of 2011. I would love to hear from you all about how your lives are going and what you have been up to. Feel free to send me an e-mail at bgchandler2@gmail.com or hit me up on Facebook.

The Last Two Years, Part I

So, it’s no secret that I am not exactly the best at keeping in contact with people. I am very sorry. Because of this fact, I bet many of you are wondering what I have been up to for the past two years. Well, let’s start in September 2007…


In September 2007 I started looking for an apprenticeship in a kitchen. I had some trouble finding something appropriate, so I started coaching at the Indianapolis Rowing Center. It was wonderful being back at the boathouse and being able to pass along my passion and knowledge to the Novice Girls. I was there five evenings a week, and on the weekends I traveled with the team to regattas. I filled my days by sending out letters and cold calling restaurants. I was willing to work whenever they needed me and work for free, so I thought it would be easy. Turns out, I was wrong. This is when I learned my first culinary lesson: use the connections that you have. A friend of my step-dad’s, Steve Peters, is a member at a country club just north of Indianapolis named The Hawthorns. The Executive Chef at The Hawthorns was Chef Michael Powell who is also a graduate of the CIA. Steve told me about Chef Michael and told him that I would be calling.


At the end of the rowing season, the last week of October, I called Chef Michael. Thankfully, he sounded interested and willing to take on an apprentice. Later that week, I went into The Hawthorns Golf and Country Club for a face-to-face meeting and a day of trailing the chef. I spent my first afternoon in a professional kitchen watching Chef Michael and Sous Chef Erick Freeman prepare a ten course tasting menu for a Wine and Food Society dinner the next day. Then the chef asked me to help him. I was so nervous and so excited all at the same time. I will never forget, the very first thing I did in a kitchen was shred ten pounds of sweet potato on a box grater. I also rubbed ribs with a spice mix, trussed racks of lamb, and did mise en place for crème anglaise. At the end of the evening, I talked to Michael and was invited back the next night. That next evening, I was in complete and total amazement. I watched all the food that was prepped the day before become a ten course meal for twenty people. I was also given the honor of tasting all the courses. I tasted things like pumpkin and sweet potato dumplings in beef consume, lamb lollipops in a cherry and vinegar reductions, and frangipan pastries with an oatmeal anglaise sauce. I was given the task of wiping down the rims of plates before they were taken out. I was honored that I, as a 19 year old boy with zero kitchen experience, was even allowed to touch the finished plates. This night, the kitchen that this was being prepared in was also busy with Friday night dinner service in the bar and restaurants that the kitchen serves. I was in awe. I watched the three line cooks, who later became some of my best friends, pound out about one hundred covers. They moved so qucickly and with so much purpose. There were five cooks in the kitchen, one dishwasher, three club managers, three bussers, four banquet servers, three restaurant serves, and five bar serves, and me. The kitchen was hot with the heat from seven convection ovens, 40-some burners, two salamanders, two gas deep-fryers, one grill, three warming ovens, four hot food windows, and two broilers. It was chaotic and full of loud voices. Tensions were high and the pressure was on. I left that night exhausted from just watching and hotter that I had ever been. I knew this life was for me.


I talked to the chef the next week and he and I were both interested in starting an apprenticeship. I was to shop up the next Wednesday and get everything sorted out. At first, there was lots of confusion because the HR woman was nervous about taking on unpaid staff. I had to write and sign several statements about not seeking payment and take a drug test before I could start in the kitchen. When that was all done, I officially began my culinary education. On that Friday afternoon, I was given a locker and a set of chef’s jackets. I went up to the kitchen and was assigned a knife and a prep area. I got a brief introduction on how to set up a station and basic sanitation form sous Chef Erick. I then made 200 mini cheeseburger sliders for a kids buffet later that night. I was assigned to the Head Line Cook in the main kitchen, Abbey Houston. She answered the millions of questions I had about the sliders and then I spent most of service watching her cook. I learned the basics of how to set up a grill, oil it up, and keep track of what piece of meat has been on the grill for how long. You may think that the cross-hatches are there for visual appeal. You are wrong. They are there to help the Grill Cook. They next day I was assigned to help and learn from Allison Campbell, the Garde Manger Cook in the main kitchen. It was in this position that I would stay for the next five months.


Every day when I came into the kitchen, I would stop by the Chef’s office and look at the BEO’s (Banquet and Events Orders) for the day and upcoming days. Then I would meet with Allsion and talk about what we needed to accomplish that day. The main kitchen, where we worked, was responsible for three main tasks. We did all of the work for the banquets, parties, and events that the country club hosted. We also served the fine dining restaurant at the club, The Overlook. Finally, we served the bar at the club, The Players Lounge, which also had a full menu. The total number of cooks for this kitchen: three (four, if you include me). Granted, we sometimes received help from Michael and Erick, but not often. They were kept busy with bureaucratic issues and paperwork. Basically, the four of us were damn busy all the time. While working with Allison, I learned more than I could possibly remember every day. I learned how to do the mise en place for our station, which included assorted knife cuts on over 40 different types of produce, how to make 10 different salad dressings, 13 sauces, the fabrication of our meats and seafoods, as well as 4 new and different desserts and 2 soups every week. She and I, as the Garde Manger Station, were responsible for every soup, salad, sandwich, appetizer, and dessert that the kitchen sent out to the two restaurants and all the banquets. I was over whelmed. After I started getting the hang of the mise en place (or all of our prep work), Allison started showing me how she work the line. “Working the line” is what a cook does when they are cooking the food that is being ordered in a restaurant. I learned how to plate all of our salads, cook all of our appetizers, serve the soups, make the sandwiches, make set-ups for burgers, plate our deserts, manage my time, be efficient, and most importantly work with the other cooks on the line to time our tickets properly.


I went home every night at around 11 or midnight just bursting with excitement. I made notes of what I had learned that day and wrote down any recipes that were interesting to me. I couldn’t stop thinking about food. All my family heard about was the food I made the night before, or how many carrots I had julienned for a banquet, or how Chef Michael showed me how to make a perfect braised short rib. I was absolutely in love with the life of a cook. I was surrounded by my passion, food. I was working from noon-11pm, Wednesday through Sunday. I went home cut, burned, bandaged, and exhausted. Sweat covered my face and grease covered my pants and shoes, but I loved it. I was sure that I had made the right decision.


After a busy December, filled with holiday parties and events and packed nights in the Overlook and Players’ Lounge and more work than I have done in my entire life, the club shut down for the month of January. I enjoyed some time off and was able to move into my dad’s house. The move shaved more than an hour of my daily commute. Early in December, our sauté cook, Francisco, quit and got a job elsewhere. This had left a hole in our kitchen that Erick had helped to fill in until we came back in February. Well, the chefs had a surprise for me and Allison when we returned. Allison was promoted to Grill Cook. Abbey was promoted from grill to Sauté Cook, and I was given the Garde Manger station all by myself. Chef Michael himself told me that he had faith in me and knew that I could handle it. I have never been so proud of myself in my entire life. I couldn’t wait to tell my parents and friends. I was now a cook….a real cook. Yes, I was still an unpaid apprentice, but I was no longer just an assistant. I had my own station. I alone was responsible for my produce orders, making sure I was prepped for service, filling BEO’s and keeping up with dinner service every night.


Things stayed like this for the next few months. Abbey, Allison, and I would pound out freakish amounts of delicious food every day. I continued to learn. I got faster all the time. When I first started on my station in November, it would take about 6 hours to do all my knife work on produce. By April, I could do it in about 2.5 hours. I could grind though all my tickets during service. I gained a muscle memory of where each and every ingredient for each and every item was. I never had to look; I just knew. I fell in love with the rush that comes when you are ten tickets deep and new item keep printing, you have seven sauté pans going, three baskets in the fryer, and two items finishing in the oven, yet you are still able to keep a clear mind and turn out perfect plates. I knew I had made the right decision and started my life as a cook.


As summer was approaching, the club started to get busier. It is here that my story takes a bit of a turn and gets confusing and a bit upsetting. This post is long enough, so I will leave you with this for now. I will write and upload part II tomorrow.

The big decision

Below is a copy of a letter that I sent out to all of my friends from Le Moyne College when I decided to leave and try to go to the CIA. It kind of explains why I made the decision I did and makes a few apologies to friends. To date, leaving those people is the hardest thing I have had to do.
Dear Loved Ones,

As many of you know, I have been interested in going to culinary school since I was a junior at Brebeuf Jesuit. As many of you may also know, I have been planning on going to culinary school as soon as I graduated from Le Moyne. Well, those plans have changed a little. I can no longer logically put off my burning passion for the culinary arts. This fall (the fall of 2007) I will start my culinary education. Unfortunately, this means that I will not be returning to Le Moyne College. Starting at the end of August, I will begin my quest to enroll at the Culinary Institute of America (CIA), the country’s most prestigious, longest running, and rigorous culinary education institution.

I will begin by finding a job in a kitchen. In order to enroll at the CIA, I must first have six months of experience in a working live-prep kitchen. During these six months I will also be taking classes at Ivy Tech State College in the Hospitality Management division. These introductory classes will give me the basics necessary for both the kitchen job and enrollment at the CIA. It’s going to be a hard year, but I know that it will all pay off when I start at the CIA in the Fall of 2008. I will then attend the CIA for another four years to receive a Bachelors of Professional Studies in the Culinary Arts. This degree from the CIA is recognized all over the world as proof of the best cooking education in North America.

Let me tell you all how hard it has been to make this decision. I have been interested in the CIA for years, but thinking about this decision since the end of May. Le Moyne is my home. It is just as much a part of me as Indianapolis. I have learned more about life and grown more in my one year on The Heights than I have in all of my 19 years of life. I have never had to make a decision harder than this. The thought of leaving all of the wonderful people I know….my best friends in the world….is incredibly hard. I know I will miss all of you like crazy. It’s not that I am no longer interested in Peace and Global Studies or French, it’s just that I need to follow my passion. All of you who are close to me know that I feel like people who have jobs they don’t enjoy or refuse to takes risks to be happy are not truly living. I need to cook. It’s in my blood. I live, eat, breath, and dream about food. I need to follow this passion.

I would also like to apologize. I am so sorry to the people I am leaving at LMC. I love all of you so much and I know my life this year will be so different without all of you. I am especially sorry to the housemates of Townhouse 302, especially Bill. I know this leave all of you in a precarious situation. I hope they do not assign you a new housemate. You guys are awesome, though. I know you will figure it out. A very big “I’m sorry” goes out to Becky, Ben, James, Jenn, and Andrew. You are the five people who have touched me the most this past year. The thought of not spending the next few years with you is making me cry as I write. Please, all of you, try to understand that this is really what I want and what I need to do for myself. I will not loose contact with you and I plan on making as many trips to Syracuse as I can. The CIA is just an hour from NYC and 3.5 hours from Syracuse.

I would like to talk to you all about this. Please feel free to call me. In fact, I encourage all my LMC friends to let me know when you read this, as it affects all of you the most. So Dolphins, put a comment here or write on my wall or send a message to let me know that you have read this. This is going to be very hard for me, so I thank you in advance for your support as I transition.