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 9th. 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.
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