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Though not Ham related...
- Thread starter Peter Walker
- Start date
I love cooking, but I don't really call myself a chef.
Buying fresh, fresh, fresh and finding a local butcher are probably the two best things anyone can do.
Buying fresh, fresh, fresh and finding a local butcher are probably the two best things anyone can do.
My daughter started culinary school and had a very bad experience. The chef who was supposed to be teaching these kids spent more time shopping and running errands than she did in the lab or class room. I went rounds with the Dean, but he apparently he felt had no choice but to keep this chef on.
Now she is in business school and then is going back to a different culinary school. She wants to be a pastry chef in the end. She'd like to open a little bistro style coffee shop/bakery someday. A lot of small town America lost their downtown commerce to huge malls, but are trying to revitalize them and she'd like to set up shop there.
I've always had a knack I guess. A lot of people follow recipes, but I just throw stuff together and it makes my wife mad, lol. I can determine what flavor I'm looking for in a meat or soup or sauce and just "get there". I think most people would do better if they loosened up and stopped trying to follow recipes to the "T".
I watched my Grandma just throw stuff together, and she taught my Mom. We had set meal times growing up, and if you missed dinner, it could be found in the fridge, not on a plate in the oven. So I learned to fend for myself early on, hehe, I mean who could be bothered with coming inside to eat growing up? There were way more important things for teenage boys to do than eat!
I'm not a big fan of TV, but I do watch History, NatGeo or Fox News sometimes, and I like watching Alton Brown and his scientific approach on cooking.
Now she is in business school and then is going back to a different culinary school. She wants to be a pastry chef in the end. She'd like to open a little bistro style coffee shop/bakery someday. A lot of small town America lost their downtown commerce to huge malls, but are trying to revitalize them and she'd like to set up shop there.
I've always had a knack I guess. A lot of people follow recipes, but I just throw stuff together and it makes my wife mad, lol. I can determine what flavor I'm looking for in a meat or soup or sauce and just "get there". I think most people would do better if they loosened up and stopped trying to follow recipes to the "T".
I watched my Grandma just throw stuff together, and she taught my Mom. We had set meal times growing up, and if you missed dinner, it could be found in the fridge, not on a plate in the oven. So I learned to fend for myself early on, hehe, I mean who could be bothered with coming inside to eat growing up? There were way more important things for teenage boys to do than eat!
I'm not a big fan of TV, but I do watch History, NatGeo or Fox News sometimes, and I like watching Alton Brown and his scientific approach on cooking.
Have you read Anthony Bordain's "Kitchen Confidential" yet? Good read. I love to cook at home and can't stand celebrity Chefs. Hope you're not becoming a chef because of shows lke Top Chef and Chopped. I read that people are doing that and winding up $50,000+ in debt from cooking academies working minimum wage jobs after "chef" school and then realizing they were taken for a ride. MOst are now line cooks in bankruptcy.
On the brighter side...tomorrow..I'm making braised lamb shanks served over jasmine rice with a wine sauce reduction.
Good luck with school my friend.
On the brighter side...tomorrow..I'm making braised lamb shanks served over jasmine rice with a wine sauce reduction.
Good luck with school my friend.
@359 - I'm sorry to hear she didn't have a good go it the first time. Some head chef's really have an ego because they have gotten where they are and forgotten where they came from. Luckily my head chef is well grounded and very easy to get along with. I would personally encourage her to go back to culinary school sooner than later before she loses that interest. Baking and Pastry is one of my favorite topics. Garde Manger has probably been the most challenging personally for me.
@office888 - I started the same way as you, just had a love for cooking and good food. I was watching and still watch a handful of good cooking shows. Buying local and fresh is the way to go. It is key to sustainable business in food service these days.
I'm not really crazy about most TV Chef's. Most of them are too full of crap for my liking. Its not my bag of tea or ambition to be one of those types. I'm going to culinary school just to enrich my life. Its something I have always wanted to do. I have a great career in the airline industry and have no plan of leaving it, but if I ever had to or wanted to go into the culinary field full time, I would want to get an institutional job working either for a government agency or large commercial vendor like Sodexo or Sysco, US Foods, etc.
@office888 - I started the same way as you, just had a love for cooking and good food. I was watching and still watch a handful of good cooking shows. Buying local and fresh is the way to go. It is key to sustainable business in food service these days.
I'm not really crazy about most TV Chef's. Most of them are too full of crap for my liking. Its not my bag of tea or ambition to be one of those types. I'm going to culinary school just to enrich my life. Its something I have always wanted to do. I have a great career in the airline industry and have no plan of leaving it, but if I ever had to or wanted to go into the culinary field full time, I would want to get an institutional job working either for a government agency or large commercial vendor like Sodexo or Sysco, US Foods, etc.
Try Sysco since you're not to far from them. They have a very nice kitchen. And they do use Chef's to cook the meals for employees. Also to show clients how to prepare meals.
I love to cook, and am a pretty fair amateur chef if I do say so myself! 
Cooking is like therapy for me; I just get lost in the cooking and forget about everything else. My mother was a superb cook, and could whip up the most interesting of Rumainian, Greek and Mediterranean meals as well as typical European faire. One day it was a delicious Moussaka and the next, succulent Weiner Schnitzels mit der mash potateners.
I decided I liked her cooking so much, that I'd try and copy her, so at 15, I started to cook. Ruined a lot of pots along the way but eventually got the hang of it. Today, I can cook Indian, Chinese, Greek, Continental European, and almost anything. Sure I can follow a recipe, but I love to improvise. I love to organize small dinners for my friends, where we eat, drink wine, yak, and then the men go down to the ham shack.
Cooking is like therapy for me; I just get lost in the cooking and forget about everything else. My mother was a superb cook, and could whip up the most interesting of Rumainian, Greek and Mediterranean meals as well as typical European faire. One day it was a delicious Moussaka and the next, succulent Weiner Schnitzels mit der mash potateners. I decided I liked her cooking so much, that I'd try and copy her, so at 15, I started to cook. Ruined a lot of pots along the way but eventually got the hang of it. Today, I can cook Indian, Chinese, Greek, Continental European, and almost anything. Sure I can follow a recipe, but I love to improvise. I love to organize small dinners for my friends, where we eat, drink wine, yak, and then the men go down to the ham shack.
I love to cook, and am a pretty fair amateur chef if I do say so myself!
I decided I liked her cooking so much, that I'd try and copy her, so at 15, I started to cook. Ruined a lot of pots along the way but eventually got the hang of it. Today, I can cook Indian, Chinese, Greek, Continental European, and almost anything. Sure I can follow a recipe, but I love to improvise. I love to organize small dinners for my friends, where we eat, drink wine, yak, and then the men go down to the ham shack.
Funny you should mention "yak"...If you're ever on I-5 in the Centralia/Chehalis area and you get hungry, the "Country Cousins" restaurant is a very popular place, and on the menu is - yak! The shaggy Himalayan ox. Yep, that guy. Tastes much like bison.
Not a chef, but been cooking and eating everything I hunt and fish for 40 years now. I love the outdoors. Good luck in your career.
Does anyone know or have the hog jowls cooked with Dr. Pepper recipe? supposed to be really good!
Does anyone know or have the hog jowls cooked with Dr. Pepper recipe? supposed to be really good!
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hope to have a tub full of them soon!
also can't beat a good crappie fish fried in bacon grease.
