Prix Fixe

'09 Oregon State ACF Hot Food Champs

Being a part of the schools competition team will be one of my fondest memories of school. Honestly, I couldn't imagine what school would've been like had I not been a part of that team - not to mention all the things I learned that I wouldn't have had I not joined the team. 

This picture was snapped before we knew the results of the competition.

From left to right: Ian, Myself, Tyler, Patrick, Chef Ginger and Brent.

Culinary School Confidential: 1.3

This is the third installment of what will be a mult-part series. I finished up with Culinary School at the end of June - and have been let loose on the industry. I figured I should get some of this written down while it's still fresh in my mind. Some of the names have been changed to protect the innocent - some haven't. That's just the way it goes.

Part 1.3

"For the love of god, beam me up Scotty"

Just before school started, I had thought about driving to Gateway and taking the MAX the rest of the way into town. But me, being anal retentive about being on time, if not early (and sometimes overly so) - I just couldn't bring myself to put my getting to school on time in the hands of public transportation. So, I'd be driving myself - and having to pay a hefty fee to park in the parking garage located directly under the school itself. I could have paid to park on the street, which was fine to a point. I just didn't want to have to run down there like every hour and a half to pump the meter like a lot of the students do.

I just didn't have time for that. I wanted to be in class, and absorb as much as possible - so parking garage it was. Actually this worked out great, I'd get to school early. I'm able to finish my coffee and head up to the fifth floor. One of the rules of the school is that at school you are either completely in uniform - or completely out of uniform. I chose to wear regular clothes into school, and then change into my whites in one of the dressing rooms.

Doing this was two fold really, 1. It's about a 45 minute drive from my house to school in downtown Portland, I'd rather be comfortable. 2. I wanted to keep my uniform is unwrinkled as possible, there was no way I was going to get kicked out of line up, just so I could iron my jacket or apron.

Because of where I lived and with class starting at 7a, I had to get up earlier than some of my counterparts. To be out of the house and at school at the time I wanted to be there, it meant getting up at 4:30a. I've never had to get up that early, that was a perk of working in radio and clubs. I usually worked afternoons or nights. I'm a night owl, it's when I get most of my work done - so this was going to screw up my body clock for sometime.

Another bonus to driving is, that I could enjoy my coffee, a smoke and not have to interact with anyone. I'm not much of a morning person, and I prefer about a hour ramp up time - just to interact with others of my species. Plus I could catch up on my baseball news, listening to XM on the way in. I know what your thinking, why would a guy with ties to terrestrial radio - listen to XM? Easy, they put a way better product out - and it's great for road trips.

I bought XM because when I lived in Medford, I did a lot of driving north to visit my parents and my kid for the summer. Trust me, put a lot of miles on my car - but never once was forced to change stations because something went out of range. And I love the variety of channels, I mean how can you beat a station devoted totally to baseball or Frank Sinatra? You can't.

Anyways..

I arrived plenty early, parking across the street the first day not realizing that it was slightly cheaper to park under the school. I've got those first day jitters, or is it the coffee? At this point I'm not sure, I take another smoke out and start puffing madly hoping to finish before reaching the double doors that lead into the back lobby of where the elevator is supposed to be.

Extinguishing my smoke in one of the provided ashtrays I took a deep breath and open the door and up the small fight of stairs. I spy the elevator off to my left and head over pressing the 'up' button. A couple seconds later I was rewarded with the doors sliding open. At this point, I noticed I was pretty much the only one on the lower level thus having the elevator to myself.

Once inside the small box I reached over to the control pad and pushed "5". The door slid closed...

..and did nothing. Thinking that I might not have hit it right "Because hey it's not the person but the machine..", I reached out and hit the button again. Again, nothing - well the doors opened again to the same floor I entered on. I scratched my head and thinking third times a charm I hit the "4" button again and what the door close.

The end result was the same, nothing.

By now you'd think I had caught a clue, that no matter how hard I pressed the button (by nature I'm a 'percussive' maintenance kinda guy if you know what I mean) I was doomed to be stuck on the first floor. Like some paradox out of a Star Trek episode I was forced into some sort of loop. Shaking my head, trying to get that thought out of my mind - I needed to do something (like what? Dummy). The door swung open one last time, looking up another student entered the the elevator and asked if I could push the 5th floor button.

Funny thing I thought, I'd love to go there too.

I managed to mumble something about have a hell of a time getting to work. She (I was fairly sure) gave me that "You must be new look" and took out her school ID. She waved in front of a sensor and pressed the elusive "5" button.

Much to my amazement(relief and happiness) we began our trip to the fifth floor. That's when it dawned on me. The Friday before I was to attend school for the first day, I needed to pick up my school ID.

Not off the the greatest of starts.

"Way to go dumb-ass" I thought. "Great way to set a tone.."

Previously: 1.1 ,  1.2

Culinary School Confidential

This is the second installment of what will be a mult-part series. I finished up with Culinary School at the end of June - and have been let loose on the industry. I figured I should get some of this written down while it's still fresh in my mind. Some of the names have been changed to protect the innocent - some haven't. That's just the way it goes.

Part 1.2

The "Dog" Stare

Orientation was to take place a week before classes were to start. 

 

This is where we'd receive our uniforms, a lay of the land, do's and don'ts. You get to hear from everyone - from Career Services to the President of the School. I'll be honest here, I've never been good with crowds or around a lot of people I don't know (how'd I survive in radio so long?). Hadn't even started my first class yet, and I already felt like a fish out of water.

There are two possible outcomes when I'm nervous - I either clam up, or begin to uncontrollably ramble. Not random things mind you, but I'll make it interesting. According to Ian (whom I'll get to later and was there that day) I was talking a wee bit to much, and he was starting not to particularly care for me (and I'm betting he wasn't the only one). This I wouldn't find out until a couple months later.

They herded us into the schools restaurant, to the back portion of the dining room. They had various snacks, soda and water laid out just before reaching the rear of the restaurant. I scanned the room, not a empty table anywhere, which would've been great. I spied a table off to my left, two women already sitting there - with a extra seat. I walked over and half mumbled "Is anyone sitting there?". I'm not exactly sure what they said, I just nodded and took a seat. Come to find out both of them were headed into the Patisserie Program.

That's when I took a look around the room, it was then a couple things dawned on me, like a large blunt object striking me on my dome.

One, I was the oldest in the room, excluding school officials.

Two, all the good looking women in the room (not to mention several years my junior), were all bound for the Patisserie program. "Figures.." I thought to myself. Come to find out, the whole 'older than everyone else' thing was going to be a repeated theme (not that I expected anything less).

Anyways, back to orientation..

Like any 'get to know you' session, the obvious question was asked. "What did you do, and why did you enroll in Culinary School". This would be the beginning of the "dog stare" and having to explain myself damn near every time this question was asked of me. Now I didn't mind it, but maybe because I was in radio so long that I'm numb to the whole allure of the biz from someone on the outside.

So it was my turn.

"Well for thirteen years I was in the radio business"

She cocked her head to the side, you know like dogs do when they're trying to figure out just what in the hell you're babbling about. Usually it's blah, blah, Sparky, blah blah blah. I know that stare when I see it, if I had just a mere nickel for every-time I seen that look - I most likely wouldn't have been sitting in that room getting ready to face a huge unknown to begin with.

I simply answered "After being in the industry for so long, I felt it was time for a change. My passion for food rivals my passion for radio and it won out".

Chef Wendy nodded and mentioned that I had a 'radio' voice (if I had a dime for every time someone said that to me, I wouldn't have been sitting in that room).

I was the change of career guy, most of these kids were either fresh out of high school or figured out that masters isn't doing then a damn bit of good and like me needed a change.

We were paraded through the school - hitting each different "Station" this is when we received our whites, shoes. I was disappointed though, we wouldn't get out knives until we started actual classes. All in all it took, about 2+ hours from start to finish. Now I was really getting anxious, just a week from this very day - I was going back to school.

TBC...

Previously: 1.1 

Culinary School Confidential

This is the first installment of what will be a mult-part series. If you didn't know, I recently graduated culinary school. I figured I should get some of this written down while it's still fresh in my mind. Some of the names have been changed to protect the innocent - some haven't. That's just the way it goes.

Part 1.1

"We've decided to make a change..."

I wont lie, I was nervous - nervous as hell.

After 13 years in radio - (which had been a childhood dream) was behind me now. Oh, I tried for other radio gigs, but the economy had gone in the tubes and with automation becoming more and more prevalent in today's radio - jobs were few and far between. Add on top of that I was starting to get picky, I didn't want to move far. I'm already too far from my son as it is, but I didn't want to have to move across country for a gig. The Portland Market wasn't an option, because even though there are a lot of radio stations in this town, not many jobs.

It's like you have to wait for someone to die off, before they'll look at you.

The thought of Culinary School had creeped into my mind before, but something always came up. Just when I was ready to move forward with school, a radio job would be put in my lap. And the rest would be history, I'd go do the gig.

I had been fired as the Production and Creative Services director in the summer 07, for a small cluster of stations in Medford Oregon. This would be the trigger event that would spur me to leave my childhood dream behind and move on to something so completely different - to me it was a bit to wrap my head around.

Finally in the summer of 08, after not getting any bites on my resume and the fact I had pretty much convinced myself to move forward - it was time to seriously start looking into Culinary Schools. I knew of at least two in the immediate area, again I didn't want to travel that far. Though one of the schools on the Oregon coast looked inviting. But it was more important to me to stay in the Portland area (even though to drive to Portland from where I live is about a 45 minute drive north).

The two schools I was looking at were Western Culinary Institute (a Le Cordon Bleu School) and Oregon Culinary Institute. After talking to people from both, the slight few connections I had to the food world. There were a couple more reasons that WCI appealed to me, in ways OCI didn't. I liked the fact that you rotated chef instructors - never repeating a chef, and the fact that it was after all a Le Cordon Bleu School.

So the choice was made.

I made an appointment to tour the WCI Campus with Tom, who would be my admissions rep. For those that don't know, parking in downtown Portland can be a pain in the ass, unless you're willing (or have no choice) but to pay and arm and a leg and park in a lot. At the time I didn't know there was a parking garage underneath the building so, I parked in a lot across the street. The first thing I noticed when I got out of my car, were the smells.

Located on the same block as the lot, lining the side walk are food carts. All kinds of food, a street cuisine vendor row so to speak. Of all the carts on that block, Locos Locos has to be my top favorite. Burritos the size of Andre the Giants enormous skull (well not really, but you get the picture.)

The last time I was in the Galleria building, it was a bustling mall back in the 90's, actually 1990 to be exact - I had come out to Oregon the summer after graduation (though I didn't stay long that time around). Now it was a mere shell of it's former self. Now their are only two businesses in the building not counting Cafe and Restaurant Bleu (both belonging to the school).

Like normal I was early - almost too early, I wasn't exactly sure where the school was to begin with and I wanted to make sure without fail I was on time for this meeting. Being late for anything sucks, I can't stand being late. Nothing drives me more insane (as if I needed another excuse) than being late or people who are late. By the time my meeting time rolled around, I pretty much had made up my mind - even before seeing the school.

By the way the last time I was in a commercial kitchen was back in high school when I worked for the golden arches. Actually this is one of the first questions they ask you before the move forward, "Do you have any industry experience". I chuckled, "Does McDonald's in the 90's count?".

I guess it counted.

In retrospect maybe I should have told them to cut out the middle man, because I was going to attend. But just to make sure I let Tom do his thing - namely selling me the school and my signature on the dotted line.

During his pitch he name dropped, he told me that Brian Malarky of Top Chef fame was a alum, as well as Chef Homaro Cantu, know for his molecular gastronomy and his restaurant "MOTO", he was also on a episode of Iron Chef: America. He took me on a tour of mostly empty kitchen and bake shops. Only one kitchen was on the fourth floor - a pastry class, the rest were up on the 5th floor.

After giving me a tour of a mostly empty culinary school, we headed back to this little meeting room where we had started our adventure. We discussed what I was looking for by going to culinary school, what the hell possessed me to get out of the radio business after 13 years - to end up switching careers and looking towards a life in the kitchen.

Now it was time to talk turkey, this was the part I was dreading. How much cash was going to be forked over for me to obtain my culinary education. I was given two options, the Associates or AOS degree or I could opted for my culinary diploma. I guess this is where I should tell you, I'm not playing with my own money. Back in high school I was promised that if I ever wanted to attend college it would be paid for. Oh and for me, senior year in high school was 1990, just to give you some perspective on how long it took me to collect on that favor.

The AOS Program, which included college class work. Things like restaurant management, computers etc. etc. The diploma course, was quick and much cheaper, (if you call 18 grand cheap). If I decided to go the Associates route, it was going to cost significantly more - not to mention a longer stay. The diploma course is about 7 1/2 months, the AOS is about 15 months.

I wanted to learn as much as I could, in a short time frame (who knew how true this statement would be in the near future).

The diploma program was the one for me.

While I was filling out paper work, I was given a choice of start dates. At Western Culinary and it seems most culinary schools run on a three week cycle so there was a new influx of students every three or so weeks. Next one would be in October. I wanted a bit of time to get myself ready for the change that was about to take place, and tie up some loose ends.

As I started to walk out, paperwork in hand - I began to panic. Well, maybe panic is a bit to drastic of a descriptor, but I could feel it. Then the doubts crept in..What if I can't hack it? What if I completely suck? I'm 36 for godsakes is this a good time to pull the trigger?

November 10th.

I was committed now, or did I need to be thrown in the loony bin?

TBC