Love What You Do: Building a Career in the Culinary Industry

By Dorothy Cann Hamilton, Lisa Cornelio and Christopher Papagni, PhD

Starting or changing careers can be an intimidating process. For those seeking their first job, there is much to learn, while career changers may face doubts about their options or obstacles in pursuing their dream. LOVE WHAT YOU DO demystifies the career decision process and guides readers through the steps of any job hunt. It also helps people prepare for, and find, careers of all kinds in the culinary world.

LOVE WHAT YOU DO begins with DECIDING, where we ask readers to do a thorough self-inventory to uncover their goals, passions, strengths and weaknesses. In this section, we emphasize the importance of experience and credentials, especially during tough economic times. We also focus on how to handle the obstacles and doubts that are an inevitable part of any new endeavor.

Section II, TRAINING, outlines the steps needed to begin a successful culinary career. Both culinary school and on-the-job training are discussed as possible options. We identify what to look for in a culinary program and how to apply. We also explore paid and non-paid positions available within the industry. Finally, we look at salaries and budgets.

The final section, LAUNCHING, is all about jobs. We help readers decide what kinds of positions might be best for their needs and interests and how to conduct an effective job hunt, also including jobs outside the kitchen such as food blogging and food television production. We outline what to expect in the first year in the industry and how to excel. The book concludes with profiles of three culinary entrepreneurs and a brief introduction to jobs that are community-oriented.

Interspersed throughout the book are brief profiles of people in the culinary world as well as facts, exercises and quotes from prominent chefs.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Oct 14, 2009
• ISBN: 9781440159688

Dorothy Cann Hamilton

Dorothy Cann Hamilton Dorothy Cann Hamilton, CEO of the International Culinary Center (ICC), is one of the most influential forces shaping the American culinary landscape today. Thirty years ago, Hamilton founded the school in Manhattan as The French Culinary Institute. Today, it has grown to be one of the world’s leading centers for culinary education with additional campuses in California and Italy. ICC has world-renowned chefs as its deans including Jacques Pépin, José Andrés, Jacques Torres, as well as more than 15,000 notable alumni hailing from more than 80 countries, including chefs Bobby Flay, David Chang, Wylie Dufresne, Dan Barber, and Christina Tosi. A true entrepreneurial educator and culinary leader, Hamilton was selected to serve as President of the USA Pavilion at the 2015 World Expo in Milan. Together with the James Beard Foundation, she will curate 7,000 various cultural programs and events that will take place at the Pavilion, whose main goal is to showcase U.S. leadership in the global food arena and highlight the country’s role in advancing culinary sustainability. Hamilton has received remarkable accolades, including “Entrepreneur of the Year” from the International Association of Culinary Professionals; “Who’s Who of Food and Beverage in America” from the James Beard Foundation; “Silver Spoon” from Food Arts magazine; “Outstanding American Educator” from Madrid Fusion; and many more. Hamilton is an author and creator and host of Chef’s Story, a weekly radio program on the Heritage Radio Network and a 26-part television series. After graduating with a B.A. honors degree from Newscastle-upon-Tyne in England, she spent three years in the Peace Corps, and later earned an M.B.A. from the Stern School and NYU. Hamilton is a graduate of the OPM program at Harvard Business School. Lisa Cornelio Lisa Cornelio is a freelance writer and educational consultant who has worked with hundreds of students and their families in the college admissions process, helping to select schools, prepare for interviews, and complete applications. After graduating with a B.A. in English from Princeton University, she joined The Princeton Review, where she became a master instructor, teaching classes, training instructors, and writing and editing materials for the international test preparation company. She left the company in 1997 but continues to coach students for standardized tests and tutor academic subjects. Love What You Do is her second career guide. Christopher J. Papagni, PhD Christopher Papagni was former School Director and Vice President of Student Affairs at the International Culinary Center. Dr. Papagni has enjoyed a long career in education with previous positions at Marymount Manhattan College, New York University, and Hofstra University. Dr. Papagni holds a master’s degree in education from the University of South Carolina, earned his PhD at New York University, and studied classic culinary arts at The French Culinary Institute. He currently serves on the Scholarship Committee for The James Beard Foundation and The IACP Culinary Trust and the Board for The American International Wine and Food Foundation.

Book preview

Copyright © 2009, Dorothy Cann Hamilton with Lisa Cornelio

and Christopher Papagni, PhD.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Quotes from Chef's Story edited by Dorothy Cann Hamilton and Patric Kuh. Copyright© 2007 by Soho Culinary Productions, LLC. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers.

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any Web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

ISBN: 978-1-4401-5670-0 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4401-5968-8 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2009933815

iUniverse rev. date: 2/9/2016

Contents

Foreword

Clouds with Silver Linings

INTRODUCTION

I. DECIDING

Change Happens

Smart Moves

What Do I Love?

What Am I Already Good At?

What Do I Need?

The Goal

Obstacles

Naysayers

II. TRAINING

First Steps

Getting Serious: The Prep

On-the-Job Training: Paid Versus Unpaid Positions

Skills: Learning and Improving

Finances

III. LAUNCHING

The Jobs

The Search

The Application

The Offer

The First Year: What to Expect

Entrepreneurs

Making a Difference

Resources

Additional Reading

What Can You Do With A Culinary Degree?

Endnotes

Love What You Do Biographies

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Foreword

The culinary industry has changed a great deal since thirty-some-odd years ago, when I first discovered that I loved to cook. Back then, if you were good in the kitchen, career options were fairly limited. In the vast majority of cases, embarking on a career in food meant that you worked your way up through the ranks of a restaurant kitchen in order to become a chef de cuisine or a restaurant owner. In rare instances, you might go into the catering business. Rarer still were jobs as a personal chef or a food writer.

Today, the situation couldn't be more different. Choice abounds. Options within the culinary arts have multiplied to include all manner of careers, ranging from food stylist to recipe tester, nutritionist, cooking show producer, television chef ... the list goes on and on.

That's a great thing, because even if you're not destined for the high-pressure environment of a restaurant kitchen, there are many more ways to incorporate a love of food into a career. But the sheer number of different options can be daunting and discouraging to a novice with a budding interest in the culinary industry.

Meanwhile, careers in food have become higher profile than they ever were before. So-called celebrity chefs and personalities fill the airwaves, food blogs flourish on the Internet, and new cookbooks appear on bookstore shelves at record pace. All of these factors offer a distorted view of what a normal career in the culinary arts is like. As a result, many people pursue careers in food for the wrong reasons: namely, fame and fortune. Those are two things that never factor into the lives of the vast majority of culinary professionals.

What are the right reasons, then?

People are driven toward culinary careers by many different circumstances and take many different paths. But the one thing that all great chefs share is a simple and intense passion for food: not just smelling it and tasting it, but handling it, manipulating it, and discovering new ways to make it taste better than it ever has before.

If you're reading this and you have that passion, you're already on the right path to a career in the culinary arts. With this book, Dorothy Hamilton has provided an excellent starting point for people of all ages considering careers in food.

Unlike many of my colleagues, my own path did not include culinary school. I graduated from my mom's kitchen in Elizabeth, New Jersey to manning the grill at my family's swim club. From there, I worked my way up the ranks of local restaurant kitchens, finally landing a position at the famed Quilted Giraffe in New York City. It wasn't until 1994−some fifteen years into my career−that I opened my own restaurant, Gramercy Tavern.

What I lacked in official certificates and degrees, I made up for in hours of hard work. I have flipped burgers, prepped seafood, butchered meat, worked in pastry−you name it, I've done it. While training in all the technical skills that contribute to becoming a skilled cook, I've also learned countless life lessons that pertain to becoming a chef. Without further ado, I'd like to impart a few basic words of wisdom for aspiring culinary professionals.

Whether you enter a culinary program or learn on the job, the work will be hard. The hours will be long, and they will be spent on your feet. Restaurant kitchens are not known for being particularly nurturing.

Your improvement will be slow−frustratingly so at times, as you chomp at the bit to be the one writing menus and managing the kitchen, instead of the one waking up early to clean shellfish or prep vegetables.

You will get knocked down, and you need to pick yourself back up again. Any chef worth his or her salt has been cut down to size by a disagreeable food critic, an imperious chef de cuisine, or an angry diner. Don't take it personally, don't let it chip away at your confidence, and always try to take something constructive from those situations.

Humility is essential in order to learn and improve. Remember that it is far more valuable in the long run to quietly watch and listen than to worry about showing off your skills to fellow chefs. Even after all these years, I'm still learning new things from my colleagues.

Lest all this sound too discouraging, rest assured that a career in the culinary arts offers more than enough rewards to make up for the challenges.

Being a chef allows you the opportunity to be an artist, an entrepreneur, an innovator, and a leader. As you progress in your career as a culinary professional, you will enjoy a creative outlet that is unrivaled by most anything else.

Long hours in the hot, hectic kitchen breed an unparalleled camaraderie among chefs. Some of my closest friendships have been forged in the high-pressure environment of a restaurant kitchen.

Lastly, and most importantly: if food is what you love, then working in this industry will be its own reward.

---Tom Colicchio, Chef/Owner of Craft Restaurants

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Clouds with Silver Linings

In Charlie Wilson's War, Phillip Seymour Hoffman's character tells a parable of a young Afghan boy who receives a bicycle for his birthday. The entire village gossips that he is "such