A typical day in the life of a culinary school student

Posted on | April 27, 2009

Six o’clock. Alarm blaring. The music is okay but the DJ is irritating. Still, the station is crystal clear. And I’d rather have a clear station I hate than a fuzzy one I love.

Besides, the race to get to the alarm (the husband, in his wisdom, placed the clock radio across the room) before the DJ gets to his mic gets me out of bed extra fast.

My day has begun.
Brush the teeth; wash the face, feed the cat; “Sweetie, you up yet?” “Yeah, yeah,” and into my chef’s pants.

Pad, barefoot, to the couch, where I turn on the news and slip into my socks and clogs, giving the husband time for his wash. On with the computer where I check mail and tweets (you are welcome to follow me, if you like, at http://twitter.com/cookingstudent or @cookingstudent) and respond to as many of both as I can.

6:30 and away we go
Squish the cat, lock the door, and, as always, my husband carries my bag so I can hold his hand.

Ten minutes later and wave, wave, “Have a nice day, sweetie,” and into the student lounge where I rummage through my bag and pull out everything I need for production:

the Swatch watch I bought specifically for school (up to my elbows in greasy water several times a day and the thing is still working, you go Swatch)
my lock (we are not allowed to keep our belongings overnight in a locker, an annoying rule that means I shlep a lot of weight back and forth every day, but I suspect someone once left some fish or something in there and the weekend came and … so I understand)
recipe cards (we have to write them out every night for everything our team will make the next day and let me tell you, it can be time-consuming)
my four-way (an apron you can wear four different ways so you have a fighting chance of having a clean side facing out)
my side towels (used for grabbing hot things, never for wiping hands)
tissues (otherwise I have to use scratchy paper towels if I ever need to blow my nose which always happens when I mince onions)
small notebook (for taking notes on those days the chef does a demonstration)
thermometer (for meat and fish cooking)
Sharpie pen (for labeling containers of food)
pen (for note taking)
the school hat which still interferes with my peripheral vision

On with the apron, side towels tucked into the back. Pens and thermometer into the incredibly handy shoulder pocket. Tissues, glasses, notebook into the good-sized pockets in the chef’s pants. Watch on, bag in locker, lock on locker, knife kit and hat in hand (annoying hat does not go on until the last minute, when I am about to enter the kitchen).

I am armed for battle. And twenty pounds heavier.

Cooking up a storm
Now, if I am the first one in, and it is a toss up whether it will be me or Stern Girl (everyone else tends to roll in closer to 8:00 am, when class officially begins), I will open the kitchen: Turn on the lights, turn on the ovens and the overhead fans, position the prep tables, put the rubber mats down, fill washing and sanitizing buckets for my table, fill the washing, rinsing, and sanitizing sinks, and so on.

Then I get the equipment I need: Quart and pint containers, pie tins, saute pans, sauce pans, wooden spoons, cutting board, etc.

I also grab whatever of the ingredients I need that are available (the pickings tend to be slim until the chefs get in at 7:00 am, but when they do get in they are good about going down to the walk-in early and getting what we need so we can get a head start on the day).

Then I get to work.

Class starts
Five minutes later and it is now a where-did-the-time-go 8:00 am. Most of the students are here. And the nice, quiet kitchen I had to myself, or nearly to myself, is now full of banging pots and off-key singing and shouts of obscenities and teasing and “Hey, where’s the garlic?” and “You do a recipe card for that?” and “Hot! Hot oven!” and “Knife! Knife! Knife!”

And, suddenly, I have to fight for burners and grab the last ladle before someone else scoops it up while watching for elbows and feet.

It’s nice having the kitchen to myself. But it’s nice having my fellow students there, too. I like the noise.

Now, sometimes, Chef Rushmore or She Chef will start the day with a demonstration. If it is culinary, Chef Rushmore tends to do it; pastry-oriented (such as quiche) or more delicate (such as making a hollandaise), She Chef will do it.

Or, sometimes, we are given a mirepoix challenge where we have to cut a certain amount of mirepoix (often two quarts per person) as fast as possible.

Then we are given our missions for the day: Three sauces per team, two meats, two sides, two plated, enough for five, and or whatever.

Plating is, as always, 10:15. Which gives us two hours or so, depending on how long the earlier business took.

And away we go
Envision hours of furious cooking interspersed with hurried consultation.

“Look should we do this one or that one?”
“Hey, watch the grill, will you, so I can mince this shallot.”
“How did you get it so smooth?”
“What did you put in that?”
“What is the temp on that meat?”
“Did you put plates in the warming oven?”

For the most part, we tend to work nicely, alternatively helping and teasing each other.

“Hey, quit it!”
“What?”
“You! Quit sticking parsley in my ear.”
“Wasn’t me.”
“Yeah. What’d it do? Fly over here itself?”
“Well, it is a little-known fact that parsley can … ”
“Hey, where’d ya get that rice wine?”
“Third shelf. On the right.”
“Yeah. Thanks.”

10:30 plating
You didn’t think we plated on time, did you? We try. But 10:30 is closer to the truth.

Then the Chef walks us, from table to table, tasting and commenting on the food as he goes.

“Good. Good texture, good color. But where’s the salt? It needs more salt.”
“What happened here? You have to take it out at 145. You took it out too soon, it didn’t cook through.”
“Nice plating but, look, see what you can do with height?”

When he is done, we are free to taste each other’s food.

On a good day, we have time to do so. But if we are late plating, we often have to start cleaning right away. See, another class is due in the kitchen by 11:00, so we have to hurry. And we do.

Food is either put into plastic bags for students to take home (whoever cooks it, get it, if they want), placed on paper plates to eat in the lecture (only if we have time and are not scrambling to get out of there), stored in the reach-in for use for another day, put in the student lounge for other students to eat, saved for the homeless, or trashed. Tables and burners are cleaned, ovens turned off. Dishes, pots, pans, utensils are cleaned, rinsed, sanitized, and put away. Floors are swept. Garbage is taken out. And so on.

And that’s the end of kitchen time, for today
We wander over to the student lounge.

Sometimes another class has made something to eat and left full plates on a table. If it looks good, then we help ourselves. The smokers go outside with a desperation born of three hours, straight, in a non-smoking kitchen.

I grab my bag and stuff it with my (now very probably dirty) apron and sides towels. In, too, goes the hat and out comes the hand cream. I slather some on my hands and give some to any student who asks (and, yes, sometimes even the guys want some cream).

Bag in one hand, knife kit in the other, I leave what had been my locker for the day yawning open and head down the long hallway to our familiar, windowless classroom.

I dump my stuff on the table where I always sit, chat with whomever is around, then grab my bottle of water. I, of course, can’t open it because of the hand cream. So I hand it to Giggles who wordlessly (we’ve done this nearly every day for almost three months now) opens it and hands it back.

I drink, drink, drink. This is the first I’ve had to drink since half a glass of water before I left the house oh so many hours ago. I am thirsty.

The smokers, having hastily gulped down a cigarette, wander into the classroom, one at a time.

Chairs fill and lecture starts at 11:15, more or less.

Lecture
Lectures tend to cover what we did in the kitchen, our reading and homework assignments, and what we will do in the kitchen in the future.

Chef Rushmore is surprisingly patient with the students and occasionally very funny in an incredibly dry sort of way.

Other chefs sometimes wander in. Occasionally just to listen and leave, occasionally to add a tidbit or funny story, occasionally to make an announcement.

You can always tell when 1:00 is approaching: Students start to get restless. It is difficult for us to sit still for the lecture because none of us has had a proper meal, all of us are full of tastes and sips of the odd collection of items we have been cooking, none of us has had much to drink outside of a few gulps of coffee or water, and some of us are jazzed, some of us are exhausted, and some of us are both from the kitchen time (I tend to be this one).

Home James
Students straggling out, some reaching for cigarettes, some chatting with each other, some looking for a chef, some racing to catch a train or a bus.

About seven or eight blocks away, I grab my streetcar. If we leave on time, I only have a 10 minute wait. If we leave late, that can double or triple.

But, either way, I tend to be home before 2:00.

Mail and more
Get the mail, trudge upstairs, and squish the cat.

First, I get onto the computer, checking for and responding to messages and tweets as I slip out of my chefs jacket and pants and into my jeans and a shirt. Then I drink an entire glass of water in one drippy gulp and eat something, typically a container of Greek yogurt or a bowl of cereal.

I write my blog post then take care of whatever chores need to be dealt with.

Now, if I am teaching that night, or if I have papers to grade or preparation to do for class, or even too much homework of my own, then I get on that. But, if I don’t, I meet my husband halfway between our home and his office so we can tell each other about our day. Well, in all honesty, only one of us gets to talk about our day:

Me: “So how was your day?”
Him: “Well … ”
Me: “Oh, no, wait. I’ve got to tell you this thing that happened.”

He gets to tell me about his day over dinner.

Nighty, night
If I am busy, he makes something for dinner. It tends to involve the microwave, but not always. If I am not busy, I tend to make dinner while he changes out of his work clothes. It tends to involve the farmer’s market, but not always.

Then, if he has work to do, he does it while I do my homework.

Homework? At culinary school?

Oh yes, there is reading from our textbook and supplementary books. There are recipe cards to prepare for tomorrow and sometimes recipes to research. There are special projects, such as yield charts and costing and menus.

And, in the middle of this, there is often laundry so I’ll have a clean chef’s jacket and side towels.

By 10:00, we are ready for bed. I review what I have to do tomorrow, then read, usually a food book, but this one is fun, not homework. Then I crash into the husband for a snuggle, sink into my pillow raise the blanket so the cat can get underneath (he snuggles next to my ankles so he can use them as his pillow, effectively pinning me for the night), and fall asleep.

Not always, but sometimes, I dream of cooking.

Comments

2 Responses to “A typical day in the life of a culinary school student”

Recipe Collector
June 7th, 2009 @ 7:00 pm

Nice post. I really enjoyed reading. I can relate to most of your experiences. I love cooking a lot though I’m not in a culinary school now. Keep it up! I think you’re doing good so far.
Ryan
May 10th, 2010 @ 2:17 am

Interesting ^_^ I stumbled upon your blog while looking for some random info on culinary school. I’ve been an engineer for the last 10 years but have decided to change directions and do what I truly love -cook. I intend to apply to the San Diego Culinary Institute starting the process tomorrow. I’m glad I had a chance to read your blog and get a glimpse into what my life might be like for the next 7 months. Maybe I’ll check into your blog once in a while and see how things are matching up between our experiences. Thanks again for the info and have a good one ^_^