My New Adventure

I just turned 33 years old Saturday night. I've received much love and well-wishes from many friends, which I appreciate. My parents and Heidi lavished me with some wonderful gifts, such as dinner at Bernard's Grove last week. On my birthday proper, I played a bar gig with my newly-joined cover band, Time Lapse. The crowd in LeRoy was interesting and by-and-large appreciative. This Friday Heidi's taking me out to dinner (probably to Beale St. Cafe!) and then to an Amerks game. What a b-day!

33 seems like a fine age, although I still find myself rather rudder-less as far as any vocational direction goes. (And the roller hockey I tried to play three weeks ago just plain hurt... is it that I'm really out of shape or just plain too old?) Anyway, I was thinking in the Fall about getting a music degree from Empire State College, but I've continued to postpone filling out the application. It's been rough finding full-time work without much in the way of skills... just a few banquet and bar shifts. Sometime recently (I didn't write down the exact date) something dawned on me: I'm actually trapped in the food-service industry. I've been so for more years than I'll bother counting. I always saw food service as a part-time job I could have while I got some degree or another; it was just a side gig. But I'm pretty familiar with the industry now, practically all facets of it. If I don't have much experience in a particular banquet/restaurant position, I know what's involved. So it settled in: why not accept it instead of fighting it? An idea which has occurred to me in the past resurfaced, but I'm really, honestly considering it this time:




Getting my Culinary Arts degree! I love to cook, and always have. I take food seriously, I want my dishes to be appealing to the eyes, nose and palate, and I'm a perfectionist. I'm already pretty intimate and comfortable with the industry. It's a perfect combination. So I'm beginning my review of colleges with 2-year culinary arts programs, and initially Erie Community College is in the lead; it's cheap and it's close. They're not yet accredited by the American Culinary Federation, but it looks like they're taking steps in that direction. Other potential schools include SUNY Cobeskill, Schenectady Community College, and Paul Smith's as the outsider. Regrettably, I have to rule out the big shots of Johnson & Wales, Le Cordon Bleu, and Culinary Institute of America; they're all private schools and therefore expensive, and they're too far away.

Thus far I feel pretty comfortable with the concept. I'm reading a great book about culinary school, The Making of a Chef: Mastering Heat at the Culinary Institute. It's the account of a writer who audits an abbreviated curriculum at the CIA as a student. I can identify with a lot of what the author writes about within the kitchen. I can understand the attitudes of some of the chefs, some of the students, and their outlooks. As the author writes, the way of life in a kitchen can become a morality of its own.

So we shall see how this new adventure of mine plays out. I have to give it a shot. I've thought about it before, and like so many other ideas, I've talked myself out of it; it was uncomfortable for some reason or another. This time I'm going to go for it and see if I am indeed a cook by nature, by disposition.

Besides, I think I'll look great in chef's whites. Houndstooth-check trousers and toques, here I come!