8 posts tagged “snarkychef”
A note before I begin: For some reason, I went back to my old blog that I started when I decided to attend culinary school. I posted about quite a few experiences I had as a student and what I thought I had learned from them. I think that with all the current changes to my career and where I think I'm heading--it will be interesting to look back and compare.
Terrified, excited and scared to death. That's the description of what I'm feeling right now. After 11 years as a Technical Writer and even longer working in the high tech industry, I'm ready to ditch it all and change careers. The thought of finding another job creating unread user manuals and documentation was more than I could handle. So I've decided to become a Chef. Yes, I'll be making less money, and I'll be going back into debt... but for once someone will actually USE something I've created. There are many other reason for this decision, but first and foremost is that I will be doing something I've always loved to do. (I DO love working in the culinary industry, but I missed the tech world much more than I ever thought I would.)
What worries me the most is the cost--$40K--for a degree in the Le Cordon Bleu program at the Texas Culinary Academy in Austin. I have a house and bills to deal with and working only part-time will barely cover that. But I'm going into debt anyway knowing that I won't be looking back when I'm retired and wondering why I wasted so much of my life doing work that I hated (I may be good at it - but being a technical writer in the semiconductor field just SUCKS). (Let's not start talking about my student loan right now. It's tough, but thanks to my brilliant husband, we are ahead of schedule.)
I did a lot of research on culinary schools and careers, and then went and visited a few here in Austin. Someone at TCA took the time to give me a tour of the school, introduced me to some of the instructors, and sat me down and showed how all the classes were structured and what I would be learning in each one. I left knowing that I had to get into that school somehow... maybe it was the atmosphere or maybe it was just the sight of all those gleaming student kitchens. I'm a sucker for a big beautiful kitchen. Yes, attending a LCB program is expensive, but it'll give me the contacts and networking opportunities that I wouldn't have with another local school. And I need that boost since I'm starting out in this career later than most people (and it doesn't hurt that it also comes with an Associates of Applied Science). My husband is freaking out about the cost, but even he agrees that this specific school is the best choice for me at this time. It's funny, now that I've set all of this in motion, my friends and family are asking me why it took so long for me to decide to become a chef. Ummm, if they all knew this was the job for me--why didn't someone mention it 18 years ago? Or was this something I had to figure out on my own?
Sometimes I wonder what would have happened if I started on this path from the begining instead of wandering all over the place trying to figure out what I wanted to do with my life. Part of it bothers me because I've wasted so many years. If I had known that culinary training was an option, my career choices would have been different. And I definitely would have started at a cheaper school - Austin Community College has a pretty good program - or maybe I would have gone to Johnson and Wales on the East Coast. I don't know why it never occurred to me that you COULD go to school for it.... man, I must have been a stupid kid. But on the other hand--it might have also been wasted on me at that time. Now I know that I have to put everything I have into my education, and I also have the drive, ambition and single-mindedness that I was lacking in college.
Tomorrow morning is Orientation at TCA and I'll finally get to meet my classmates and instructors. We were given a recipe to try and discuss there, and it was.... um, interesting. I'll talk about it tomorrow after I find out if it was a test or just crappy instructions. (It wasn't a test, and it wasn't a mistake. Some people just shouldn't be allowed to write recipes. I'll probably harp on this pet peeve quite a bit more as I update my archives.)
My goal is to post at least once a day for the rest of the month. Yeah, I know that's not very exciting, but with all the meds the dentist has put me on, I'm becoming a very large potato. I'm not just large and round, but I've also developed the stunning mental and physical agility of an Idaho potato (not to be confused with slimmer and slightly more intelligent Washington potato). A physical resolution will be announced soon. Or at least as soon as I can come up with one that I have at least a 50% chance of keeping for the two weeks left in the month.
While I still work one day a week at the bakery, I'm now working full-time for a computer company in tech support. This is an increase in pay with better hours, but I miss the kitchen. On the up side, I now have more time, and customers, for my little sideline baking not-quite-a-business. It's amazing how many people here want cookies, cupcakes, tarts, and all kinds of cakes. I even have a set of wedding cakes scheduled for later this summer (this included a groom's cake shaped like Moya). I also started working as a personal chef for a friend once a week. While I'm not sure I'd want to do that for a living, we're trading professional services and her skills come in very handy.
I'm still not sure how I feel about my husband taking a photo of me after I finally got out of the recovery room. I think I flipped him off before making the "V" for victory sign he asked for. Monday is still foggy, although any thinking is fuzzy right now anyway.
Mom and my hubby-love waited for me in my room while I was stuck in the recovery room. That's always fun because Steve is somewhat uncomfortable around my family, and he was already cranky because he had to have me to the hospital at 5:30am. Once I was able to pay attention to what was going on around me--through the fog of the morphine substitute--I sent Steve home for a nap while my Mom stayed with me. I hadn't really thought about how comforting it would be to have someone I trust sitting there while I floated around in the mist.
I tried to sleep, but it was difficult to do between the pain, the machines, and that damn catheter. The nurses were patient with me, which was nice. Mom went home after rush hour traffic was over. Dinner was a cup of beef broth that was so salty that I only managed to get down two spoonfuls before giving up. The strawberry jello made me sick, so that was it for dinner. They gave me three different types of medicine before they were able to get rid of the nausea, and it took a while because they had to get permission for each kind based on the meds they had given me before.
Steve came back around 7 pm and sat with me while I tried to sleep. He also brought me my iBook so I could enjoy the free wireless. I enjoyed listening to him as he talked to his friends on the phone. He had me talk to Helen for a little while, but it was difficult to concentrate on making sense. I dozed on and off while he was there. I remember him asking the nurse about why I couldn't sleep longer than a few minutes at a time and she said that it was normal. Before he left, Steve helped me stand up so I could move around for a few minutes. My nurse Sara helped out, but I was too groggy to go more than a few steps anyway.
After hubby-love left, I was able to sleep for a few hours before I woke up in the middle of the night. That was it for sleep for the rest of the day.
Between the bed shifting every five minutes, having wearing stockings that move up and down my legs to prevent blood clots, and a catheter that pulls when I try to get comfortable; I'm having trouble getting any sleep. Trying to type sucks too--mostly from the meds.
I was told, second-hand, that my surgery was routine and that there were no problems. I vaguely remember my doctor visiting both before and after the surgery, but that's about it. Recovery sucked. The first thing I remembered was lots of pain, not being able to stop tensing my body, and uncontrollable shivering. The had to give me a strong painkiller cocktail before the planned medications could start to work. The side effects of that was sleep apnea. Every time I started to doze off, the alarms would go off because I'd stop breathing. I remember everything in recovery in two-minute increments and accompanied by alarms. I was stuck in recovery for four long hours before I could go to my room and see my husband and mom.
It's taking me so long to type this that I think I'll take a break before posting any more.
A couple from work asked us to create a birthday cake for one of their friends. All they could tell me about this person was that he liked chocolate cake, computers, and MC Chris. ( I had no idea who the hell that was. I don't know how I would survive without the internet.) With much futzing around, I finally decided to use the cover of MC Chris's 2006 album: "dungeon master of ceremonies." The frosting is a pale yellow because of the butter and the Baileys; besides, I don't care for plain white backgrounds on cakes unless it fits the theme or image. My favorite part is the picture-perfect world paraphrase from his song "Townie." "I roll back my eyes, clear my mind and proceed, paint a picture-perfect world called the house of MC." One of the reasons I liked it is because it feeds the inner geek, as it looks like it was a reference to the "House of M" from an eight-part Marvel comic cross-over series where Scarlet Witch created a perfect world for herself and the rest of the superheroes.
Early November, my sister flew me out to Florida to bake cakes for two different parties (note to anyone flying with cake decorating equipment--they will open up your toolkit EVERY SINGLE TIME, and if you're lucky, they won't accidently open up a bottle of dark green gel and let it leak all over the rest of your colors. Next time it'll go as carry-one luggage).
My Groups
-
What's Cooking? Updated: Yesterday
-
the patisserie Updated: Yesterday
-
PhotoCritiques Updated: Yesterday
Neighborhood
Explore friends, family, friends & family, or entire neighborhood.
