Cooking schools, culinary schools, the Art Institute of
California, Le Cordon Bleu College of Culinary Arts, and
a two-hour class at Sur La Table are all methods of
becoming educated in the field of cooking. Depending on
whether you want to learn how to cook one meal to impress
a date, or become the Executive Chef of a famous
restaurant, the opportunity is there to learn.
A professional culinary program should, at a minimum,
provide the student chef with a basic knowledge of foods,
food styles, ant the methods used to prepare foods. An
understanding of sanitation, nutrition, and business
procedures such as food costing should also be part of
the curriculum. Examples of classes would be Sanitation
and Safety, Culinary Arts, Knife Skills, Stocks, Soups and
Sauces, Fundamentals of Garde Manager, Professional Cooking
Basics, and Culinary Cafe. These are only a minute portion
of the classes available.
Rather than becoming the Executive Chef, you may want to
work for yourself as a Caterer, a Personal Chef, or just
cook for your spouse. These courses could be learned by
attending classes in a culinary school, or taking a
correspondence course either by mail or online. The course
that I completed was as a Personal Chef through the Culinary
Business Academy in New Mexico. I chose to do the course by
correspondence, rather than travel to New Mexico.
The course covered all the aspects of owning a home-based
Personal Chef business. The topics were:
1. Planning - this included writing a business plan.
2. Administration
a. Do you want your business to be a sole
proprietorship,partnership, or corporation?
b. Licensing and regulations
c. Other administrative functions.
3. Organization
4. Operations of your business.
5. Marketing your business.
6. Sales
7. How to be a personal chef.
After completion of the course, a series of tests are given.
After passing the tests, you would attain the status of
Premier Member of the United States Personal Chef
Association.
A Personal Chef would begin his day by buying the groceries
that he will need to cook the planned menu for his clients.
A typical menu would be 4 servings of 5 different entrees.
The chef would then use the client's kitchen to prepare the
meals. The meals would either be refrigerated, or frozen.
Then the kitchen would be cleaned and the dishes washed.
You can get further information on the website of the
United States Personal Chef Association.
Stores which provide culinary equipment and utensils, such
as Sur La Table, give cooking classes on a short term basis,
generally one night. Examples of some of these classes are
Essential Knife Skills, Ice Cream Workshop, Grilling Basics:
Seafood, Quick and Easy Asian Cooking, and French Classic
Desserts.
So whatever level of cooking education that you want to
attain, the means to reach that goal are available.
Source: http://www.ArticlePros.com/author.php?Bob Boeck
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