The Life of a Culinary Instructor
Chef Isaac | March 10, 2009
I never would have thought I would be a culinary instructor. A friend asked me the other day why I wanted to be a teacher. The answer was quick (because I love it) but after wards, I did some soul searching to really find out what led me where I am.
My First Class!
It had to start when I was younger and working at Daniels Restaurant in Longview. I had a chance to participate in their wine & dine luncheons. A long narrow table with lots of food, tons of wine, home cook enthusiasts for an audience…and… did I mention a lot of wine. Some drinking more then others… and at the head of the table…ME… doing a cooking demonstration. Nervous as I was, it was a lot of fun. But even then, I didn’t think I would end up teaching.
I did have some small glimpses (I am getting old… or maybe it’s all the honey going to my head!) of wanting to teach when I was in high school. Two subjects I adored… political debate and Spanish. But when I realized that I couldn’t roll my R’s, I knew I was in trouble and teaching might not have been my game.
Then came attending culinary school at the Culinary Institute of America (CIA). I think the flame started to grow for teaching when I started doing the midnight weekend bake. See, the restaurants on campus were open on the weekends and they needed freshly baked bread. Student volunteers and a Chef would get together around midnight on Friday and Saturday night to bake bread. Since I was a bread geek, I did this for all fours years while I was at the CIA. When a newbee bread geek would come around to bake, I had a chance to teach them which turned out to be a lot of fun!
My Second Class! I miss them all!
Then the unthinkable happened. I saw an ad online for culinary instructors for the new Le Cordon Bleu. I rushed to prepare my resume and sent it out, fingers crossed. Of course, after a few weeks, I became ancy (its part of my ADD). I researched, found the number, called and made contact with the Director of Education, Gene Fritz. I pretty much bugged him and he said yes! I was now officially a teacher for Le Cordon Bleu!
Let me be the first to tell you, teaching is NOT easy. No one really can teach you to teach. The first thing I had going against me was the fact that I am tall, bald, fat, have a loud voice, and was trained at the CIA. Couple that with a busy kitchen and it’s a great recipe for disaster. And that it was! See, here at Le Cordon Bleu, we are about teaching culinary arts as a teacher… not always a chef. A Chef has the tendency to yell and belittle. An educator teaches, coaches, and inspires.That is the hardest thing to remember…be an educator before a chef. Thanks to Chef Fritz for his guidance and coaching… and his continued patience. If it was any other person other then Chef Fritz, this article would not be about teaching! :)
My old crew!
After the first 10 months of tweaking my teaching style (still tweaking really), I am getting into a groove. Teaching is so challenging… cooking is the easy part. But to translate what I know and communicate it to a student is tough work. How things were taught back in the day (chalk board, notes, ect.) is way different then how we teach today. Today is power point, lecture, demo, cook a long, show, more lecture, and review. All of these methods are used everyday in my classroom because everyone learns differently. When I get a new set of students, the first week is a game of who learns best one way and who learns best this the other way.
Our culture is truly different than most culinary schools. We actually care about the students and how they preform. We care about them as individuals, not just a teacher to student relationship. Two great examples of what we do: If you miss a class, we personally call you to see if you are ok and we save our notes for you from that day. Miss a couple days in a row? We write you a hand written note and send it off in the mail. Who does that? NO ONE! But that is the culture we have here. Yes, it was tough to get used to but, to be frank, caring about someone makes that person more interested in what they are doing. It’s amazing!
A typical day in the life of a culinary school instructor: I teach the AM shift. Class starts at 6 am and I am here around 4:45- 5 AM. I go to the class and write the time line on the board which consists of a culinary word of the day, what I will demo, and what the students will produce. So, for example:
6 to 6:05 Line up
6:05 to 6:45: Lecture
6:45 to 7: Work on mise en place (ingredients)
7 to 7:25: Chef demo: poaching salmon and making hollandaise sauce
7:25 to 8: Production and present to the class: Poached fillet of salmon served with hollandaise sauce and rice pilaf
8 to 9: Clean down
9 to 9:30: wrap up lecture
Line up is pretty cool. The students line up, in uniform, and we check for pressed chef coats, black socks, homework on note cards, ect.
And of course, with all the food that is produced….. who grades it? THE CHEF INSTRUCTOR! There goes my weight loss! :( But seriously….every plate is graded and every component is graded. Yikes! Thirty students times 3 plate components equals 90 items to try. It’s a lot of food.
All in all, I love teaching. I love the challenge, I love teaching tricks of the trade, I love seeing the bulb go on and I love to see the students graduate and become successful. It’s a wonderful feeling.
