After I was accepted into the CIA I was a bit nervous about how much I knew about cooking compared to my fellow students. During the application proccess the admissions team was very thorough on how much experience you had prior to acceptance. I figured that I would be somewhere in the middle of the pack as far as experience. I was actually more at the top. What I found out is that if a parent or somebody made a generous donation it would pretty much guarantee your acceptance. There were quite a few students in my class who came staight out of High School and never worked in the industry other than a some fast food restaurant, part time. I was accepted but would have had to wait, lets face it I got a letter from a senetor I never met and was bumped to the top of the start list. I shouldn’t have been so suprised.
Well the day came to start school. I was a bit apprehensive. I put on my hounds tooth chef pants and chefs jacket and realized I did not know how to tie the neckerchief. What was I to do? I went to the home of a guy I had met at the restaurant I was working at at the time who was a CIA student himself and he taught me how to tie the darn thing.
When I arrived at the school it was a bit overwhelming. All these people moving about the the halls of this massive school. As a new student you stick out like a sore thumb. Each new class consisted of 72 people, broken down into 4 groups of 18. 2 groups did the AM shift and 2 did the PM. I started at the AM shift. This would allow me to work at the restaurant in the evenings. Lots of questions, lots to take in. I made friends fast. You would spend the next 2 years with these people. I’m still friends with a few of these people and we graduated in 1986.
By week two, I was settled in. But boy there was some pretty wild stories about the Chef instructors. The Europeans could be brutal……. More to come on that subject
The Practical Chef 