Why I Cook

I am not a great cook. Well, at least not yet. I used to think my future family would be skinny and never have to go to the gym because I might accidentally poison them or they wouldn't like my food!

I have, however, always loved food. I used to cut out recipes from the LA Times paper and dutifully made color coded (nerd!) recipe collages when I was a teenager. As an aspiring ballerina, I made ultra fattening (man, were they good!) desserts, because forbidden = desirable. In college and beyond I was addicted to watching the Food Network and when I moved to France with an American TV, all I watched were old VCR recordings of Rachel Ray and Michael Chiarello.

Up until a year or 2 ago, I didn't spend any significant amount of time in the kitchen because my mother is a great cook and made great "doggie bags" that lasted me an entire week at university. When I started working as an investment banker there was even less need to cook since I ate 3 meals a day at my desk. I'm sure it wasn't very healthy gobbling down Cheesecake Factory takeout in 5 minutes flat amid a mountain of papers and Diet Coke cans, but I learned to live with the banker lifestyle.

One year, when I came back to France after Christmas holidays in LA, I suddenly couldn't stand the thought of eating one more choose-your-own-toppings pasta salad for lunch. I started fiddling around in my tiny kitchen on the weekends, cooking as many dishes as I could until I ran out of pots and pans. I got many comments from certain less than diplomatic colleagues along the lines of, "Ew, what is that smell?!?!?!" when I heated up my little bento at noon but I didn't care. I had Chinese food!

One great blessing I received when my bank collapsed was that I suddenly had more free time (wow!). I decided to volunteer at a local soup kitchen run by 4 American churches in Paris. I met many amazing volunteers in the numerous Fridays I spent at the American Cathedral kitchen and made some great friends. Although I was often teased about my less than stellar cooking skills, it was still such a rewarding experience to be able to cook a hot meal for homeless and needy guests.

Part of the "Friday Mission Lunch" team

I was reminded of "the joy of cooking" today (thanks, Bel!) when I helped cook a welcome lunch at my church with my home group. Life in culinary school can be tough but when I am in the kitchen for a good cause, I don't care about the fatigue anymore. It may not have been 3 star cooking but it was good food prepared with lots of love. It's such a privilege to be able to contribute like that and it has re-motivated me to face the week ahead. Bringing joy to others - that is why I cook...or try to cook!

School School

Going to cooking school started out as a desperate attempt to find a plan B when I became increasingly certain I wouldn’t get in to business school last year. If not an MBA, why not cook? Right. Here I am, a ballerina / study geek turned fanker (that’s a “fake investment banker” according to the Lehman Menlo Park crew) who was hardly ever allowed in the home kitchen for fear of giving her poor mother a heart attack! Me, become the next Julia Child or Anita Lo? Far from likely. I just hope to be able to make a decent meal for my friends the next time I entertain in my tiny overpriced Parisian flat and we’ll take it from there.

The program so far has been perfectly tailored to ambitious 17-year-olds. The chefs are extremely competent both in the kitchen and as teachers, which I think is rare. Unfortunately, I’m not a teenager anymore and the strict discipline, heavy “homework” load and general spell-everything-out-ness (“you must be on time and respect others”) is not the style I would have preferred.

The students are very motivated though and not at all what I imagined (you know, the trendy cliques roaming the malls and hanging out by the kebab stand). They do, however, still have that sagging thing going on and I am now privy to the underwear preferences of most of my male classmates…Despite all that, I am happy to finally meet people who also make a beeline for the cooking magazines at the newsstand and take pictures of food like Asian tourists in front of the Eiffel Tower (guilty as charged!).

So far we have had 3 days in the kitchen, which means 6:30am wake up call (ah, the familiar Blackberry alarm is back), 7:30am start, 8am lecture in the kitchen (no chairs to be found) and cooking until 2:30pm with major cleanup afterwards. I am developing beautiful legs from running up and down 5 flights of stairs and learning to eat as fast as a starving athlete. We have learned the basic stocks and sauces and I even cleaned a chicken – me, the girl with a deathly fear of pigeons and birds in general! It is definitely more tiring and less glamourous than I hoped but I’m learning a lot. Where else do you get to flambé whole chickens and run around with knife kits? Fun…

La Dernière Montée…

…loosely translated as “the last hill to climb” could be the motto of the class. However, in hiking, as in life, we never quite reach the last hill but rather, the last hill before the next hill to climb. Je m’explique. My first week in “school” was actually spent in the Jura mountains in the east of France, close to the Swiss border. It was a beautiful countryside filled with cows, forests and cheese…and cow dung. We spent a week “team building” by doing activities such as 7 hour hikes which seemed to never end, because there was always another hill and we always only had 15-20 more minutes to go, until we had yet another 15-20 minutes to go. We went mountain biking (through said cow dung) and zipped through the trees in an adventure course, complete with spectacular semi-landings.

My class is mostly made up of French recent high school grads and a sprinkle of older wannabe chefs, like myself. I do think I win the prize for having been on the earth the longest, though I hope I don’t look it! Among the non-17-year-olds is a former lawyer and a former language professor. I’m the only person from the business world, the only foreigner and the only Asian (hmm, reminds me of my last job). Sometimes these differences make me feel like an imposter, though I prefer to think of it as embarking on a once-in-a-lifetime adventure…

La Rentrée

Oh the excitement of going back to school, otherwise known as "la rentrée" in France, especially when your 10 year high school reunion is already coming up fast!

I walked up to ESCF (Ecole Supérieur de Cuisine Française) Ferrandi this morning decked out in my work suit (quand même!) and the Coach purse I bought when I got my first real job offer, ahem, 5 years ago. I took the "students forbidden" elevator with a friendly future classmate who innocently asked me if I also just passed my "bac" (French high school graduation exam). Hmmm, not exactly... When we passed a chef wearing the French colors on his collar, my heart skipped a beat. I was in the same building as a MOF! Now, I don't know about you but that acronym conjures up all kinds of ideas, kind of like the reaction some people get when they see the "FCUK" logo for the first time! Anyway, MOF stands for "Meilleur Ouvrier de France", a title given to the winners of a prestigious frenchy competition. In my amateur mind, it's like seeing an Iron Chef in person, but I may be insulting one or the other with this association.

It was an interesting day with 30+ of us new students sitting in an amphitheatre with the Very Important People from the corner offices first exchanging kisses and then talking at us kids about how we must be disciplined, show respect and not rebel. Fitting into the Mold is très important here. The school is very hierarchical but that could just be French organizations in general. We were shown the pictures of people we absolutely must say "bonjour" to in the halls. I had forgotten that we say "merci" and "au revoir" to someone who finishes a speech instead of applauding, which makes for an awkward murmur from all corners of the room. The chefs actually proposed a cigarette break (not coffee) and then we went on the grand tour.

Chef M showed us around and chuckled at how a group of Japanese students were paying 20,000 euros or so to study here, which is exactly why I'm putting myself through the frenchy program. The Anglo program is more than double the price of the French one but you get out of a bunch of more general classes which may be worth it at the end... The Chef greeted and was greeted by everyone it seems - I'm interested to find out what he's notorious for! Him and Chef C seem professional but are quite funny. Or, it could be that anytime someone uses slang that I actually understand it seems like a joke to me because I'm super proud of myself for getting it!

I'm looking forward to the stage d'integration next week. I'm not sure I'll make it back in one piece after a day with 7 hours of hiking but at least I'll be victorious in one thing. I may not have the strength of an 18 year old but my skin's sure gotten a lot better since! Mwahahaha