Chef
Top Jobs, p1
No matter how you slice it, culinary careers call for talent, hard work
People
are stepping up to the plate more often than ever. USDA research shows
that on any given day, 57 percent of Americans eat meals and snacks away
from home, with 40 percent spent eating out.
All this off-site
activity feeds the nation’s $440.1 billion restaurant industry,
according to the National Restaurant Association, giving America’s 2.1
million chefs and cooks greater job security.
Joe Prasasouk,
owner and general manager of Blu Peacock in Modesto, grew up helping his
mother in the kitchen, then selling goods to fairs, markets and door to
door in Des Moines, IA.
He came to America from Laos at age 7,
lived in Iowa until 1991, then landed in Modesto. Of Vietnamese and Thai
decent, his first language is Laotian, although his English is
impeccable.
He and his wife, Kim Prasasouk, Blu Peacock
executive chef, opened Blu Peacock in 2002, after selling Kim’s previous
venture, Pho 7 Vietnamese restaurant, to Joe’s brother-in-law.
Joe
assists Kim with prep work and cooking during peak times, but his main
duties are managing and training staff, overseeing bookkeeping and
tracking inventory.
Since many customers are unfamiliar with the
cuisine, he enjoys educating customers about menu items. “We’re like a
fusion of Thai, Chinese and little influence of French,” Joe explains,
adding that the focus is on elegant dining, rather than the fast pace
and casual atmosphere of the previous place.
Originally from Nha
Trang, Vietnam, Joe’s wife, Kim, executive chef for Blue Peacock,
journeyed to Modesto at age 12. The main cook in her family after her
mother, Kim was in charge of preparing daily meals for lunch and dinner,
Joe says. “She had to be very creative because their father didn’t want
to eat the same meals every day,” Joe says. “Most of the recipes we use
came from her family.”
Kim studied child development and
teaching in college and was nearing her degree when her parents needed
her to help them open a restaurant.
More recently, Kim enrolled
in a basic culinary course at Modesto Junior College. “It was my idea,”
Joe says, “We wanted to be certified. I thought maybe she could learn
new things.” The class was very basic, from holding a knife to learning
how to prep. “She was the leader in there, everybody was going to her
and asking what to do. Because she had a restaurant, everybody
questioned what she was doing there.”
If you want to become a
chef, you need to love cooking, he explains. “The worst thing you can do
is not like what you’re doing,” says Joe, who plans to open a second
location. “Food is, in a sense, my life. Becoming a chef requires having
a dream. It’s a lot of work, but we’re following our dream.”
Tom
Putler, head chef for Tresetti’s in Modesto, agrees. Prospective chefs
must be “passionate about cooking or you’re not going to last long. The
hours are not short by any means,” he explains. “It’s fairly grueling
and hot work. It’s not glamorous like you see on the food network
shows,” says Putler, a 15-year culinary veteran.
He adds that
although he hasn’t experienced it personally, “marital problems are
fairly common and the divorce rate is fairly high,” due at least in part
to stress-induced substance abuse. He says he’s seeing fewer of these
problems today due to employer drug testing.
Putler says chefs
are more than multitaskers. “Last week I coined the word, ‘omnitasker,’”
to describe all the responsibilities chefs juggle, from food
preparation, presentation and timing, to vendor coordination, pricing
and menu creation.
According to Putler, chefs need to he
“hardworking, loyal, have some math ability, verbal and interpersonal
skills, patience, passion for cooking and some talent.”
Putler,
who recently returned to Tresetti’s, has worked for a number of
restaurants, including Del Rio Country Club, Gordon Biersch Brewery
Restaurant in Palo Alto and Slocum House in Fair Oaks.
He was
raised on upscale foods. Putler says his mom is a great cook, but never
let him near the kitchen, which left him with a sense of intrigue. “I
think her library of cookbooks is about 700 plus,” Putler says. “At a
young age I was eating things the other kids weren’t – and my parents
entertained.”
At age 22, Putler considered attending culinary
school, but his dad pointed out that several of his friends’ children
had gone to culinary school and decided it a waste of time and money.
Putler’s
dad suggested he work in a restaurant. “I was still thinking of going
to culinary school when I got to Gordon Biersch Brewery Restaurant, the
first upscale dining pub in California,” Putler explains. “I was hired
as a line cook, and after about eight months was promoted to sous chef. I
decided to save that money and (then) learned on the job.” He also
studied many culinary textbooks.
He attended Modesto Junior
College and transferred to the University of California, Davis, where he
earned a bachelor’s degree in food science.
Regarding culinary
school, Putler says candidates need “at least a couple of years of
restaurant (training) under their belt,” because school would be
“overwhelming” and difficult to absorb with all the unfamiliar terms,
etc.
“You have to put in a lot of sweat equity,” says Bob Glatt,
a culinary arts instructor with Modesto Junior College. “Cooking is a
lot of fun if you enjoy it, but if you’re looking to get rich quick, it
only happens for a select few. There are long, hot hours on your feet,
lifting heavy items, tensions running high. The pay is not that great.
If it’s something you like to do, it’s one of the greatest jobs there
is. You get to make people happy every night. There’s lots of instant
reward,” Glatt says. “(But) being successful in your restaurant still
means five to seven days a week and 12-15 hours a day. There’s a really
high burnout rate.”
Titles and duties of kitchen workers vary
greatly. Some of the many designations include food preparation worker,
fry cook, grill cook, short-order cook, pastry chef, head cook, sous
(pronounced “sue”) chef, head chef and executive chef.
Chefs
earn their titles by working their way up. For example, experience is
not necessary to become a line cook at Denny’s, according to manager
Richard LaCroix of the West Orangeburg, Modesto location. “I have
promoted busboys, servers and others that had never worked even at
McDonald’s. It depends on your willingness, personal drive and your
desire,” he says. “I’m willing to train anybody who wants to better
themselves.”
His line cooks are in charge of preparation, actual
cooking, including fryers, deep fryers, grills, ovens, sanitation, food
safety, product rotation and stock, LaCroix explains. “Everything is off
the menu, except for substitutions.” LaCroix’s cooks work a regular
shift, with one to four cooks on duty 24 hours a day.
He says the
job instills a personal sense of pride. “You do it for the satisfaction
that you know you’ve prepared something that somebody is really going
to enjoy. When they really love it, they send back a compliment and that
makes you feel good.”
Earnings for restaurant workers vary
significantly according to region and type of food establishment.
Figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) for 2002 show earnings
for fast-food cooks ranged from $6.90 to $9.13 per hour, with chefs and
head cooks earning $7.66 to more than $25.86 per hour.
Prospective
chefs have several options to obtain training. Formal culinary programs
can give future chefs an edge when applying for jobs in fine
restaurants, often allowing them to leapfrog past lower-skilled kitchen
positions. On-the-job training plus personal study and talent can add up
to a satisfying career.
Modesto Junior College in Modesto and
San Joaquin Delta College in Stockton are the closest schools offering
culinary education programs. Other Northern California colleges and
culinary academies are located in Fresno, Sacramento, Chico, San
Francisco, Oakland, Pleasant Hill, San Jose Sonora, Napa Valley and
Roseville.
Resources
Tresetti’s: www.tresetti.com
Denny’s: www.dennys.com
Blu Peacock: www.blupeacock.com
National Restaurant Association: www.restaurant.org
American Culinary Federation: www.acfchefs.org
International Council on Hotel, Restaurant, and Institutional Education: www.chrie.org
© HHWS for The Modesto Bee
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