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Ronn
Student
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Questions
Asked
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How can I excel at culinary arts?
I am working for my culinary arts degree and I was wondering what necessary steps I need to take to take to excel in this field.
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1 answer
Emeline ATTARD
Pastry junior sous chef
2
Answers
San Diego, California
Updated
Emeline’s Answer
Hi Ron,
I suggest you to try every ideas that will come up in your mind when it comes to dishes, pastries and associations of flavors that you're curious about.
Train as much as you can at home, repetiton of your gestures and technique will make it easier and smoother for you because you'll get use to the movments and the way it suppose to look.
Write down what are your strong and weak points, then focus on one of your weaknesses at a time and work on it by choosing for exemple a lot of dessert with piping if you're strugguling with it or a certain type of cutting technique.
Try all the crazy associations that you think of, it will build your creativity and you'll teach yourself your personnal data base of seasonning and association. Be curious and go try new restaurants and pastries that you are interesed in, everything around you can give you ideas with time.
Cook meals for your family and friends by choosing a challenging menu that will ask you to be organized in a different environment that a professional kitchen and i'm pretty sure they will love to eat you food.
Then if you like to challenge yourself you can look for different cooking/pastry competitions. It's very interresting in a way that you'll have to learn to manage your stress and you'll meet a lot of different chefs and students like you so it can be a starting point to build a network.
I personnaly took a job during all of my school's breaks because it helps me to save up some money and at the same time it gave me the oppotunity to learn in the real world of a cuisine day by day at the linecook/pastrycook and helped me to define more and more what i wanted to do in it.
I wish you luck and have fun in all of thoses steps, of course it's demanding but our profession is about passion so please never forget about it because every person that will be able to eat your food will taste it and love it :) Find your extra touch that makes you love your job!
If you have any questions you can contact me again i'll do my best to answer to you,
Best regards, Emeline
Cook and train at home
Understand you strenght and weaknesses
Work on your weaknesses
Be creative and try new things and places
Competitions/work during schools's break to build a network
I suggest you to try every ideas that will come up in your mind when it comes to dishes, pastries and associations of flavors that you're curious about.
Train as much as you can at home, repetiton of your gestures and technique will make it easier and smoother for you because you'll get use to the movments and the way it suppose to look.
Write down what are your strong and weak points, then focus on one of your weaknesses at a time and work on it by choosing for exemple a lot of dessert with piping if you're strugguling with it or a certain type of cutting technique.
Try all the crazy associations that you think of, it will build your creativity and you'll teach yourself your personnal data base of seasonning and association. Be curious and go try new restaurants and pastries that you are interesed in, everything around you can give you ideas with time.
Cook meals for your family and friends by choosing a challenging menu that will ask you to be organized in a different environment that a professional kitchen and i'm pretty sure they will love to eat you food.
Then if you like to challenge yourself you can look for different cooking/pastry competitions. It's very interresting in a way that you'll have to learn to manage your stress and you'll meet a lot of different chefs and students like you so it can be a starting point to build a network.
I personnaly took a job during all of my school's breaks because it helps me to save up some money and at the same time it gave me the oppotunity to learn in the real world of a cuisine day by day at the linecook/pastrycook and helped me to define more and more what i wanted to do in it.
I wish you luck and have fun in all of thoses steps, of course it's demanding but our profession is about passion so please never forget about it because every person that will be able to eat your food will taste it and love it :) Find your extra touch that makes you love your job!
If you have any questions you can contact me again i'll do my best to answer to you,
Best regards, Emeline
Emeline recommends the following next steps: