Cooking School Student Interview

Find out what cooking school is really like.

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Interview with Liz Bryant

Cooking School Graduate, 1991
The Cooking and Hospitality Institute of Chicago
Chicago, IL

When Liz Bryant was a senior in college, she worked for the school's food service department for extra money but discovered something more—a serious passion for the hustle and bustle of creating and serving great food. Once she graduated college, she went on to work for an advertising agency but never lost her desire to work with food. She decided to pursue her dream by attending cooking school and embarking on a lifelong career.

The Best Things About Cooking School

With her background in advertising, Bryant had always been interested in creative work. To her, the best thing about cooking school was being able to use her creativity, "not just to learn about food and techniques, but to have fun with it." Bryant said she loved to cook and read about cooking but had never been obligated to cook mass quantities of food. The chefs at her cooking school taught her a lot about managing a budget and preparing food for large groups of people. "It's one thing to create one beautiful plate; it's another thing to duplicate it 80 times."

One of her favorite classes in cooking school was based on using all natural, vegetarian ingredients, because it challenged her. "It stretched me because it was about using healthy, fresh vegetables. I have been really trying to incorporate that in what I do now. Lately, I have been conscious of using more vegetables in creative ways." She especially tries to utilize this concept when cooking for her family and often refers to the book Cooking For a New Earth by Carl Jerome.

The Challenges of Cooking School

What was the hardest thing about cooking school? Bryant has trouble thinking of an answer. "What I wanted to do was fulfill a dream, so I found every part of the experience to be absolutely fabulous." What surprised her most was how physically demanding the job is, including lifting and carrying 20-30 pounds at a time. "Even in your small space, you are constantly on your feet and moving back and forth between the stove and the prep-table."

Besides the physical demands, other requirements of cooking school included organizational skills and "being able to produce something in a short-time frame while multi-tasking and paying attention to food safety." Something that was highly stressed in cooking school was mise en place, a French phrase meaning "everything in place." According to Bryant, "in a high-end restaurant, no executive chef will tolerate a messy food station. You have to be organized; you have to have everything at your fingertips."

Getting Real-World Experience

Bryant obtained real-world experience at a restaurant within her school. "We served breakfast and lunch on Saturdays and dinner once a month. The patrons would pick from a menu that the students created." She enjoyed the experience of working with other people and learning from the chefs. "We had to work in teams and produce high-quality meals. I enjoyed meeting people and the chefs who were actually working in hotels and restaurants."

Balancing Life and Cooking School

Bryant chose a school that allowed her to balance her culinary education with the demands of her life and schedule. Besides a full-time job, Bryant also had to figure in her commute and the cost of cooking school. Her school offered a full-time program to obtain an associate's degree as well as a part-time program on Saturdays to obtain a certificate. Since Bryant already had a bachelor's degree, she chose the Saturday program. "The school fit into what I could do, and the rest was up to me. I trusted my own work ethic and determination would get me going."

Advice for Future Culinary Students

Her advice to future culinary arts students? She recommends finding the best cooking school possible depending on the student's situation. "I was working full-time. I knew, given my job, that I could never predict being off of work at five o'clock. That was why the institute was perfect for me. Of course there were Saturdays when I would have loved to sleep in or go to the beach, but if you really feel a passion for something, it's up to you to prioritize. I sought out a program that I knew would work for me."

For someone who is 18 and just out of high school, she recommends a school known for its culinary arts program that also offers a four-year degree. She stresses the importance of taking business classes along with the culinary arts classes. "In the restaurant business, you want to use good ingredients, but it's just as important to focus on managing cost and efficiency in order to make a profit." Looking back on her experience, she says she would have benefited from classes on nutritional science, something she also suggests for future culinary students.

Life After Cooking School

Although her school offered a job referral program, Bryant was able to find a position in a popular restaurant through contacts she had made herself. She found a mentor in Allen Sternweiler, owner of Allen's – The New American Café in Chicago. "He was confident he could teach anybody, but what Al was looking for was knife skills, knowing how to cut a tomato, a sense of design, and the ability to multi-task." Her restaurant experience brought the skills she learned in cooking school to a new level. "Al let me have a taste of every part of the restaurant. I butchered, I did pastry, and I worked my way up to the evenings and weekends, which is really when the fun, creative stuff happens."

After several years in the restaurant business, of which she has fond memories, she now schedules her own hours by working as a part-time caterer for brunches and cocktail parties and creating occasion cakes. Bryant says she gets jobs by word-of-mouth and through friends who fall in love with her creations when she hosts her own parties. "I will often do work for a friend who is a real estate agent and offers her clients a house-warming party for up to twenty couples."

Like any good recipe, the outcome of cooking school depends on the amount of effort and passion a student is willing to put into it. As Bryant says, "Have fun. Read as many books about cooking as you can, and host as many parties as you can afford."

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