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PJdance9397

Sorry for the long question but I am looking for advice. I've been struggling for years trying to figure out what to do with my life that suites my personality and that I love doing. After many years of tasting many different fields from marine biology to art history/restoration I have found that the two things that get me the most excited are cooking for people and dancing and in both cases teaching those two things.I am teaching myself all I can through books (a blast I must say). In reality I know the best option for me and my personality, aside from just cooking all the time, would be the long lost apprenticeship (1 on 1).I am mostly curious about the paths people take to becoming a “cook”. I am already a cook, because I cook. I’m just not as “great” as I want to be.I hear plenty of talk about the CIA as the standard for French cuisine and traditions, well cooking period. I am also reading a book about the CIA, “The Making Of A Chef”, right now, as well as many other books on cooking techniques and ethnic cuisines. Makes me wonder where does one learn about Chinese or Japanese or Mexican or heck even plain ol' Southern and Na'lins cuisine? Chinese is my favorite followed by sashimi.And furthermore I noticed none of my favorite cooks never attended the CIA! Lidia Bastianich, Joyce Goldstein, Martin Yan, Deborah Madison, Penelope Casas, Alice Waters, Cecilia Chiang most of whom ran their own restaurants... Many learned from their parents, but in my dysfunctional family most were never handed down and some went to France or Spain to study etc. Then you have do it yourselfers like Rachael Ray (gag), and even Joyce Goldstein was self taught and ran the legendary Four Square in SF (though admittedly working at the Chez Panisse café didn’t hurt). And one of my favorite places to eat Zatars (Mediterranean) in Berkeley is run by two people who do all the work.In the what I do not want to own a restaurant per se... I want to use the large guest house of my own house (as they do in Europe, the home above or alongside the business). It would be for special event dinners for mainly low income families and others where I cook 5 stars meals for these people who are on a on a budget (almost NFP or charity). To show them a really good meal since they probably will never be able to get in at the French Laundry. I would also do other things associated with cooking and dance, (For example: I would also teach dance lessons in the same space during some of the off days and cooking classes in my own home like Joyce Goldstein did. The food and menus would be as Alice Waters practices, local and seasonal (luckily I live in the Bay Area so the variety of stuff is astounding), probably growing a lot of the food myself.I know TV glamorizes the whole cooking thing (though to its credit I do think it has gotten more of your average American’s cooking and thinking about what they eat). I am not naïve about the heat and long hours and as I said I’m not out run some glamorous eating establishment or become the next Nobu where I have five restaurants I’m never actually working in. It would be more akin to catering actually. But at the heart of it all is this idea that I LOVE to cook for people and I love to teach and I want so badly to have those two things as well as dance in my life. I love the smell and the sounds, the tastes, holding a plum, sampling a cherry, and almost waltzing about the kitchen as things are being put together.So what are your opinions on culinary school and celebrity chefs and food network and all that? What was your path to the kitchen? What would you suggest as path to learning how to cook? Especially for one like me who is practically broke.

Della

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