Culinary Arts Degree: Moving from Home Cook to Professional

Your dinner parties are legendary and your muffins are the talk of the neighborhood. Your culinary prowess leads to a stream of accolades from friends and family. That must mean you are ready to make the transition from amateur home cook to professional chef, right? You may be considering making that move and while you are off to a great start, there are several ingredients you need to mix into the equation before making that career move.

Measuring Up

Professional chefs are masters of measuring and calculation. Chefs need to know how to scale recipes so that everything turns out perfect whether the meal is prepared for 10 or 100 guests. Similarly, professional chefs need to have the ability to juggle multiple demands and a variety of meals within a limited amount of time. A good chef knows how to keep the broth from boiling while the steak is searing and the scallops steaming.

Learning how to simultaneously juggle the progress of multiple cooking techniques is the key to delivering perfection in every order. Chefs are also rigorous taskmasters. Good enough simply isn't good enough. Chefs make sure that each recipe, each task, and each request is completed to perfection.

Cooking with Communication

Communication is one of the most important skills home chefs need to master before entering the professional kitchen. That's because professional chefs aren't lone rangers; they are part of a larger team that must work together in order to achieve success.

This means knowing how to convey critical details in short order, knowing how to translate special requests into finished product, and being able to coordinate the actions of everyone from salad chefs and wait staff, to dishwashers and kitchen helpers.

Being able to listen, and being able to teach are two critical communications skills home chefs need to perfect. That is because everyone in the kitchen is a student, and everyone is a teacher. Sharing skills and learning from peers is what turns a good cook into a master chef.

A Bit of Business Acumen

It takes more than just knowing how to balance a budget to succeed as a professional chef. Chefs have to know how to forecast and plan for changes in seasonal prices for fruits, fish, and vegetables. Chefs also have to be able to forecast reservations based on weather, holidays, and special events in the region so that they have the proper inventory and sufficient staffing. Most importantly, chefs need to know how to calculate the cost of each dish they serve up otherwise the restaurant can find itself in the red very quickly.

Chefs also have to know how to negotiate the best deals with vendors and develop strong relationships with everyone in their supply chain. In fact, head chefs can spend as much time reviewing delivery contracts and managing inventory as they do planning recipes and preparing food for guests. With so many diverse responsibilities, this means that above all a chef must be a master of organization and multitasking.

Creative Consistency

A home chef can mess up from time to time and get away with it. A professional chef needs to be able to deliver the same soufflé, the same steak, and the same soup day after day. Chefs also have to be able to stay on top of culinary trends. From the latest fads to warnings about ingredients, chefs have to tailor their special's menu to match customer tastes and provide wait staff with answers that customer's may ask them during the ordering process.

Chefs also have to be able to stay on top of the competition. In the restaurant business, it is not enough to just deliver good food; you have to be able to deliver good food that's different than every other restaurant in the area.

The Value of Professional Training

Culinary school helps home cooks hone their skills and sharpen their focus through hands-on experience. Every element of the curriculum is designed to fill in the gaps of a student's knowledge so that they fully understand the science of cooking and the demands of the restaurant business.

Upon program completion, graduates should be well-prepared to handle the rigorous requirements of a professional kitchen. Whether the graduates are going into business for themselves or seeking a position within the hospitality industry, culinary school graduates have an educational advantage that can light a fire under their career prospects.

Ready to take that step from home cook to professional? If you want to earn an Associate of Applied Science in Culinary Arts, ECPI University offers this course at an accelerated rate. For more information on this exciting degree path, connect with a helpful admissions representative today.

It could be the Best Decision You Ever Make!

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