(GASP!) I just fainted when I looked at the French...

[TreasonousBastard]

Culinary Institute's pastry chef course.

Saw the TV commercial saying they have a 6 month course, which sounded interesting. The course description covered just about everything you'd ever want to know.

But it cost 38,000 bucks for that 6 months.

[Stinky The Clown]

1. My cousin, Beauzeaux Le Clown, went ...........

....... to look into that. He thought it was too spendy, too.

[Warpy]

3. Ha! I know a working pastry chef

who showed up at a friend's doorstep with a 50 pound bag of flour, 20 pound block of butter and a 25 pound bag of sugar after he'd bullshit himself into a pastry chef's job and announced "I gotta learn how to cook---fast!"

To his credit, he did. We all got fat on his efforts. He actually got quite famous for a while.

Any book will tell you how to do the stuff. Only experience can get you the speed you need to bang out pate feuilletee by the truckload while you do pate choux, pate brisee and pate sucree during its resting periods.

Bozeaux was right. Best way to learn is to apprentice, not spend tens of thousands of dollars having a book read to you.

[supernova]

2. Wow, you'd be better off apprenticing with a pastry chef

at a real restaurant for that money. Plus, you'd get paid a little.

Sometimes, Magnolia Grill here in Durham advertises for a pastry apprentice. I've sometimes dreamed about going in there. But I know a busy restaurant is too much for me.

[Tab]

4. Depends if you're looking to cook professionally or not

I don't know Cheney's first name about pastry, but for many genres there are "cooking vacations" - I've always wanted to do on. Go to France or Italy for a week or two, stay in a villa, go down to the market with the group every morning, see what's fresh, take it back, and learn how to cook in the local cuisine. It's usually priced $3k to $4k. I'd rather do a couple of those.

[NashVegas]

5. I Would Love to Do One of Those

I wonder if there'd be enough interest...

[supernova]

6. Oh yeah

the cooking retreats. I've lusted after those in my heart. :loveya:

This week, I got the National Geographic travel catalogue and there's always a cooking trip in there too. :9