03 Into the Fire: My First Day at the CCA

Thursday, October 21, 2004

Minutes before my first day of cooking school is due to begin, I slowly unlatch the stall door and step out into the first floor women’s bathroom. I’m dressed in the standard issue uniform of a California Culinary Academy student: comfortably baggy black-and-white checkered pants, a white chef’s jacket with my name and school logo embroidered on the chest, neckerchief, apron, and a jaunty white cap that seems precariously close to falling over my eyes.

Three or four other women are bustling around me, fastening aprons and tying on neckerchiefs (knotted in the same way that a man knots a suit tie). As I wash my hands, I attempt to look casual and experienced, but really I’m scanning the others, straining to pick up any hints about the proper way to affix elements of my new uniform. Like any new kid, I’m eager to fit in as soon as possible, without drawing attention to my inexperience.

I quickly see that the most attractive and sensible way to wear one’s hat is to fold up the bottom so that there’s less height to the cap, and that apron strings should be wrapped around one’s waist, tied in front, and then hidden by folding over the top inch of the apron. No one is wearing any jewelry, and I sadly draw off the diamond engagement ring that Andrew just gave me just the week before. While I’m in class, the ring will have to remain well hidden under my uniform, on a chain around my neck.

I take a deep breath, hoist up my backpack, and push through the swinging bathroom door into the busy hallways of the CCA. My year in cooking school has begun.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

The first two weeks of every student’s year at the CCA are taken up by two classes: Safety and Sanitation, a lecture-based class that lasts half of each day, and Basic Skills, a kitchen-based class that occurs during the remaining half. Basic Skills actually spans over 6 weeks total, while the lecture-based class moves into Food Science during weeks 3 and 4, and then Nutrition during weeks 5 and 6. All are taught by the same chef.

My chef for these first crucial segments is Chef Steven Moore, or “Chef Steve” as he introduces himself to the class on the first day. Chef Steve looks much like the actor Richard Dreyfuss – he has a well-groomed white goatee with white hair that peeks out from his tall toque, but he strikes me as being no older than his mid-forties. Although imposing in his crisply starched uniform, he does not act at all pretentious: a gap in his front teeth winks at us whenever he frequently laughs, and his pronunciation of many cooking terms would leave a Frenchman swooning with despair.

Chef Steve’s opening day lecture is peppered with stories from his varied career in the food industry. It seems he’s done everything from running a sandwich shop, to managing the kitchen of a nursing home, to working the line at Stars, a place where cooks were required to prep garlic by mincing it no less than 45 minutes straight with a pair of Chinese cleavers. He’s really seen it all.

Chef Steve spends our first Safety and Sanitation period going over grading polices and making introductions. He asks the class – all 30 of us – to introduce ourselves individually and to say where we come from and why we’re here. Many in the class are students who’ve either just left college or weren’t interested in it to begin with. Others, like me, are hoping to change careers so that we can do something we’re more passionate about. There are a couple of people from the banking and finance industries, a personal trainer, a truck driver, and a QA engineer for a software company in the East Bay.

Several students traveled great distances to get to the academy, including Diane, an older blonde woman from Illinois with a lilting Mid-Western accent, and Richard, a dread-locked black man from Las Vegas well into his 30s or 40s. Most members of the class want to open up their own restaurant someday and not work for anyone else. Several aren’t exactly sure what they’ll do after school, but I’m the only one who expresses any interest in a career that lies outside of the kitchen – I’m torn between pursuing a career in food writing or trying to get an externship at a place like Chez Panisse.

After lecture, we are sent as a group down to the basement to pick up our books, knives and equipment for the year. As part of the cost of tuition, each student receives a roller suitcase filled with everything we might need in the kitchen, short of a set of pots and pans. Additionally we’re loaded down with a fold-up knife bag and a heavy CCA tote bag filled with every text book we’ll need during the coming year.

We spend our time up in the kitchen going through our new gear, identifying the equipment and selecting the items that we’ll bring everyday in our knife bag (10” chef’s knife, straight and curved paring knives, knife steel, whisk, large tongs, metal spoons, heat-resistant scraper, peeler, measuring cups/spoons, bench scraper, 2-oz ladle, pocket thermometer), and those we’ll leave in our suitcase at home until another class requires them (pastry bags and tips, circular cutters, squeeze bottle, oyster knife, meat mallet, citrus zester, apple corer, baking pads, pastry wheel cutter, and others).

Chef Steven, a chef instructor who will be helping Chef Steve when we’re in the kitchen, places a thermometer in the sleeve pocket of one student’s chef’s jacket and announces to the rest of the class, “Consider your thermometer another part of your uniform. I don’t want to see anyone in here without it.” He adds that they will be conducting unannounced, brigade-style uniform checks to make sure our uniforms are complete, our hands and ears are unadorned with jewelry, and that our fingernails are clean, short, and unpainted. Bonnie, an older black woman with gorgeous long, painted fingernails and several earrings hanging from each ear, looks crestfallen.

The remainder of our class time is spent going on a tour of the kitchen. Chef Steve shows us the reach-in refrigerators and freezers, the three-compartment sink (filled with hot soapy water, hot rinsing water, and cold sanitizer solution), hand-washing stations, dry storage areas, the walk-in refrigerator, grill, salamander (for broiling), and two massive steam kettles that are used to produce stock for the rest of the school.

Noticing a pilot light is out in one of the blackened, industrial-size ranges, Chef Steve grabs a brown paper towel, lights it, and nearly singes his eyebrows at the burst of flame that erupts from the stove. “This would be an example of what not to do,” he chuckles, “Never light a pilot light unless the gas is off.” We all laugh at his joke, but I wonder how many others are as cowed as I am by the large, industrial equipment. These aren’t the friendly home appliances we’ve been using our whole lives -- this equipment can do much more damage in a much shorter amount of time.

After nearly five hours of orientation, Chef Steve sends us off into the night with a reminder that we need to read five chapters by tomorrow and that our Safety and Sanitation final is only 8 class days away.

Welcome to cooking school.

Next: 04 Safety and Sanitation -- Weeks 1 - 2
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