I never thought I would end up where I am, I should say first. It's a humbling, yet painful experience to learn the ropes of cooking for a living. Personally, I think if I made a career doing anything with food I would start with Garde Manger, which when translated from French means "To Preserve," this region of culinary arts would be more commonly called cold food. A Garde Manger makes salads, desserts, and appetizers in a line position. That's not all it includes, however. Many professional Garde Mangers also produce ice carvings, fruit carvings, platters of all varieties, terrines, forced meats, foie gras, cheese platters, and so on. That would be my area of interest, to be precise, I'd say I'd be most interested in working in a hotel or resort setting to really put myself at an extreme.
I've made small scale carvings, including a viking boat watermelon carving. That's the extent of my experience so far, except for a stunt at Tempo in Waltham, my first attempt at professional line cooking at the age of eighteen. I won't go into too much detail, but I can tell you, high volume restaurants are not to be taken lightly after working only in a low volume but extremely busy pizza restaurant. Absolutely no GM (Garde Manger) experience prior to that brief time at Tempo, but it was a good look at what one needs to be ready for in order to be a cook.
The best advice I can give to any starter cook, from one to another, would be to keep your head on your shoulders and don't panic if something goes awry. Panic when the chef is throwing knives at you.
Well, that's my first shot at blogging. Let me know what you think!
