A few months ago, I was reading the food section of my newspaper and noticed an open house for a culinary school in NJ that I'd never heard of before. I took a ride to check it out but the open house turned out to be for Spanish speakers, so it was kind of a bust in that respect. I spoke to the chef on the phone a few times about the program there to learn more about it. I mentioned the program to a photographer I work with and she was interested in pursuing a photo story there. She enlisted a reporter's help, I decided to jump in for video and we all ended up spending some time in the sunny kitchen at Promise Culinary School in New Brunswick. Spending the day immersed in the program, following one student's progress through the day was far more enlightening to me than any open house could be. After I was finished shooting, I spent some time with the head chef talking about her ideas about expanding the curriculum next year and other foodie related topics. Basically, it was the best day I'd had in a long time. I felt like I was among my tribe.
The chef in training I focused my video on, David, was celebrating his 40th birthday and learning how to bake pie. He worked on his pate sucre crust and key lime filling. I sniffed the goodness wafting from his work station. This father of five is living his dream. I hope his story finds an ending as sweet as his pie.
The companion story we ran is online here.
| Training to be a chef |
Comments