The 5 mother sauces

1. Hollandaise

2.Veloute

3.Sauce Tomato

4.Sauce espagnole

5.Bechamel

Important sauces because they are the foundation of classic French cuisine. They build almost all their sauces from these 5 different sauces. They drill the five sauces into you head at the CIA. You do not hear much about the five mother sauces now a days because a lot of places don’t really use it. You see a lot of jus today.

For you future culinary students here is how I remembered the five sauces.

1. Hollandaise- the only emulsion sauce, pain in the ass to keep from breaking until you find the trick(future post)

2. Bechamel- the white sauce, just a white roux and diary

3. veloute- blond sauce, blond roux with stock.

4. Espagnole- fortified beef stock with a brown roux, used in demi.

5. Sauce tomato- the sauce i always forget, just your basic tomato sauce.

Extremely Early Classes

Yes, you may have heard the CIA has some classes starting at 12am, 1am, 3am. What classes are those, the 12am class is the bread baking for Apple Pie Bakery Cafe. I did not have this class but I had friends who took it. It was either a hit or miss depending on the person.

The 1 and 3 am classes are both breakfast cookery classes. The class you take right before you go on your externship. It may seem horrible to wake up so early and work, but I actually did not mind it. I got use to the schedule and to have most of your evenings free was GREAT! Besides breakfast is not as difficult to prep as other meal times. Less precise cuts and lots of eggs. I had a blast during breakfast class. People are in a good mood because they are about to go on their externship.

I laugh when my friends complain about their 8am classes, so stop complaining everyone!

A Stagier or Stage

This is a culinary/kitchen term. A stage, pronounced stah-ge. I think it is French, sounds funny. It basically means an unpaid worker who can be working for a day trying out at the restaurant, or a few weeks like an intern to learn. I staged at restaurants to learn and make connections. It gives you a more relaxed way to learn because you are not getting paid and you will not get yelled at for moving too slowly. 

I have also staged at restaurants for jobs. It is like a trial for someone who wants to work at a restaurant because the team wants to see if you can hang. That’s what a stage is in the restaurant industry.

Is culinary school worth it?

I get this question a lot. There are many many many articles arguing if people think culinary school is worth the money and time. I will try to make this post short and to the point but I can talk about this all day.

A little background: I went to the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, New York. Graduated with honors in their AOS program. I got some scholarships to help pay, but mainly took out loans and am paying this for myself.

Was it worth it bottom line. NO. The amount of debt I accumulated vs the pay of a cook is drastically different.

I have many problems with my experiences at culinary school that I will write about in the future, but I just wanted to throw out my opinion of culinary school after recently graduating. I wish I had gone to a traditional college and worked in restaurants part time.

If you have any questions about culinary school that you want to ask me feel free to leave any questions behind and I’ll gladly answer them truthfully.

First Post

This is just a blog that I wanted to make to share my experiences as a cook. I have another blog where I rambled a lot. This blog I would like keep the passages short. I really want this blog to give people an insight on what it is like to be a cook on a professional level. I am a cook, not a chef(yet). I am young, barely out of culinary school. This blog I do not want to talk too much about my personal life. I want this to be more focused on food and the restaurant industry because I always get questions about being a professional chef maybe I can help people better understand. I hope you enjoy the ride. I love sharing short tales from work and school.