Love To Cook? Make It Your Career!
By Debbie Wilson
If you love to cook, but aren't too excited about the possibility of working in a faced-paced, competitive restaurant setting, then you might consider one of many alternative chef careers, instead. In fact, all around the world, everyday people just like yourself are being paid to live an adventurous lifestyle in a career they truly love.
As a chef, you may think that your job opportunities are limited to fast food and fine dining establishments. However, this is simply not the case. In today's society, your career choices are practically limitless. You may decide to go into business as a caterer, become an instructor in a culinary training program, work as an executive chef in a hotel, private club, spa or resort, or you might even prepare buffets for cruise ships, casinos or amusement parks. Additionally, you may decide to work as a nutritionist or dietician. And if none of these appeals to you, you could always try your skills as a food critic, pastry chef, or specialty grocer. Let your culinary experience and talents shine through wherever your interests take you.
Catering Options that Fit your Lifestyle
As a caterer, you have the flexibility of choosing which jobs to accept. Jobs may be accepted or rejected based on price, location, time constraints, food selection, convenience, and overall food preparation enjoyment. You can select a catering job that fits your style of cooking and flavor interests. And, you can also prepare entire party themes based upon your food choices. This type of career works best if you are creative, sociable, flexible, and willing to travel.
Become a Culinary Instructor
Becoming a culinary instructor is another fine option to consider as a chef. You can either work for a university, college, or vocational school, or open your own educational apprenticeship program and train aspiring chefs-to-be. Job opportunities are excellent as well as abundant in the educational field and, even better, are the rewards of teaching.
Executive Chef Opportunities Await You
Have you always wanted to manage food service operations in a hotel, club, spa, cruise ship, or casino? If so, an executive chef position may be the career for you. You will meet many interesting people and work in an exciting, beautiful, and challenging environment. And, you will have the pleasure of developing specific menus that cater to your guests' needs and desires. Additionally, many of these operations have banquet rooms, exhibit halls, and spacious ballrooms to accommodate conventions, business meetings, weddings, and other social gatherings. These amenities are critical to company profits. As such, you will be playing an important role in the success of the business and customer satisfaction rate.
Promote a Healthy Change
When most people think of a nutritionist, or Dietician, the word that comes to mind is "yuck." However, a qualified, trained Dietician with chef experience can be a wonderfully fulfilling career. As a Dietician, you will most likely be employed in a hospital, retirement facility, university, or institution. You may be asked to develop dietary menus that promote health and well-being. You may also help guide individuals on their dietary choices and options and help them to make lifetime health changes.
Specialize your Options at the Supermarket
Today, many grocery stores offer prepared food for sale. As a specialty grocer, you may work as a pastry chef and prepare breads, rolls, cakes, and cookies. Or you might be employed as a gourmet chef to direct the preparation, seasoning, and cooking of salads, soups, fish, meat, vegetables, and other food items. Both of these careers allow you the freedom to specialize your menus.
Taste Your Way To Success
If you love to cook, but love to critique food quality even better, then a career as a food critic could be right for you. As a food critic, you will travel from restaurants to cafés to other dining establishments and sample and review select entrees and food items. In this profession, you should be honest, impartial, and sincere in your reviews. You may be employed by a newspaper or magazine company, or act as an independent reporter. You should have excellent communication skills in addition to quality chef experience. You should be willing to travel and meet people in social settings on a regular basis. Obtaining apprenticeship training in a broad variety of food selections will be extremely helpful in this particular career since it will give you the experience you'll need to critique food objectively.
As you can ultimately see, becoming a chef doesn't have to entail working in the restaurant business. There are many options available that allow you to customize your chef experience and talents to a lifestyle that you can enjoy and be happy with. In most cases, a degree in hospitality or culinary arts, which can be obtained at one of over 1,000 formal colleges, universities, or apprenticeship programs throughout the country, is all it takes to get started. And although curricula may vary, you will spend most of your time in the kitchen, learning the use of appropriate equipment, food-handling procedures, and advanced cooking techniques from around the world.
Job opportunities are expected to be plentiful in this growing field, spurred by increases in population, household income, leisure and vacation time, and increased health awareness. And the most exciting part about a career as a chef outside the "restaurant arena" is that you can explore multitudes of job choices that lend themselves to your individualistic style and talents. You will be amazed at how rewarding your career can be when you truly enjoy the avenue in which you utilize your chef skills and culinary experience.