Michelle Garcia of Chicago's famed Bleeding Heart Bakery realized her lack of business sense the hard way. Even though she had graduated at the top of her class in The French Pastry School, Michelle had trouble when it came to her first business, selling her own candy. She found it hard to finally collect payments from clients she was invoicing. "It failed because I never learned how to get paid. I had the invoice -- but once they don't pay you and its past 30 days, what do you do? Whole Foods owed me $31,000." It was then that she decided to get her business degree.
After attending the Cooking and Hospitality Institute of Chicago (now, Le Cordon Bleu), it took Caitlin (CookingwithCaitlin) having her first child to have her eyes opened to the food preparation short cuts. It was at that point that she says, "It became more important to stretch a dollar at the grocery than splurge on a few great steaks." Caitlin's favorite short-cut foods include: frozen potatoes that knock one hour off of mashed potatoes and gnocchi; pre-made puff pastry sheets; and frozen, pre-diced Mirepoix (carrots, celery, onions).
The extreme pressure of chef Gordon Ramsay taught chef Paula Dasilva, "how much crap I can take, how much stress I can be put under, how much pressure I can be put under." It took being on Ramsay's television show, Hell's Kitchen, to teach Paula how far she could be pushed. The environment of the culinary school kitchen was not nearly as stressful and competitive.
Blogger and graduate of The Culinary Institute of America, Bekah (beekeats.com) says, "Since starting my externship, I've learned there is a whole list of items they don't even bring up in culinary school that is not only good to have in the kitchen, but is necessary to go about one day's work." Among her list of essential tools for a professional kitchen, she includes a Kuhn-Rikon peeler, Japanese mandolin, digital scale, cake tester, bowl scraper, timer, tasting spoon, Joyce-Chen scissors and only two knives (paring knife and chef's knife).