Parental Role Injustice For Next Generation

As a mother of three achieving teenagers, I have put into place a strategy that may give them a leg up in the coming years. This plan of mine isn't done just because I am a chef, but I have seen that there is a informational gap forming on many levels and types of education that our children are not receiving. I have seen this more readily now that I am a culinary educator of other's parents children.

It is no longer a pervasive standard of parental expectation that children are expected to participate in completing chores, household repairs, and cooking duties. This has established bad habits that won't be easily broken. I seldom here of the Saturday mornings filled with cleaning the house, Spring cleaning, yard work, or any other type of productive duties that a family should be doing together. It is our duty to send out into the world at large young adults who have the skills to survive. I never wanted to live in situations where my kids would drop off their laundry at my house for me to do, or having one that come and eat or pickup dinner from my house because you didn't learn these skills before moving out. And I don't want to have my adult kids return home to live rent free in my basement because they can't maintain themselves in the real world.

Do I expect any of the my kids at home to become a chef or work in my industry? No way. However, I want to see my kids having the ability to cook at home, not being dependent upon corporations to feed themselves, understand how to manage a successful household, paying bills, and raising their own children in a healthy environment. We often set our kids up for defeat, poor health, shorter life spans, and a inability to function. Those of us that do not develop our children's potentials are not the only ones that will suffer in the long-term. Our grand kids and our daughter or son-in-laws often have difficulties with a parent or mate that is ill equip to deal with the day to day of adulthood.

I am the perfect parent? Do I only eat a restrictive diet? Do I know everything about everything? NOT TRUE. But I believe that when you don't share your knowledge on any subject with your children, in a age appropriate manner, it is a cold meal of injustice you are serving up. We parents have been given a charge, these aren't just kids we are raising, but in fact, they are the next wave of leadership we are growing. We are charged with the duty of their safety, education, development, and identity, we have a huge responsibility. Almost everything that our kids grow up to be is in fact our fault, good or bad. Some people never grow up, they just become old children and others become anxiety ridden over achievers who never get the hang of intimate relationships. Yes we must take the blame as well as the credit.

School isn't were kids learn about adulthood, that happens in the home. Teachers can teach algebra or science, but it's isn't their job to raise your kids. Manners, respect, honor, and loyalty must be taught in abundance along with hard skills of paying bills, being a reliable employee, and being a fully actualized adult prepared to take a significant role in a family or their own.

Cooking your meals has many benefits. It is cheaper than restaurant food and it gives you control of what goes in your food. The savings and the versatility that cooking at home can bring is beneficial to your bottom line and your waistline. Fast food and processed foods are designed to be made as cheaply as possible while being highly addictive and while our younger folks cannot see any reason not to eat that way. Those of us who are a bit further down the road have begun to feel the effects of a American diet rich in empty calories and large amounts of fat. Diabetes, heart disease, obesity, and a host of other aliments attributed to this eating style. Since the days of Jane Fonda workout, we have become more unhealthy while spending more and more money on diets, supplements, yoga pants, and health club membership that you don't use.

Not teaching your children some survival skills is not a good option. I know that you can do it faster and better, but they need to practice, so they will be able to do and teach it to their offspring. And do I need to mention the habit fosters a greater sense of responsibility? Creating a mess and not cleaning it up is telling them that they don't need to take ownership of what they have done and it also says 'don't worry, Mom will fix everything', While they are little it should be that way, but as they age, year after year, it becomes a very bad idea. Stop coddling yours so much that they have a stunted emotional growth.  

Healthy eating starts with healthy cooking, eating at a regular schedule, and understanding the basics of nutrition. Do everything you can to equip them for the future instead of spoiling them in the presence. I see teenagers every day that have no idea why they think they don't like to eat this or that. My program is an exposure program in which they cook new dishes and eat food they may not have ever heard of before, giving a lot better toolbox of personal experience.

I have heard my students say things like 'I didn't know mashed potatoes didn't come in a box", "I always thought I didn't like coleslaw", "Chef, I really really liked the green beans." all of which I count as a victory!

I do know that giving something away that you don't posses isn't easy or nearly impossible but I want you encourage every parent, even the ones that don't know a lot about cooking. Grab the bull by the horns, and learn with your kids if necessary, and learn better habits. Live a healthier life while giving one to your next generation.

Spring Flurries

While this may sounds like a weather report, it is not, and Chicago often has snow in Spring. What I am referring to is the storm of change and work tied into our programming during the Spring sessions. The last month or more has been fantastically busy and rewarding. My last session ended near the end of May and due to all the extra work needed, it became difficult to make all of the appointments.

Scholarship competitions, fundraisers, meetings, professional development, interviews for Summer term, planning, syllabus modification, more meetings, doctor appointments, medical issues, orchestra and band concerts, field trips, and the closing of my own kids schooling for the year. Phew.

Now things can slow down a bit and leave me to do some catching up. The first thing on my list was to catch up on some missed sleep. Recharging is essential. These last weeks proved to be telling me that I am a bit more fragile than I'd like to admit.

Some hard work comes with the satisfaction of knowing that you didn't let it beat you in the end. Some hard work comes with little visible evidence of success. And some hard work doesn't pay off right away, they are the long-term gains that manifest over lots of years. I have been asked if I thought that teaching culinary at this level was harder than working in the industry, quick and without hesitation, my answer was yes.

There isn't a single parent that hasn't questioned their skill based upon the child's advancement or success despite the fact that a lot of things that happen along a child's life, especially in teenage years that may have nothing to do with parental input. Years and years later, most of the successful adults, will say that their parental influence was positive and necessary, even when the adult may have dropped out of school or had a teenage pregnancy, or any other negative impact on life that we can all agree makes life much harder to be successful.

I count it all profitable to gain even the smallest shift in a students opinion, taste, or concept of the world at large. I dance when a kid goes from "that's nasty" to "wow, I like that".  The work can take a long time, can be hard to do, requires that I trust my kids in class and that they trust me. I have to position myself somewhere between a parental role, a type of friendship, a teacher, and a wise elder in order to do what I do successfully. This work is also about how the student sees themselves and their future.

I have always began each term with asking the kids to write about their life goals. Those kids who have been in my class in multiple times, have had the answers on the page turn from "I don't know" to "I'd like to become _____". I have heard, and witnessed, kids begin to take small steps to change what they eat, how they project themselves, how they see themselves, how they expect certain reactions from me and how we interact. To have a student start off with no idea who they want to be and have no care about what they eat, change towards a new image and shoot for much higher goals, it is all worth the effort.

I have set a personal goal with this blog and related podcast, having a regular scheduled time table, so when I have to miss days, I get a bit hard on myself, but I am working on letting go of negative self-talk.

Spring is all about new growth and return of better weather, a renewal. Rebirth. Imagine, as we all post pictures about graduations, proms, and Spring weddings, that we are all just Spring flowers nestled under the cold blankets of winter, just aching for Spring rains to melt off our heaviness and allow us to bloom.

Master chefs, Exec. Chef training, and other advanced training...

Long ago, when Jesus was a boy, there were only a few culinary educations that a student could attain without going overseas to Paris or London therefore I, like many others, took the routes that were available at the time. As I worked in the industry, longer and longer, I began to come across chefs who held titles that I had never heard of, Certified Executive Chef.  An organization called the American Culinary Foundation seemed to be at the heart of this accreditation.

ACF was founded by three chefs in New York to help promote culinary education, offer certifications and training, networking and the like. Here in Chicago, the ACF is getting more popular but as a hospitality industry worker for the last 20 plus years, it has only been within the last few years that I have noticed chefs using and working within this organization.

No matter where or when you receive your educational background that is focused in our industry, what you come away with is really determined by you as the student. I can take three kids to train and mentor, and after we are done, I will see three different skill levels within the students. Our industry is very skill based, and no matter who you are taught by, your skill level is truly your own. I say this, to many students, don't base your selection of schools based upon the price, famous chef instructors, or any other tangible matrix, but do so based upon your motivation and drive, and what you want to do with your career. What do I mean? It can get very expensive, well it has gotten in the last few years, seeking a culinary education. The popularity boom of chefs and the creation of the celebrity chef has opened many new schools who offer courses, certificates, and degrees in culinary.

No matter what is taught, and by who, the student's ability will grow with time and coaching.  If a student enrolls with no cooking experience,  they are somewhat behind than other students, but their raw ability can propel them to the top of the class. I entered into a culinary college with a very small population and without a huge reputation, 90% of what I do well, I learned from repetitive practice on-the-job.

The only advice I can give the aspiring chefs out there, study, practice, practice, practice. A school can teach technique and a foundation of skills. It is up to the chef to take off and sore. No two chefs have the skill or styles even after the same training. It takes time to realize what it is that makes you special and the only way to find it is to listen to customer and management critiques. I say this because if you are anything like me, most chefs only focus on the mistakes of a project, while other eyes see the glory. I am my own worse critic. I spend, literally, hours on a cake project and when I have stopped I can only see those things that could have been done better or those aspects that I would have liked to change, so often I am pleasantly surprised at the positive reactions of my clients. Go figure.

I am a huge supporter of higher educations. In my family, there was never any language of doubt about attending a college. It was always "when you go to college" not "if you go". I also know that not every person is suited to pursuing a PhD in philosophy. Trade skill are still needed and teaching programs are still required even with our nation's trending towards a intellectual model. Handcrafts will always be in demand.  

The best chef that I have worked for was one without any higher education. This titan of pastry had 40 plus years at the Palmer House. He began as a dishwasher and worked his way up to Exec. Pastry Chef. My chef was hardworking and hard on his staff, not in a mean fashion or abusive, he had one standard for us all, "Good work that is Palmer House good." We worked everything from butter, sugar, flour. We didn't use pre-made or mixes ever. The best days in that kitchen were days were we all worked in symphony and chef had nothing to complain about or correct. I learned a lot while there, including my passion for real scratch baking.

Chefs are broken before they are made, and the best instructors, will help students to build upon what they know as they teach them new tools in their toolboxes. Pursue your passion vigorously and wisely. Practice is the best teachers in this business and whenever you get to practice, especially with someone above your skill level, take it.

A chef has a lot of plates to spin, human resources issues, financial duties, order management, licencing, insurance, schedules, transportation, delivery, receiving, inventory management, vendors, networking, client requests, billing and invoicing, and all of this before the creation of sale items. We love what we do, no one would do this if they didn't, and we all take on much more work than can be done in a 8 hour workday. 

Fake Foods and Fraud

If you were a teenager in one of my culinary arts classes, you may well already be tired hearing my rants, for a lack of better wording, about corporate food offerings. I say often, when you are relying upon a corporation to feed you, you are already in trouble. A corporation, ultimately, has only one goal, to make profit. When your family farmed, their one and only goal, was to nourish people. We have traditions of offering guest something to eat or drink for the same reason. A gift of food implies that you care if the receiver lives a healthy long life.
 
I am willing to come and bare the bad news about these edible non-foods on our health and longevity. My teens have been known to say "Chef, you make me want to stop eating everything". In fact, that is not my goal. I want them to do a couple of things, make intelligent choices about what they eat, I want them to question how and what they eat, and hopefully they will make nutrition decisions based on facts and not on marketing.

These kids have a steady diet of Kruncy Kurls, Hot Pockets, Hot n Flaming Everything, Pop Tarts, McDonald, Wendy's , and Burger King. There are more greasy spoon restaurants in their neighborhood than grocery stores. They never read a nutrition label or even question what they are eating. Is this butter or margarine? Is these long long named ingredients chemicals or food? Just because it can be eaten, should it be eaten? What is natural and what is not?

To this, I bring up a legal case currently in the headlines. A cheese company is under indictment for selling wood shavings as parmesan cheese.  This fraud was perpetrated over many years by a particular company. Naturally, this brings up many questions. Who knew about this? Why didn't anyone report it? How did the consumers not know what they were eating? And I wanted to know how the legal suit is progressing. The totality is that one individual is charged with a misdemeanor crime under one count of crime. This is not something I can understand fully. Why is this a misdemeanor and not a felony? What is there only one name on the indictment? And why hasn't the company been charged with each and every count of sales that were contaminated and sold to consumers?

The other article in recent news are the results of a study that found industrial chemicals in the bodies of fast food consumers. All the preservative and chemical additives are taking a toll on our health and, I believe, is costing us financially by causing disease and needing additional medical expense. Last year was the first time on record that American's spent more money in restaurants than at grocery stores. We are trading nutrition for convenience and suffering a high cost. If you can't read everything on the label, why are you eating it?



http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-02-16/the-parmesan-cheese-you-sprinkle-on-your-penne-could-be-wood

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-04-13/fast-food-eaters-have-more-industrial-chemicals-in-their-bodies

Respect Yourself, even if no one else does.

A lot of the time, if you talk with chefs who have been in the industry more than a couple of years, you will hear a few horror stories about bad practices, bosses, and/or jobs. There are some that will stay in a job until the bitter end. This position of not wanting to do a job search and interview procedures can lead you in position where it is no longer beneficial to yourself and/or the company. Waking each day with a dreadful disposition and coming home the same is not healthy, no matter who you are professionally.

Respect yourself enough to understand when it is time to move on and stop being afraid to step forward into something new. Fear of the unknown and fear of rejection can keep the best of us from making changes in our lives. But if you are not in a place that you can nurture and it nurture you, then the place you are occupying is killing your spirit and in turn you are probably throwing shade on other people instead of uplifting them.

I have been guilty of these negative actions myself. Dragging my own pitiful butt out of the bed every day, dreading what I was possibly walking into, and knowing that I would not be happy at all at the end of the day. Why torture yourself and others?

Even if no one every tells you your worth, still respect your value. You have trained and studied to become who you are, so why do you think less of yourself? Take little time out of your day to do a job search to see what opportunities are available. Sometimes you will find that you didn't know that your own company has put out ads to hire new people and sometimes the job of your dreams is out there waiting for your resume to get on their interview list. Yes, you need to act upon your own abilities, knowledge, ego, faith, financial needs, or whatever else it takes to get you motivated enough to seek out your destiny.

I was taught to adhere to a very blue collar outlook at the job site. Keep your nose clean, do your work, don't let co-workers know too much about you, don't date at the job, and stick there until you earn that retirement package and the gold watch. Unfortunately, most of that wisdom isn't valid anymore. Chefs, especially, find that they will be on to the next position in about 5 years time, often. The company doesn't have a lot of benefits offered, might not be totally full time, and with the fickle customer base, they don't want to have such continuity. Is the whole industry like this? No, but it is a fairly consistent experience within and outside of the culinary world. Most of us chefs can have a hard time writing a resume that is limited to 1 or 2 pages.

Please understand that the same skills that got you hired in your current position, are the same skills that will get you hired elsewhere, and if you have added to your skill base since you were hired, then your stock price has gone up and you maybe a more qualified candidate than you were before. Add to this, if you are seeking new ground while still employed, you are not as pressed for time as you would be unemployed.

I have skills that are needed by organizations, families, communities, and what have you. I have worked for homeless shelters, schools, charities, churches, restaurants, hotels, sport arenas, and a few bars. I have ever starved working in this food city and in this industry. I have been paid less than I am worth, I have worked with horrible people, bad bosses, and ungrateful companies. But, know this, they can take away your employment but no one can take your skills and knowledge.  

Exhaustion

Singing.... "I'm tired. So tired."

Those of you who have been following this blog will notice that my schedule of a post a day, has been disrupted. I have been pleasantly very very busy of late assisting our population of students competing for scholarships in two different programs. Needless to say, I have been running around helping make the experience for the students as well done and enjoyable as possible.

The end result were phenomenal, and that is all the really matters. Watching the students walk in their fate and upcoming careers, taking on their adulthood, is very important to them and us as well. I tend to look upon them as a parent should, knowing their childhood is nearly over and the adults that emerge in their place, can be a very different person altogether.

C-Cap awarded over $400k worth of scholarship assistance this year and NAACP ACT-SO is preparing for our trip to the National Convention in Cincinnati Ohio, were they will compete for National medals and scholarships. Spring is blossoming in new life and academic success.      

Whinny Baby

Today, I am a whinny baby. What I mean by this is, I am not feeling my strongest. The to-do list is long and the money is short. My medical condition isn't helping. So I have a lack of drive and a deep desire to nap. This isn't a good look for chef.

When I had my full strength I worked hard, fiercely in fact. Work and went to school full-time, worked and raised my kids, worked to support my family, but now I feel less than half of my strength is gone.

Fatigue and pain are my daily companions. My war cries are barely a whisper these days. I am glad that I made a choice to teach. I like it and while the class can be mentally draining, I am not abusing my physical strength nearly as much I did to make others rich.

I have been missing social obligations due to a lack of energy and/or pain. Urgh... I am tired even writing this post. All that I can manage today is to get out some emails. Fibromyaglia wins today.... thus far.

Argh.... what a weekend!

I make no excuses as to why I have slipped off of my daily post routine and I will get back on schedule very soon. Writing this regularly is not a habit of mine, I have tried time and again, but never really succeeded.

My fibromyalgia and my work schedule nearly put me back in the emergency room. It seems that when I attempt to feel better AND get some work done, like I once could, I end up in a flair up. In my case, the piece of me that is most effected is my digestion system. I avoid gluten, which helps a lot, and I try to always have a snack handy when I am away from home, but not all plans work to my good.

I am discovering what is referred as "fribro fog" where the memory is effected either by the condition or by the medications taken to treat the condition, which includes opiates. I made a mistake that I never ever do, I forgot to write down a client's order. Luckily, everything worked out but it isn't like me to handle things this way.

I, once again, am experiencing sleepless nights battling my aches and pains. Having gaps in memory isn't good at all. It's hard to keep your word, when you can't remember what was discussed.

In the realm of my teaching career, last week went very well. We had a successful site visitation, the high school kids did very well on their Cajun meal of blackened catfish, dirty rice, king cake and banana foster.

There was no podcast scheduled for this weekend and despite wanting to put one together, I did not push for someone to interview. I though about just posting solo but resting seems to be the order of today. Strength, courage, and wisdom. New levels to be yet achieved.

Conflict in the workplace

No matter the industry or setting, conflict of opinion, hostility, jealousy, and any other reason, can rise up and slow down progress. There is always a lot of effort to satisfy customers demands so often their really isn't time or energy left to settle interpersonal conflicts between employees. 

When I was a newbie in the industry, and barely able to drink, I experienced some prejudice at the workplace probably because some of the adults I was working with, and supervising, didn't take me serious, and some thought that I was just there to be cute.... nope. Then, of course, the minority girl issues, the chef life is dominated by white males, and when you are not reflective of the group, you can see or feel them test you or minimize you. There is a time frame in which chefs attempt to find out what you are made of, if you can take a joke, keep up with them on the bench, or be apart of the team both in and out of the kitchen. 

Once you have been tried and proven worthy/capable, often times you are knee deep with your crew bailing each other out until the race is won, only to be back at it again tomorrow. Even the best of brigades can have spurs up against each other from time to time. Bold personalities and workloads can force chefs to bit at each other about the little things and the bigger things. Most of the time individual production levels can bushel features because one or more on the team feel as if they are making up for someone's lack of accurate and usable work.

When tempers flare up in the kitchen, and they do, the big chef ego can get in the way of productive conversations about the problem. Small things become skyscrapers and tempers can fly very quickly. What shouldn't ever happen is that chefs are allowed to make their issue personal. When there are tactical issues, production issues, work overloads, painting a fellow chef as a villain only makes corrections harder, sometimes near impossible. No one is a saint, or even perfect, and serving customers and the community isn't a easy thing to do in the best of circumstances.

Chefs are not one dimensional cartoon cutouts who only exist in the kitchen, they have families, love affairs, some within the kitchen, economical demands, health issues, bills, and in the worst cases, chemical dependencies and alcohol problems. It is a harder life than working at a office, physically, but mentally its no punk either. We chefs are problem solvers drawn towards the chaos, sounds, smells, and noise of a commercial kitchen. We live for the oohs and ahhs of our clients, we get to be apart of the best moments of other's lives. The special night out, the anniversary dinner, the communion lunch or Sunday lunch after church is when we are on-duty and striving to make a nice day into a great one. 

Chefs often sweat, bleed, and get burned to please the customer. We block out of our minds lots of things like tired, hungry, hurting, and sleepy, chasing our high of choice, happy customers. In my new phase of my career, chef instructor, I consider it a victory when I show the kids a new vegetable that they like or get them to change even the smallest amount of their diet for the better. I teach in two neighborhoods that have a lot of challenges, but while I am their, I am working with them, creating a safe place, new exciting food, nutrition knowledge, and a hot meal. My students even earn a small stipend. It has never been easy but rewarding.

I have had to settle their drama, help their understanding, and redirect them to positive outlets. I can not afford to allow dissent in my class as it will deteriorate quickly, destroy our nurturing environment, and impede learning. The conflicts in my classroom are just the same as in the workplace, they often arise when egos get bruised.  Most of all conflicts, at the heart, are about folks' feelings, they don't feel respected, appreciated, or feel they are being taken advantage of them by others. The work is the work. It never goes away and you don't want it to go because then your paycheck goes away too. 

I have worked next to some that I literally thought about running them down with my car, but I still did my job. I love my job but I have not loved everyone I did it with nor every circumstances that I have had to my job. You can plan your butt off in the kitchen and dinning areas but it means nothing once the doors are open and the guest come in and get seated. I have had to deal with persons without much love for their fellow people, I have been spoken to totally disrespectfully, I have with the sweetest of persons, I have dealt with kids who were out of control, kitchen disasters, missing workers, injuries, the need to call the police to have people removed, I even had a wedding banquet happen that made to seating chart totally worthless and the guest count become so large that we had more people than glasses for drinking. 

Anything can happen and it usually does. The last thing anyone needs getting in the way of successful event is a coworker making it harder to accomplish than the customers did that day. A good leader can straighten things out so that no one gets hurt, most people just need to be heard, but there can be only a few environments more dangerous than a kitchen to have a conflict boil over. 

Culinary and Chemistry

As I sit in the school library, it becomes painfully obvious that cooking and chemistry is one and the same.  Cooking is more applied science than others courses of study, add in a bit of alchemy and you are square in the middle of chef life.

 

The same skills of formulations, testing, observation, and trail and error, ever present in the kitchens all over the universe.  Even in cases where the chef or cook is cooking from a recipe, all of the steps apply, as good cooks never rely on an untested source when feeding their audience.  Some of us can review a written recipe and spot of it is accurate or not. Others must try it to discover the faults or the accuracy. In either case, mistakes can teach you more than your triumphs in the kitchen.   

The ability to test, modify, mix and remix, ingredients and turn the simple into the worthiest of dishes, let alone into art, is what chefs strive to achieve. Science and art culminate into a type of jazz, painting, sculpture, and architecture. The best of us climb to towering heights and can earn a type of immortality that gives lasting effects on the culinary world. Julia Child will always be with us through her teachings, books, and television broadcasts. The ladders she built will be scaled for generations to come.

We whisk up acids and bases, apply heat or cold, emulsify, extract, concentrate, dilute, expand, divide, and blend, all to achieve the awe inspiring creations. We live for the oohs and awwws that are created by our work. We lose sleep, forgo stopping to tend to our own needs, work odd hours, long hours, and miss out on the simple things, like events we are invited to attend, and even daylight. We arrive in the dark hours of the night and leave again after the sun has gone for the day. We talk more with our co-workers then our families and friends, some times. We can share our story with our loved ones but often they can't really understand who and what we have endured during our work. 

Sometimes I have encountered people who either don't understand what it is we do, or they act as if our work isn't important or not a profession like their's. The amounts of learning and training needed to work at my level can be greater than many other profession and less than others. It is often hard to adequately describe what we do, and how we do it, as many who cook think that they can do my job, or that it can't be that hard, or couldn't possibly take the amount of  hours that it really does. Sometimes my commitment to my work can require me to miss some events in my own children's life for the sake of other celebrations or needs. I don't like that aspect but my food magic show is what puts a roof over their heads.

Mixing magic with nutrition, art with taste, building constructs and designs for the eye, enticements for the nose, and specialties of taste can be very demanding. I love my work and I love teaching kids to think about and improve their options within the kitchen, that can improve their lives and the lives of others around them. 

Teaching at CPS

As you may know, I teach at a community center and a Chicago Public School. This year, the Chicago Teachers Union, have been working without a contract for a year and the possibility of a strike is very high. I am supportive of whatever decision they make and I will not be crossing the picket line, if it comes down to it.

I don't teach in a effluent neighborhood or at a selective enrollment school. I attended a select enrollment school and the difference is striking. I find myself asking, in my mind, was I as bad or clueless as the kids I teach. I am still not sure of my answer, but I do know that my kids are experiencing things I did not when I was in high school.

The kids I teach are negatively impacted by drugs, both by using and viewing the effects, incarcerated loved ones,  gangs, and abuse. They don't have it easy. A lot of my students have deficits in math, reading, and logic. Following instructions can be difficult to almost impossible. I see anger issues, rebellion against authority, a lack of parental support, a hosts of mental illness. I tend to arrive early to my school so that I may get a glimpse of what is going on on campus and check on the kids I teach in the event that they have been disciplined since I saw them. I totally support any action that the staff feels the need to take and if any of my students are in trouble, I do not allow them to come to my class for the day.

So what's my point? I knew, but now I really know, what teachers are up against and how vital it is to receive a quality education. I have met a 6th grader who cannot read. I am heartbroken at least once a week and when I had an offer to work just for the center at a higher rated than I receive in my role for CPS, I couldn't feel right about leaving them with no class at all, as getting a replacement instructor would have been too hard, I stayed to help make the needed changes for that programs success.

I am in support of the teachers union, and the teacher's efforts to make a safe place for their students to learn. I will not cross the picket line nor will I just throw the baby out with the bathwater and adopt a negative thought about the teacher's being selfish, or however else that they get painted negatively.

  

International Home and Housewares Show

Hey everybody.  This weekend was very busy and rewarding, and I hope that the days that I didn't post will be forgiven.  In conjunction with Harold Import Company (HIC), a major supporter of our Careers though Culinary Arts Program (C-CAP), we have been working very hard. The convention opened Saturday and runs until Tuesday. 

C-CAP staff, students, and alumni manned the HIC booth and provided food to all the visitors conducting business with HIC. The mornings, offered omelets, sweet treats, and coffee. In the afternoon, our stations offered up made-to-order stir-fry.

Friday night there was a great event of drinks and dinner at Bin 36 wine bar. Sunday night was the C-CAP fundraiser where we broke our previous record collecting nearly $42,000! The proceeds go to support our culinary student scholarship program. Super exciting.

I attempted to conduct two live broadcasts on my blogtalk radio channel but apparently doing it from my phone and maintaining a signal did not work out.   Both times I tried it sounded like we were good to go but it ended abruptly without me hearing it stop. Oh well, I deleted the messed up broadcasts.

The show was jammed packed with all the china, glass, knives, cutting boards, small appliances, laundry aids, baking and decorating products available. I love this show. I also try and get out each year to the National Restaurant Association show to see and sample all the newest innovations.

Working a convention is some of the hardest work I have done, and I have worked many. It's full of tons of moving parts, long hours, guest needs, being the most bright and shinny you can be, all the while standing on the concrete floors.  Phew. This show had me sporting my newest item from the Forrest Gump collection of knee braces. I was super styling and preventing some of the damage that the long hours on my feet could create.

Yesterday we wrapped up the event and packed everything away. Many of the vendors at the show often donate their goods to our staff and students along with other organizations within the city. We are always grateful for the shinny new tools. 

http://www.hickitchen.com/

http://www.ccapinc.org/

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/search?q=giant+fork+spoon
http://www.housewares.org/show/

How I got my life back....

When I began working in the industry I was 18 years old, in the age of dinosaurs, and I committed to working hard, working long hours, and never turning down an opportunity to learn. I was successful in my pursuits as the hospitality work is never ending.

I was lucky that one day one of my professors at Roosevelt University took me by the hand to the Palmer House Hotel where he was the Food and Beverage Director. He set a meeting for me to get introduced to how that organization operated and I was quickly hired by the Exec. Chef. I was placed in the party department and began to expand my craft. I failed to realize the good fortune in its fullness, at the time, as that department allowed all the team members to work a steady shift 90% of the time. We were on the 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. shift. Employees could use the hotel gym that included a sauna. There was an employee cafeteria where we could eat for free.

With the goal in mind, to never turn down an opportunity to learn, I soon found myself also working as cocktail waitress, a couple nights a week, in the hotel bar. This gave me some very nice additional income and taught me more about good customer service. When I would work a shift in the bar, I would get off work at 4:30, grab some food, maybe even hit the gym, and then change from one uniform to another, starting a shift starting about 7 p.m., and work until the bar was dead quite or ready to close at 3 a.m. Afterwards, I would take a cab home, nap, and come back to work at 8 a.m.

This hamster wheel kept on turning for about a year and a half. I enjoyed it. I like talking with customers, I especially liked the extra cash, and I was single and living alone with my cat, so I didn't need a good work/life balance. I needed the money and I was, and probably still is, a adrenaline junkie. I was young and able bodied so the industry opened up for me and gave me as much as I thought I could handle.

With age comes wisdom, and aches and pains. I got married at 27 years old and was immediately pregnant with my eldest daughter. At that time, I was working in the social service arena, and that job was rewarding and wonderful, as I could adjust my schedule for the needs of the pregnancy. I had PTO hours and a standard 40 week, so I often worked 10 hour days so that I could have a 3 day weekend often, giving me some needed downtime. The pregnancy changed a lot of my career habits. Being a parent made me make different choices about how, when, and where I worked. I love being a chef but the 80 hour work weeks were too difficult to maintain while parenting small children. I wanted to parent them myself, we didn't have the aid of extended family members, as some do, for childcare. I was the mommy and the wife. I wanted to be these things so I had to make changes in the way I worked to do it.

I think it is sad that I had to find alternative places to work ,and use my skills, so that I could take care of my life and those people in it. So I worked for a homeless shelter, then a church organization, then as a grocery store bakery department manager, a teaching and demonstration chef, a pastry cook at a university, and lake dinner cruise company, all so I could have an adequate family life, and even so I was sacrificing more than mothers that had a standard work week. My career as a chef was diminished, slowed down, and almost derailed. I lost my connections, I had to use differing skills because working in a production kitchen requires too much time and physical endurance. If I hadn't make the choices that I did, I would have kids that I hardly ever spent time with when they needed me the most.

Some male chefs do not put their careers on the back burner like I did, and some would say it is easier for the guys to do this than us ladies. I have never been a guy but it does seem likely. Chefs do often get divorced and are all work and all play. The habit of chefs to unwind after a huge long day is to go to a bar and unwind. There is usually a spot where the whole crew goes and shut down the bar. Heavy drinking, smoking, and some drug abuse are all present in this lifestyle. In order to handle the stress and chaos, in order to keep going for 18 hours or more, in order to get up and do it all again the next day, in order to handle the chauvinism, the racism, the misogyny, the demanding customers, and all the big egos, many of us turn to chemical assistance to get them through it all. Some who do this can find it ruling them instead of them controlling their life.  

I love my career, I love what I do, I love serving my customers, and I love teaching these skills to others. Now that I am a lot older, as my eldest is now in college, and my health is a super bumpy road, I once again found a need to move away from the love of my life, a professional commercial kitchen. When I began I wanted a great big career, and company ownership, but also wanting a family meant something had to be sacrificed because the industry didn't have the ability for me to do both.

The chef life is as complex as some of the finest meals and most people have never seen what is happening on the other side of the kitchen doors. I have had relatives shame me that I couldn't attend this or that event because I was working. I have been accused of lying about my need for their help because there is no way that I needed to work a 18 hour shift. I have had the argument with an upset child about the recital I missed because I didn't get off work until 8 p.m. I now teach kids after school and therefore I don't finish up until 7 p.m.

Think about this: whenever you want to party, whenever you want to eat, whenever you need to celebrate, that's when chefs need to work. We work weekends, holidays, late days and early mornings. We are not the bank teller type of folks and working an 8 hour shift leaves us feeling like we are forgetting to do something more. Work/life balance in our world is a quick way to stunt your career unless you do something other than production work.

I am not the only writer talking about this subject, check out this article: http://www.bostonglobe.com/lifestyle/food-dining/2016/02/29/why-working-restaurant-industry-can-hard-your-mental-health/NaqWdSHvKJtZQCoberbLjP/story.html

Oh goody goody...

This weekend Chicago hosts one of my favorite conventions, the International Home and Housewares Show at McCormick Place! This convention is the place to be to view all the new innovations in kitchen wares, laundry aids, pots, pans, measuring tools, shopping carts, storage solutions, packaging, cooking demonstrations, baking ideas, decorating tools, gardening new products, and just about anything that you would need to use around the house.

This annual show runs from 3/5/16 to 3/8/16 it hosts over 2,000 exhibitors with everything from Contact Paper to kitchen knives and cutting boards. I will be broadcasting from the show floor on Saturday and Sunday afternoon on our podcast: http://www.blogtalkradio.com/giantforkandspoon so tune in and hear from our C-CAP team members and students. If you can, come on down and meet us in person. Here's the ticket information: https://www.housewares.org/show/register-plan.

This event helps to support our educational culinary program, Careers through Culinary Arts Program, http://www.ccapinc.org/, we will be working the booth, along with their fabulous team at Harold Import Company, http://www.hickitchen.com/. The support that comes from Harold Import Company make our teaching efforts possible so we invite some of our students to work the show and help to feed the clients that stop-by the booth.

Also, there will be a fundraiser event on 3/6/16 where our students from several of the CPS high school's culinary programs will be serving up their unique food fare for our guests. https://www.ccapinc.org/locations/chicagobenefit2016/.

These efforts help to endow our students with the skills and knowledge that will take them into their professional chef careers. C-CAP conducts an annual student cooking competition and awards the winners with scholarship money to attend culinary school.

I can't wait to share all of this from the floor of McCormick Place. Hopefully, I won't have any signal issues and will be able to go live on the air, if not, I will tape and broadcast a bit later on. It's going to be a long week but the excitement of all that is shinny, new, and inciting to chef's everywhere will be at my fingertips to explore.

Oh boy!

Geeked Podcaster

It has been about a month since I launched this blog project and it's companion podcast http://www.blogtalkradio.com/giantforkandspoon  and I'm loving it. Today's broadcast was made extra special since we had our first live caller!

Speaking with all of these food lovers can reinvigorate my spirit and ignite a new spark because sometimes chefs can get a bit burned out and needing something to get you motivated. Educating the kids that I serve gives me much more than I give out and in many ways they have all become my kids from other mothers.

With today's guest, Chef Teoskii Washington, I am proud to see him utilize some of the advice he sought from me in the past and how well it is being put to use. I am also glad that I was careful when I did give other's advice because positive results are not guaranteed.

Our caller asked for advice about entering the industry and we suggested a couple of books to read in preparation:

The Mind of a Chef, by Breville, there is a video series as well:
http://www.amazon.com/Breville-presents-Inside-Minds-Behind-ebook/dp/B00IN36GEK/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1456601844&sr=8-1&keywords=mind+of+a+chef+book

Professional Cooking by W. Gisslen
http://www.amazon.com/Professional-Cooking-College-Version-Gisslen/dp/0471663743/ref=sr_1_5?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1456601929&sr=1-5&keywords=professional+cooking+book

There are many more offerings that can point young aspiring chefs in the right direction. So glad we could help.

Food Education and the Minority Chef

Everyone should learn to cook. I say this not because I am a chef, but because every life spent on this rock has the need to eat often and most of us will have a part of their lives in which they may not live with others.

Lots of food educations began in the kitchen with a parental unit. Stir the pot, roll the dough, bang the pots and pans, it all starts in a home kitchen. Many of us get to advance as we age, and some go on to cook for others. Culinary colleges have, in recent years, sprung up all over the place. Back in the Stone Age, when I went to culinary school, there were just a few American schools in which you could gain formal training in the arts. In fact, my alma matter, Lexington College, shuttered its doors.

Washburn Culinary College was a long standing institutional trade school of differing skills in the Chicago area. It has a rich history and the culinary college training program grew to be the best of its program offerings. In order to uphold that excellence, the culinary program is now apart of the City Colleges network residing in the Kennedy King College in Englewood neighborhood. It's original location was on the West side of Chicago and during the years after 1940, the West side changed its racial identity when Chicago's African American population began to take up residence in the area. Therefore, the student entering the trade school began to shift with the neighborhood residents.
http://forgottenchicago.com/articles/the-last-days-of-washburne/

During the years before the racial unrest of the civil rights movement, white flight, a trend of white people selling their homes once black faces became their neighbors, further changed the racial complexion of the area, and greater numbers of blacks began training at Washburn. Some of Chicago's best trained chefs were graduates of the Wasburn Culinary program. Since then a great number of colleges either added a culinary program or opened doors as only a culinary program.

It has been my experience that there is no shortage of minority representation in professional kitchens around Chicago, but the question is, how many of the top chefs, executive chefs, are from a minority background? We have always been in the fight for excellent food offerings in this city, and in many cities around the globe, Blacks and Hispanic workers are often more numerous than the non-minority workers. Hard working people with excellent food skills and dedication to the art are not limited to one group exclusively. But does the leadership of these fine outlets reflect the racial identity of the whole body of workers in the industry?

Add to this discussion, the lack of professional organizations such as fraternities, networking groups, and social societies for chefs, let alone minority culinarians. I am not saying that there aren't any but their aren't many, that's for sure. But why? Why is the default image of a chef the cartoon pizza chef with the chubby cheeks? I recently did a search online for clip art and logos of chefs, and very few were female and even fewer were minority females. I had to create my own version for my logo as none that I had found were in no way suitable.Why is it not uncommon to have a white male executive chef in charge of large numbers of chefs who do not look like them? Is the only female chef images limited to the Aunt Jemima pancake icon?

The recent boom in culinary schools opening, and now beginning to close, infused a large number of new graduates hungry for a position in a professional kitchen, and as those numbers of trained personnel grew, one must ask the question, where did all the black chefs go? Did the number of minority students increase with the advent of all the new outlets available to gain training? I am sure it did, even if just slightly. http://www.pbs.org/black-culture/explore/black-chefs/

I live in one of the most segregated cities in the world, Chicago. We still have homogeneous neighborhoods all over this city. However, this city does have a wide wide range of differing ethic groups from around the globe. So, I ask, where is the great executive level chefs who's parents hail from India, Micronesia, South America, Mexico, and who are descended from our American Native groups or from the descendants of African slaves?

During the colonial years of this nation, a very large percentage of the meals cooked for the slave owners, and the Yankees too, were made by dark hands in servant quarters all over this nation. The traditional servitude positions were most often filled by dark or mixed members of society and this was one of the most readily available work for minorities after slavery, during the reconstruction, all throughout the civil rights movement, and many of us remain in these type of service oriented positions. I am not ashamed of what I do, but a large number of the upwardly mobile young professionals are quick to be dismissive once they ask you the $1,000,000 question "and what do you do for a living".

Here's the thing that most misunderstand about the civil rights movement and the feminist movement, in my opinion, the original goal of both of these movements was to expand the opportunities for women and minorities. The version of this in practice, done by a majority of people today, look down upon our profession as if we are just hired help with little dignity or professionalism. This is no different than a ERA movement member shaming her adult daughter's choice to have kids and a traditional marriage instead of becoming a CEO of a fortune 500 company. When attempting to gain equality, balance, just social order, stop thinking of us as less than for choosing a different path than yours. We chefs are highly skilled, and keep on gaining knowledge to keep up to the ever changing demands of our customers, diverse group of exacting professionals willing and able to make your events special and memorable.

Debate, Competition, Adversaries, and Allies

The topic of competition often comes up in dialogues about the food industry, any line of work actually, and more times than not, the dialogues can get heated. The art of debate seems to be fading away like a dream of an infant, quickly forgotten and hardly ever understood. I blame the years we, as a nation, spent under "mission accomplished" Bush as President, as he created the whole binary speak about patriotism. He helped the nation buy-in to the idea of "you are either with us or against us" type of confrontational speak that lead to this type of rational in many other areas.

Debate has a purpose that is not adversarial but rather designed to explore the topic at hand, amicably. A proper debate leaves the participating parties and the audience with a greater understanding of the subject explored. Nothing is black or white, all good or all evil, the world is a wash in tons of shades and colors. We more often learn more from our mistakes than our successes and allowing your opinions to change with additional information is an invaluable situation be to placed.

Sometimes this type of scenario can be present in personal relationships. I have witnessed groups of ladies where one member feels the need to compete with her peers, often to the destruction of the friendships, but the reality is the only competition that one truly has is against themselves. I strive to be better today than I was yesterday. I am one that will uplift my peers instead of tear them down. I have been known to go out of my way to lend a helping hand and would like to think that others who can will do the same for me when needed.

Within the food industry you may find yourself in the employ of owners that are overly protective of their customers, contacts, marketing schemes, or recipes, as if an employee is seeking out to steal them. This type of thinking is not healthy. It takes nothing to give others information or answers that will set them up to succeed even after they have exhausted the relationship with you or your organization. Instead we see the crabs in the barrel mentality when the reality is that there is more work out here in the marketplace that no one will ever be out of work for long if they have the skills. I can tell you how to to something or point you in the right direction but that doesn't guarantee that you will be able to get the same results that I have gotten.

Everything is situational....   (yes, I do know that this isn't really a word). I don't mind sharing recipes with people online or in person because many people that request the information will not make the efforts to produce the item, and they usually ask me to make it for them. I mentor and teach kids who like to cook and perhaps I will be able to start the next successful chef-in-training on the right path to excellence.

I have worked for folks who were victims of this mentality and they are usually toxic to everyone around them. It's easy to spot them in a employment situation as they are constantly seeking to horde all the information and control everything the employees do. This type of person tries to never fully explain the situation or decisions and is always very guarded. The rationale behind this behavior is to make themselves feel important by force, so to speak. No one can do any work unless they go through so-and-so, can't make a single decision, can't move on to the next thing, or use their own ideas, unless you get approval.  Too often this creates a false dependence upon another person and can be a fear reaction of the person who is exhorting control, afraid that the employee will run away with their business, do a better job than they could do, or get promoted ahead of them.

Most people can mistake their allies as adversaries due to a lack of vision. It's like the cheating spouse who constantly knows they are being cheated on, even without evidence, because they believe everyone is just as dishonest as their actions. I'm not one who adopts this thinking. If we are colleagues or friends, I am sure that there is something that makes you special and usually it is different than what makes me special.

Allies share, trade, and support each others efforts especially when the goals of both are the same. Two nations will become allies because they have mutual needs. They trade materials such as nation 1 is a great producer of wheat but nation 2 doesn't have the land type to grow wheat, so a pact is made to trade the wheat for nation 2's spices. The same can happen between to companies, two people, or two families. As a pastry chef, I have a few caterers that will call me to produce the sweets the client is asking to be made for their event, for example. The caterer has an expanded list of options that the client can chose from, the client doesn't have to search for these options with an additional company, and both the caterer and I will profit from the clients order, mutually beneficial.

Confidence in one's ability, self-confidence, honesty about you own knowledge and skills, understanding the limit of your own ability and where it can be improved, and having a centered humble spirit can be more valuable than all the money or influence in the world. It takes a certain type of humility that allows you to be in a position to both help others and be helped at the same time. No matter how much I learn or how advanced my skills become I remain humble because I have worked with and met some giants in my industry and I fully understand that there are some with skills that make mine look like a crayon coloring book drawings next to a museum quality painting.

In my opinion, seeing everyone else as your competition or adversary is a big red flag that this person is struggling with some deep identity issues. The need to always be in the spotlight, to control every thing and everyone, to dismiss people willing to help you or support you because you can't imagine that they are being honestly genuine, and always thinking of your needs as more important than anyone else's, are personality flaws that are not uncommon within the chef world. I also believe that the idea of celebrity chef is drawing more and more of people with these personas, who feel the need to prove their self-importance plate by plate.

The chef personality type is large and crazy but the real stars are those among us that are firmly rooted in reality while constantly reaching skyward to shine among the stars. You can shine as bright as the sun without trying to diminish someone else's light, in fact, lending your light to others doesn't reduce yours but in fact increases the light from you both.  

Finding Your Roots

If any of you actually know me in person, you may already know that I have somewhat of an obsession about genealogy. Tracing my origins back through time, generation after generation, isn't an easy task, and often the discoveries made lead to more questions than answers.

When I entered culinary training, a good amount of the work would follow along either a technique, building skills, or it would be a grouping of dishes from one country and then another. I was surprised to learn that several of the dishes I grew up eating were cultural invites into other worlds that my family were not apart of to my knowledge. I remember learning that the oxtails my Grandmother cooked were not like the ones other blacks cooked that had come to Chicago from the Southern states, but much more in the style of Italian migrants, for example. We ate smoked sausages with sauerkraut, and I haven't found much in the way of German ancestry. As neighbors tend to do, Grandmother shared recipes with neighbors and friends.

Sharing food culture with others and the history of foods, their origins, and development, became a fascination for me. I once took a class at Roosevelt University all about the history of food. In that exploration, we ventured back in time to the cavemen days, and viewed history and archaeology of food, how food procurement is at the very beginnings of civilization itself. Farming changed us from strictly hunter-gatherers of nomadic origins to settlers and villagers. Yogurt changed trade routes and therefore economy. I will share more of this in later posts.

Even before Henry Louis Gates Jr. began televising episodes of his award winning show, I had a curiosity for this type of exploration. My companion podcast is a type of this kind of exploration as they are conversations with people about their relationships with food and by extension culture.

Chefs, foodies, critics, writers, culinarians, educators, artist, and any sort of people who eat have some type of connection with food. I am loving talking with my guests about the subject. Just in the first few broadcast, we have seen how the conversations have taken us into conversations about social unrest, cultural and religious rebirths, and dietary changes for religious and health reasons. These are all just breadcrumbs along the pathways of creation and generational growth.

I have a small collection of older cookbooks because I like to compare what was popular 20,40,60 years ago to what is consumed now. The techniques used, the flavor pallet, the available food stuffs, and the changes in the social norms of dinning etiquette and social graces, all change and as they change so does the preferred foods. The modern mothers of today, often can't imagine hosting a dinner party that consist of 9 or 10 courses of foods, let alone design, produce, and prepare such an culinary experience but it isn't so unusual for the cultured society women of the turn of the century.

No matter the era of your birth, your place in society, your ethic makeup, for country of origin, your immigrated home, your racial background, your chosen profession, your political background, or any other thing in which we classify ourselves, we all eat and we all have a love/hate/health relationship with food.

If you are interested in taking part in our weekly discussions, please leave me a comment with your contact information, and I will love to schedule a broadcast to explore your food history.

Listen in to our discussions both live and archived: http://www.blogtalkradio.com/giantforkandspoon
If you like us, please Follow! I will be soon making this available on iTunes and other search engines such as IHeart Radio in short order.

Art is....

Art is many things, takes many forms, expressing itself throughout every realm. Perhaps it is easier to say what isn't art than to try and define it. For me, in many cases, art stops being art when it gets co-opted and turned into advertising for mass media consumption.

Agree or disagree, I am okay with how you see things. I'm not okay with not being respected because when someone's art isn't valued very often neither is the person respected.  Ever since the Oscar nominations were announced this year the conversations have sprung up everywhere about why there's a lack of minority actors and other filmmakers on the list.

While you might not be invested emotionally in this conversation, or can understand the protesters views, it does effect much more in our culture than you may think. A person's art, painting, music, sculpting, dance, and food, will outlive the artist and may even become an immortal part of them. Cave paintings, unearthed pottery and artifacts, Escoffier's legendary cooking methods, Michelangelo's art, invention, and poetry have stood the test of time.

But what of the art, science, invention, and music of the non-Anglo-Saxon? Art is universal, it transcends language and cultural norms, it is the best of ourselves manifested, a monument to our existence. I find it so valuable of an expression that my life revolves around it and is filled with it. My husband is an illustrator, myself a pastry chef, my friends all create some type of art, architecture, and science. I am an active board member for the NAACP ACT-SO Southside of Chicago Scholarship competition, my two youngest children are musicians, I have three professional musicians in the family, and two professional comedians. To me, a life without art is like living in a all white room with too much light and no sight, color, or sound, unbearable.

As the board Secretary, I assist our all volunteer board and staff prepare are high school age kids for competition. We conduct a regional competition and our gold medalist are then taken to nationals, free of charge, to compete amongst more than 700 kids from across the nation for college scholarships. My job, well one of my jobs, with C-Cap (Careers through Culinary Arts Program) also has a high school scholarship competition specifically for upcoming chefs.

Culinary arts is the combination of applied chemistry and art. The higher the level of the artistry the more it is considered fine dinning. Many people watch culinary television but don't really understand what it is that we chef's actually do. There still seems to be some elitist thinking from other professions that makes them look down upon the work that we create, while at the same time they seek out our work to consume. Cutting the art from cooking kills the lifeblood of the work, stifles the chef, kills their expressionism and creativity. Not all food is elevated to artistic levels but almost all of cooking has a creative spirit, some chefs dance with their spices and food combinations like a jazz musician on ice skates while others play it safer.

Art is a simple and pure expression of humanity and ignoring one type while prizing another is damaging the souls of the artists that created the ignored art. Not everyone likes the same type of art or the same artists but what I am referring to is the systematic exclusions that happen in some art circles. No each his own but know that my art has a value just like your art does without question.
 

For-Profit College Collaspe

In the recent past, there have been a lot of colleges and universities that have sprung up all over the country and also online. Some of these were a simple extension of an existing program but many of them were, in fact, a for-profit organization model. Colleges and universities traditionally do and can make money but are mostly under a not-for-profit classification due to the social benefits to the students and the community at large, they are similar to charities around the world, in this manner.

Higher education began within churches in the middle ages where students could enter a monastery, for example, to learn printmaking, languages, transcription, medicine, evangelism, or law to name a few. The educational edict then were expanded to educate more than just the people pledged to a lifetime commitment to the church and most of the early educators were those who had been apprenticed under the teachings of elders in the church.

For-profit schools sprang up all over the country in a recent boom and often filled in a gap that was left after many trade school closings.  These schools often were easy to enroll into and the registration process was more centered upon a student being approved for financial aid loans instead of having qualifications for the course type.  The end results left some students with a large amount of debt and not a lot of opportunities to use the training received.

The advent of for-profit higher educations began to unravel under scrutiny due to unfulfilled promises made to the students via job placement outcomes and educational credit transfer issues. Since these particular organizations were not in a charity classification, the organization could charge students tuition amounts in rages that weren't always equivalent to other programs.  However, they could be challenged to prove their outcomes just like other companies, and that is what has been bursting the bubble and many of these educational centers are closing.

If Kraft sells a cheese and claims that it improves your eyesight then the government has the right to make them prove their claim or be fined and sued for flause advertising. These types of action has been taken with the for-profit colleges resulting in school closures.

Le Cordon Blue is closing their US locations. As of January 2016, they have stopped enrollment and will close the doors completely by September 2017. In 2013, the schools, 50 locations globally,  settled a class-action law suit by former students who claimed that the diplomas they received didn't hold up to the promises of leading them to high-paying restaurant industry jobs and transferable college credits. This trend happened in many industries like automotive, nursing, medical billing and coding, beauty and cosmology, and paralegal programs.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/ct-cordon-bleu-closing-1218-biz-20151217-story.html