Mentoring a Newbie (file under Paying it Forward)

I know I know I said the next post would be about Urban Farming but I am so excited after the conversation I had with the young man I am mentoring that I wanted to write this post first. SO THERE!

I don’t know who said it but I have always believed it to be true; “Mentor: Someone whose hindsight can become your foresight.” I believe this to be true and consider it to be a great honour to mentor someone in my chosen field. It makes me feel amazing and all I am doing is helping someone else realize his or her dreams. I would like to send a big THANK YOU to L for thinking of me and pointing this young man in my direction.

This young man is 19 years old. Completed high school. Has some experience in the culinary field having worked for Swiss Chalet and The Outback. At the Outback he was a dishwasher and prep helper while at Swiss Chalet he was a “line cook.” He was at the Outback for about a year and Swiss Chalet for about two.

From our almost hour long conversation I was able to glean that he became interested in cooking while he was in high school where he took some classes related to cooking. He told me that it was mostly home style or family type cooking but that he really enjoyed it. I asked what his favourite dish that he learned was while he was there and without hesitating he said that it was a Parmesan Chicken. This gave me at least some insight into where he was coming from and actually made me feel pretty good because he didn’t hesitate and that I was able to find that he had some experience.

Naturally he was chalk full of questions. In my words he asked about the length of apprenticeship, how many hours he would have to work, whether he could expect to work on holidays, how long the training is and then he asked a lot of questions about how to start up your own restaurant with out actually saying that he would like to.

I explained to him that the Apprenticeship for Cooks (as far as I know) would amount to around 3000 hours. I also explained that because he had some experience at Swiss Chalet that those hours may count toward his apprenticeship which made him feel pretty good. I explained to him that during my apprenticeship I worked no less than ten hours a day and sometimes as many as seventeen or eighteen. I told him that I didn’t believe that that would be the case for everyone but that was my experience. He didn’t seem phased by the hour commitment which was a good sign to me because as this blog has demonstrated time and time again – it takes a different kind of person to work in a kitchen.

He asked about holidays and I explained to him that the kitchen doesn’t know what a holiday is. People are always going to need to eat and holidays are no exception. He then asked how you go about getting into a professional kitchen. I explained that there are several ways and that when I am a little more comfortable with him I would be happy to help him by not only pointing him in the right direction but by helping him find a good place to help him get to where he wants to go.

He asked a lot of questions about starting a restaurant. Which I was only too happy to answer. He asked about where to build a restaurant, how the interior is done, how you go about staffing it, etc. I explained that there are lots of things that you need to consider when opening a restaurant. The location, the demographics, the type of food you want to serve, what you want it to look and feel like, etc. I told him that when the time comes I would be happy to share my knowledge on the subject as well as all the books that I have read to date on the subject. He got genuinely excited that I was willing to share all this knowledge.

From what I can gather he really would like to own a restaurant but, like me, knows that he needs to get the right experiences first. I explained a bit about me and how I arrived in the culinary industry. How the industry chooses you and not the other way around ( Thanks Director of Operations… you know who you are.).

I asked him what made him want to be in this industry and he told me that eh has watched a lot of cooking shows. I explained right then that television glamorizes the industry and that the realities are not anything like what you see on television. He had mentioned Hells Kitchen (which I also watch) and again I asked him to make sure that he did not think that was ‘reality.’ He assured me that he knew that it was much different than how it is portrayed on television. I sighed a huge sigh of relief.

So as it stands now I have instructed him to go out and buy Anthony Bourdain’s ‘Kitchen Confidential.’ I explained to him that Bourdain is a no muss no fuss representation of what the cooking world is really like. The ups, the down and the in betweens. I also did this to see just how serious he is. By making him take an action and then having a conversation with me about it I will be able to tell a lot about him. I then told him that after we had met and discussed Bourdain that I would be happy, one book at a time, to loan him books from my extensive collection. That excited him. AND MYSELF AS WELL!

On Monday next I will give him a call again and set up a time to meet him. I’ll have a list of questions and I am certain so too will he. So again, L, thank you, for letting me share with someone else who seems genuinely interested and interesting. I promise I won’t let you or him down.

John Quincy Adams once wrote; “If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.”

Are you dreaming big and inspired?

A la prochaine

SDM