The Dux award
Eduardo, Cynthia, Moi, and PattyGood evening everyone. Before I start the speech I would like to congratulate everyone present. We have finally done it. We are graduates from Le Cordon Bleu. I am sure you all must be proud of this achievement. And at the same time I’d like to thank all the chefs who helped us reach where we are. But having said that, the journey has just begun.
It’s only now that we will finally set foot in the ever so demanding and changing industry i.e hospitality. I once saw a movie about a chef and there was a rather interesting quote in the movie. It goes that Chefs are the greatest artists in the world because food is the only art form which please all the five senses. In every other art form be it music, painting or theater only one or at the most two of our senses are to be pleased. But food not only has to taste delicious and smell pleasing it also has to be beautifully presented have the right feel in terms of texture and like many new age chefs have started to point out it also has to sound ‘right’, case in point being Heston Blumenthal sending an ipod Nano in a clamshell with sounds of the sea along with a dish of seafood.
So now that we start on our journey in the field of the greatest art from that there is , let us not be fooled by the illusion that success and fame will come easy and quick. I know that in the age of celebrity chefs and reality shows we think that we’d have our show on lifestyle in a few years and a few books in the pipeline but let us not forget that Rome wasn’t build in a day. The people we see on the television or whose books we buy have done their share of hours in tiny, hot and busy kitchens with over 15 hours shifts before they reached where they are now.
I read this rather interesting analogy that a chef made comparing chefs to pans. He said that there are the cheap aluminum pans that get hot real fast hence cook faster, are easy to clean and cheap to replace. The other kinds are the cast iron skillets which are heavy so take time to heat up, are a pain to season and maintain but once they’re they cook much better food and last longer. I don’t think there is a better way to put what we should be aiming at when working in the industry. No wonder we always had Chefs yelling at us to use the black pans to cook our meat. They were making a point that was much more profound that it seemed at the moment.
Now that the actual cooking part of the course is over we will all take a lot out of it for sure and it wouldn’t be contained to just the skills we learned, which are surely very important but more than that it’s the life lessons we have learned from our chefs which I think are the most vital. With people like Gordon Ramsay on the television as role models I am glad that we had some great chefs who showed us that the industry was nothing like the reality shows. That it was unacceptable to be rude to people you work with inspite of the pressure. My first lesson is this regards came from Chef Karin who always drilled in us the need to be disciplined and respectful to each other the wash staff. I refer to her as the Swiss Nazi when talking about her with my friends though, but it is in a nice way.
The other lesson that we learned at our time at the school was that though it is vital to learn the basics of cooking it is never a static process. Because the industry is so volatile with ever chaining trends one needs to keep learning and building on one’s knowledge. Noone puts that to practise more than Chef Steve to whom I jokingly refers to as the walking google. His knowledge about all things food leaves you in awe of him and inspires you to read and learn more.
Then again what is discipline and knowledge without the all important passion. Or in the words of the Irish Chef “luv”. Sorry Chef Colm my impression of an Irish accent isn’t as good as your’s of an Indian accent. The only thing that can keep one going in the industry is passion. There is no way you’d get up at 5 for a morning shift or be running around at 11:30 in the night and do it over and over again if you weren’t passionate about it. I had always enjoyed cooking at home but never thought of studying at a culinary school. When I finally did think about it I spoke to a real good friend for his advice. He said something that helped me make my mind. He said “It would be difficult to follow your dreams but life would be 1000 times more difficult if you don't.” Now everyday that I get up in an alien country and walk through a sea of foreign people on my way to work I know that I am doing something I am passionate about and proud of.
I hope you too have the same dreams and there may be other Chefs like Chef Tristan, Andreas, Josef or Andre who may have been your inspiration. The point here is that we have learned the important lessons of discipline, respect, knowledge and passion at our time at the school and that we face the world armed with these arsenal under our belt. I am pretty sure that if we do put our soul into it sooner or later success and fame will follow but more important than that would be the feeling of content and pride in our choice of profession. A feeling that a lot of people run after all their life and never achieve. With experience and knowledge on our side it won’t be far when we’d be in a position where we may be role models or incharge of others as a sous chef or executive chef or maybe even as teachers at a culinary school. At that time then it would be our responsibility to inculcate in our apprentices or students the same lesson that these chefs taught us and hopefully that would help us in keeping them happy and earning their respect. Thus we’d keep the cycle moving by paying it forward because that is the only way that this art form has developed over centuries.
I would like to end with an advice by a chef regarding working in the industry. He said, “Take it slow enough to learn things right, show up on time, stay long enough to learn the fundamentals, focus on doing the best job you can, build your repertoire, develop your network, and always, always leave some ammo behind in the desert.”
On that sweet note I once again would like to congratulate you all and extend a warms thanks from all the students to the Chefs and staff of LCB.
My Graduation day loot
It’s only now that we will finally set foot in the ever so demanding and changing industry i.e hospitality. I once saw a movie about a chef and there was a rather interesting quote in the movie. It goes that Chefs are the greatest artists in the world because food is the only art form which please all the five senses. In every other art form be it music, painting or theater only one or at the most two of our senses are to be pleased. But food not only has to taste delicious and smell pleasing it also has to be beautifully presented have the right feel in terms of texture and like many new age chefs have started to point out it also has to sound ‘right’, case in point being Heston Blumenthal sending an ipod Nano in a clamshell with sounds of the sea along with a dish of seafood.
So now that we start on our journey in the field of the greatest art from that there is , let us not be fooled by the illusion that success and fame will come easy and quick. I know that in the age of celebrity chefs and reality shows we think that we’d have our show on lifestyle in a few years and a few books in the pipeline but let us not forget that Rome wasn’t build in a day. The people we see on the television or whose books we buy have done their share of hours in tiny, hot and busy kitchens with over 15 hours shifts before they reached where they are now.
I read this rather interesting analogy that a chef made comparing chefs to pans. He said that there are the cheap aluminum pans that get hot real fast hence cook faster, are easy to clean and cheap to replace. The other kinds are the cast iron skillets which are heavy so take time to heat up, are a pain to season and maintain but once they’re they cook much better food and last longer. I don’t think there is a better way to put what we should be aiming at when working in the industry. No wonder we always had Chefs yelling at us to use the black pans to cook our meat. They were making a point that was much more profound that it seemed at the moment.
Now that the actual cooking part of the course is over we will all take a lot out of it for sure and it wouldn’t be contained to just the skills we learned, which are surely very important but more than that it’s the life lessons we have learned from our chefs which I think are the most vital. With people like Gordon Ramsay on the television as role models I am glad that we had some great chefs who showed us that the industry was nothing like the reality shows. That it was unacceptable to be rude to people you work with inspite of the pressure. My first lesson is this regards came from Chef Karin who always drilled in us the need to be disciplined and respectful to each other the wash staff. I refer to her as the Swiss Nazi when talking about her with my friends though, but it is in a nice way.The other lesson that we learned at our time at the school was that though it is vital to learn the basics of cooking it is never a static process. Because the industry is so volatile with ever chaining trends one needs to keep learning and building on one’s knowledge. Noone puts that to practise more than Chef Steve to whom I jokingly refers to as the walking google. His knowledge about all things food leaves you in awe of him and inspires you to read and learn more.
Then again what is discipline and knowledge without the all important passion. Or in the words of the Irish Chef “luv”. Sorry Chef Colm my impression of an Irish accent isn’t as good as your’s of an Indian accent. The only thing that can keep one going in the industry is passion. There is no way you’d get up at 5 for a morning shift or be running around at 11:30 in the night and do it over and over again if you weren’t passionate about it. I had always enjoyed cooking at home but never thought of studying at a culinary school. When I finally did think about it I spoke to a real good friend for his advice. He said something that helped me make my mind. He said “It would be difficult to follow your dreams but life would be 1000 times more difficult if you don't.” Now everyday that I get up in an alien country and walk through a sea of foreign people on my way to work I know that I am doing something I am passionate about and proud of.
I hope you too have the same dreams and there may be other Chefs like Chef Tristan, Andreas, Josef or Andre who may have been your inspiration. The point here is that we have learned the important lessons of discipline, respect, knowledge and passion at our time at the school and that we face the world armed with these arsenal under our belt. I am pretty sure that if we do put our soul into it sooner or later success and fame will follow but more important than that would be the feeling of content and pride in our choice of profession. A feeling that a lot of people run after all their life and never achieve. With experience and knowledge on our side it won’t be far when we’d be in a position where we may be role models or incharge of others as a sous chef or executive chef or maybe even as teachers at a culinary school. At that time then it would be our responsibility to inculcate in our apprentices or students the same lesson that these chefs taught us and hopefully that would help us in keeping them happy and earning their respect. Thus we’d keep the cycle moving by paying it forward because that is the only way that this art form has developed over centuries.
I would like to end with an advice by a chef regarding working in the industry. He said, “Take it slow enough to learn things right, show up on time, stay long enough to learn the fundamentals, focus on doing the best job you can, build your repertoire, develop your network, and always, always leave some ammo behind in the desert.”
On that sweet note I once again would like to congratulate you all and extend a warms thanks from all the students to the Chefs and staff of LCB.
My Graduation day loot
