Partition

Chefs and bakers are very different creatures and this distinction is poorly understood. When I previously took a professional development course in frozen desserts at The Culinary Institute Of America's Greystone campus in Napa Valley, I learned this distinction in a very visceral manner. Their main kitchen isn't so much what most would picture as a kitchen as much as it was what most people would consider an enormous ballroom that happened to have a kitchen in it. I soon found out that the baking and pastry people had their own side of the kitchen and the general culinary people had their own side of the kitchen. It harkened back to the classic scene of siblings drawing a line down the middle of a shared bedroom to represent mutually exclusive personal areas. We were instructed to not use any of the equipment on the general culinary side of the kitchen and I'm pretty sure they were instructed to look upon us in the eye. That's an extreme example, but it does demonstrate a certain rivalry between pastry chefs and our savory counterparts.

A restaurant kitchen is one of the busiest environments you will ever find on the face of this Earth. Speed is king and the whole endeavor is a mad dash to produce everything perfectly as fast as one possibly can. Bakeshops too require one to work as efficiently as possible, but, "as possible," is the key phrase. Although cooks can often repair, replace, and regroup in the face of a mistake, bakers know, definitively, that a mistake will ruin a product completely, with no real option besides starting all over again. So bakers take their time to measure things precisely, to carefully apply the correct mixing method, to monitor thermometers, and to fabricate finished products. While cooks face a new deadline for a new order every time a ticket comes out of the printer, a baker faces a single deadline by which all the food must be ready. That means that bakers have the luxury of achieving successful time-management through planning out their entire workday, whereas cooks must constantly adjust their time management on the fly. These are very different worlds.

I think these differences very much offer clues as to why I'm a far better baker than I am a cook and why I would almost certainly not be able to thrive in a general culinary program the same way I could in a baking and pastry arts one. Adapting quickly isn't generally a strong suit of autistics and I am no exception. It's the planning and practice that take that element of cooking out of baking. All the adapting to new procedures, new recipes, and new environs is done ahead of time. One practices new procedures until one masters them, tests new recipes until they work consistently, and practices in new environs until comfortable with them. Time management isn't about adapting to constantly changing demands like cooking is. That's all about knowing from practice how long each baked good will take and keeping track on what is going on with each one. Many people who don't think I'll make it through CIA have, as their basic fallacy, a confusion between what it means to be a chef and what it means to be a baker. Don't get me wrong. All that planning and practice won't be easy, but I am capable of it.

-Frank

Paying

Paying to go to The Culinary Institute Of America is no mean feat. Given that I am unlikely to be able to raise the necessary funds by the summer semester, I am looking at basically ten months to do so. 61,730 is what the program will cost me in total, with 16,130 for the first semester, 14,485 for the second semester, 15,645 for the third semester, and 15,170 for the fourth semester. Upon the suggestion of a friend, I started a fundraising campaign on the website gofundme.com, which can be found at http://www.gofundme.com/n91zus and has, as of this writing, raised ten dollars for the cause. As mentioned in my previous article, I am looking into more traditional means of paying for school, such as student loans, personal loans, scholarships, and grants, as well as personal sacrifices like sacrificing the money that I've been setting aside for things like vacations and home renovation.

Although the tuition may seem fairly steep, it's actually quite the bargain, given the school's status as the best in the world. My undergraduate tuition at Drury University was a fair bit more than the numbers I quoted above and far less prestigious. When I tell people I have an undergraduate and graduate degree from that institution, they are rarely impressed and graduates of neighboring Missouri State University often downright scoff at the notion that this was an achievement of some description. CIA grads, on the other hand, get reactions on par with graduates of Harvard Law School, MIT, or other Ivy League institutions. Despite this being the first time I have not relied on family members to pay for tuition, I think I'll be making a better investment. Don't get me wrong. I enjoyed my time at Drury immensely, but this is a whole new ball game of opportunity that will likely be my greatest achievement.

Many people will tell you that the CIA isn't worth the money because you'll just go out and get the same jobs people without culinary degrees that expensive can get, only you're 61,730 dollars lighter than they are. Yeah, if all you want to do is be a line cook or a bakery employee the rest of your life, maybe that's true. Here's what's also true. Do you think the CIA is training its students to go out there and be rank and file employees? No! The clue is very much in the word, "chef." Basically, the rough translation from the French is, "boss." When graduates leave the CIA, they will have prepared them to be chefs, business owners, managers, consultants, and so on. Kitchens operate like the military, owing to the concept developed by Escoffier of brigade de cuisine. This translates to, "army of the food." I will pay what I do because I am training to be an officer and a gentleman pastry chef extraordinaire.

-Frank

Persistance

Attending The Culinary Institute Of America raises certain questions for me. How to pay for it, as it is roughly a cumulative cost of 61,000, is certainly among the most pressing. My plan on that, to paraphrase the title of a Clint Eastwood film, is every which way I can. A loan based on my vehicle would get me roughly a third of the way there and, if I sacrificed some vacation and renovation plans I upon which I was working I'd be about seventy five percent of the way there. Student loans, scholarships, grants, and the like are also options which I will explore. Another question it raises is whether or not I'll be able to make it through the program, if accepted. This question is one I find far less pressing, although I've certainly had to deal with some naysayers on the subject. While I am aware that the school is quite demanding, I am also confident that I've done everything in my power to make sure I understand as much about the school and what will be expected of me before I attend. By doing this, I can mentally and physically prepare myself as much as possible in the months leading up to my first semester. Even though I take the school and the challenges attending it will present with the utmost seriousness, I am not afraid.

Let's go into what I know will be expected of me. First, I must have my complete uniform of chef's jacket, checks, apron, side towels, and hat on at all times during which I am in the kitchen. Second, the only permitted answer to a request by a chef instructor is, "Yes chef." Even if I suspect I may struggle with what is being asked of me because of autism or inexperience, I will try like my life depends on it to follow orders immediately and precisely. Third, I must learn to cooperate with my classmates for the sake of making the bakeshop function properly. Admittedly, I had trouble with that in my last culinary school, but I am not going to let that stop me in this one. Besides, we'll all have gotten into the best culinary school in the world and I am confident that any personality clashes I have with my classmates will be ones we are all willing to put aside in service of the food. Whatever difficulties I must face at CIA, I that I won't quit. That's not idle talk either, but a fact proven by the fact that I so loved my dessert company that I stayed at it, operating long past the point where reason and finances would insist I throw in the towel. That's tenacity of a special kind. Basically, I don't care if it kills me, I am going to graduate from CIA. Period.

After everything I've said about dogged persistence, I suppose the ultimate question is, "Why are you doing this you crazy bastard?" It's a fair question. Couldn't I learn a lot of this from CIA textbooks, as I have done in the past? Besides, aside from a casual verbal agreement I have with the new owners of my company, there aren't any job prospects for me out there, even with a CIA degree, because of the limitations placed on me by autism. So why? Why come up with all this money, go through a grueling culinary program, and risk failure while your own family tries to talk you out of it? Well, the core of it is, I think, because it's the first passion I've felt for something since my company failed. Sitting around writing on my blog, often about the state of managing life as a failure and disabled man, isn't exactly something to sing about. What's my obit going to say one day? "Frank Bailey never did much with his life. A disabled man, he lived off his family until his death, survived by no one." What is money, effort, and risk of failure compared to that prospect? I don't want to die as that man. Maybe I'll grow enough at CIA to become employable, who knows? Even if not, however, I'll have done something to sing about.

-Frank

Preparation

Depending on how things work out, my time at The Culinary Institute Of America could begin as early as this summer or as late as next January. With this on the horizon, I have begun to prepare myself as best I can for the experience. Anyone who has attempted to cook or bake at a high level has daydreamed about this prospect. Like most of them, I had always considered the notion a pipe dream and accordingly sought out an inexpensive culinary education at the local community college. In a way, I'm glad to went to that level of culinary school first. Before that, I was just a foodie who'd watched a lot of Food Network and created dishes friends and family seemed to enjoy. Having had that experience though, I know what it takes and what moving around a professional kitchen feels like. Among the most valuable things I learned in my original culinary school was that I don't have the mettle to be a cook. Baking and pastry arts is where I belong and where the pace is something to which I can adapt. Looking back on everything is proving crucial as I prepare myself for entering the most prestigious school I will have ever attended.

Already owning some CIA textbooks, I will bake my way through them, especially if I don't start until January. This is not to say that I'll be able to pull off everything in those books, mind you. Even with particularly challenging things like croissants, it'll be quite helpful if I've at least taken a stab at them. As much as I struggle with cake decorating, it might be time to break out my old tools and practice writing, borders, crumb coats, splitting, and even fondant again. Risen breads, particularly those that require fabrication, are also something up upon which I need to bone. Practicing candy some more would also be advisable because, while most of the fruits of the crash course in confection I put myself through last Christmas were well-received, I still need to figure out how to consistently temper chocolate, how to not burn starch-based confections, and how to consistently achieve dark amber on my brittles. My strengths, as well as my weaknesses, are also something on which I have a pretty solid grasp. Cookies, the actual baking of cakes, muffins, frostings, and generally in the quick bread family are areas that I will still practice before I enter CIA, but I am not as concerned about my competency in those areas.

The other aspect of my preparation is basically the mental part. Autism has its limitations. Having not made friends in my prior culinary program, I do not and ought not expect to make any friends in this one. Hopefully, I manage to keep my social unpleasantness to enough of a dull roar that my classmates will be willing to cooperate with me on group projects and with the general teamwork needed to make any kitchen function correctly. Otherwise, I plan to keep to myself, treating the CIA as an entirely educational environment, much in the way I did high school. None of this is to say I won't be friendly or that I am not open to pleasant surprises. There is also the dexterity and coordination problems that I will need to be ready to work through, especially fine motor skills and operating a broom and mop. More generally, there is the endurance I know I will need to develop, which will be aided by all the practicing I intend to do. My feet will hurt, my back will hurt, my hands and arms will be cracked, burned, bruised, calloused, and cut. Kitchen pain is the most distinctive form of pain I have ever experienced and it's either worth it to you or not. To me, it's all worth it, and I intend to be ready when I attend the greatest culinary school on Earth.

-Frank

Professional

Mine is a professional life that has basically had only two segments. These are various types of academia and the world of food service. By training at Drury University, I am a writer, but, much like others in the arts, I stumble at being able to call it a professional career since I've never actually been paid to do it. Much of my early young adulthood was spent trying in vain to get paid for writing while I went to college and grad school. During this time, I worked the usual collection of food service jobs, white collar internships, and even, quite briefly, in telemarketing. Following that old maxim which states that those who can't do teach, I substitute taught in three different school districts for two years while returning to college to become a gifted education teacher specializing in English & history. Although I liked teaching, I found I wanted to teach more complex subject matter and applied to a number of PhD programs to become a college professor. Those plans changed when the economy crashed in fall of 2008, which led to go to culinary school since it was a more professionally practical pursuit about which I was already passionate.

Once I was out of culinary school, my first real job in the industry was working in the gelato shop some college friends had begun. They knew I had gotten through most of the way through a baking and pastry arts program and wanted me to make better gelato for them than was available for wholesale distribution. After spending about six months of private research, taking two trips to California to train, at CIA Greystone and with a legendary gelato shop owner respectively, and buying a home gelato machine to test recipes on, I began work at their gelato shop. Although things went very well, the working relationship broke down after I was never paid, despite acting as chef, supplier, and  dishwasher, something I unwisely let slide for so long since they were old friends. During that time, I had already started my own gelato wholesale manufacturer called F.C.B. Desserts. Six months after I quit the gelato shop, we began distributing under the brand name Benissimo. At our height, the Springfield, MO company had product as far south as Northwest Arkansas and as far north as Columbia, MO. We made our product right and were known for it.

Before I began my company, I did not have much leadership experience. About the most I'd ever been a leader was a brief stint in Drury University's student government when I was an undergraduate. Knowing this, I brought on a woman to be an administrator and fill much of the managerial role that I was too inexperienced to perform. Being an autistic man, I am not terribly comfortable with hugging or being emotionally demonstrative, but I can certainly tell you that you must get over that fast when your staff is almost entirely composed of young women in their late teens and early twenties. Such handicaps aside, we became a fun an familial workplace. My realm was the kitchen and my culinary knowledge, quality standards, and insistence upon safety and sanitation procedures (very important in a production kitchen specializing in dairy) were what made our product the outstanding showstopper it invariably was. Nonetheless, I signed all paychecks, made ultimate decisions, and shared responsibility for figuring out how to solve problems as they came up. I can safely say I learned quite a bit from the experience.

-Frank

Purpose

When my dessert company went out of business, I honestly believed my time in the food service industry was done. Then, over the six months between the time I closed the doors and the time I successfully sold the company to new owners who wished to continue on the mission of providing high-quality gelato and sorbet to The Ozarks and beyond, things slowly began to steer me back onto my culinary course. It began while I was trying to sell my equipment and building, only to have my eventual buyers express interest through a mutual friend. Naturally, I had come to care a great deal about gelato and was thrilled that the dream might live on. As negotiations were conducted, I found myself watching videos about confections, having never taken that class. When I realized I already owned CIA Chef Instructor Peter Greweling's book on the subject, one of many cookbooks friends and family had given me as gifts over the years, I made every major variety of candy in the book as a way of sealing a gap in my knowledge and rebuilding my confidence, giving the results away in tins as Christmas gifts. With my mojo back and company resurrecting, I was pleased with how things were going.

During negotiations, the new owners asked if they could hire me as a consultant. I thought they just wanted my gelato expertise, but, on the date of the sale, they told me they wanted to get into all areas of dessert and had the investors to do it. This being the case, they wanted to keep me on as a paid consultant, since I was such an expert on baking and pastry arts. Compared to them, this assessment was correct, but I knew the amount of work it had taken to truly gain expertise in gelato and that I could not claim that level of expertise in any other area of dessert. Oh, I knew how to make most types of dessert well enough to impress civilians. Pies are the dessert item with which I most struggle, especially my personal culinary archnemesis the lemon merengue, the custard of which frustrates my every attempt to make it set right. If these guys were banking on me to be their permanent advisor in the dessert business, I'd need to up my game as much as possible, including pie making and a the rest of it. That was when a CIA education became more than the fantastical pipe dream that I had traditionally considered it to be. Now it was a necessity to become the best pastry chef I could possibly be because others were counting upon me being just that chef.

After I complete my degree in baking and pastry arts at the CIA, I will return to consulting for the new owners of my former company. It will be a few years before they are ready to enter the broader world of desserts, having to rebuild the distribution and business connections that atrophied in the six months the company was not operating. In the meantime, my mission as a consultant is to teach them all I can about gelato and sorbet in general and about how my former company operates in general. With more financial backing and a stronger business background than I had, I am quite certain I'll be able to advise them towards the end of building a successful gelato business. When I go away to CIA for two years, I'll have given them the tools they need to proceed on their own. By the time I graduate and return, it will be time to start launching further business ventures and I will be quite well-prepared to take my lifelong appointment as their consultant on such ventures. Obviously, there's only so much to advise them on past a certain point. From there, they see me becoming a flavor developer in charge of a test kitchen of some description. They also see me as someone who would train and instruct new employees in the techniques I've learned and the knowledge I have. So in a strange way, I am going to culinary school to learn enough to become a chef instructor of sorts myself.

-Frank

Passion

For everyone who has a passion for food, there is an experience that takes one from mere dabbler to someone truly dedicated to culinary arts. Memories of making poundcake with my grandmother, the truly glorious gourmet meals my stepfather regularly served all of us, and a hobby of experimenting with New Orleans cuisine in my mid-teens all were definite precursors to my eventual culinary passion, but these were merely seeds that were planted when I was younger. Then a day came in 2007 when my mother suggested I watch the television program Good Eats. Once I did so, I couldn't stop and worked my way through Alton Brown's recipes until I'd completed the majority of them. Brown's approach to cooking and baking caused me to understand, for the first time in my life, what goes into creating an appealing dish. Ultimately, this experience set me on a course that led to working in the industry.

When I first began attempting Brown's recipes, I quickly learned just how little I knew. In the beginning, there were many botched recipes. At times, my palate was not yet developed enough to recognize subtle mistakes in flavor or texture, which when having a family of stern bankers who tell it like it is came in handy.  Determined to get my skills up, I slogged through each recipe over and over again until I got it right. Nothing could stop me, not even my low point of exploding a hot Pyrex baking pan of water I had put in the oven with baking bread to help with crust formation by refilling it with cold water when it had all burned out. Like any good student, I learned things, like what thermal shock is, from my mistakes. Over time, I became more confident and competent, even taking my baked goods into classes at University Of Arkansas to serve my fellow students. Still, going professional had not yet occurred to me.

Although I was definitely a foodie by late 2008, I still thought of culinary arts as a very enjoyable hobby. My future, I thought, was in teaching at the high school or college level. Then in fall the economy crashed and I lost confidence in professional wisdom of pursuing an academic career. Wanting a more practical skill, and having spent two years of increasing passion, I enrolled in culinary school in Rogers, AR. As it had been in the beginning, I quickly learned how little I knew. Simulating, as any decent culinary school would, something approximating the professional kitchen environment, I learned that a faster pace was expected, that you must be willing to try any food you are asked to try, and that there are a lot more variables than I had previously thought. Hard though it was, it taught me that I was strong enough to get through it, prepared me for the pressures of owning my own dessert business, and showed me that my passion for food was stronger than I realized. So that's when I understood that my passion was stronger than I knew and it all began with an appetite for Good Eats.

-Frank