I started taking all these cooking classes. I learned a lot in them, but you think you're going to retain it, and you don't. Under the pressure, it's hard to retain everything.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
I feel like there's a lot of tasks in cooking that I want to master, that I want to do better.
I actually struggled through teaching myself to cook because I'm completely ignorant in the kitchen. So I did really macho things like trying to make my own curry. Really hardcore stuff.
You have no choice as a professional chef: you have to repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat until it becomes part of yourself. I certainly don't cook the same way I did 40 years ago, but the technique remains. And that's what the student needs to learn: the technique.
I tell a student that the most important class you can take is technique. A great chef is first a great technician. 'If you are a jeweler, or a surgeon or a cook, you have to know the trade in your hand. You have to learn the process. You learn it through endless repetition until it belongs to you.
I've been a cook all my life, but I am still learning to be a good chef. I'm always learning new techniques and improving beyond my own knowledge because there is always something new to learn and new horizons to discover.
I studied cooking all through high school.
It's not really the life of cooking that's hard - it's what you make of it and what level you push yourself to.
I was in culinary school for a little while, but it was just too hard to cut weight and cook at the same time.
One thing that improved my cooking skills was being a poor student in California... If you don't have much money, you have to learn to cook.
I cook a little - I've never taken classes or anything - but enough to get by.